I had been dealing with depression for a little over a year. God would always show that he was there when I was at my worst, but nothing I did could make me feel joyful in him consistently. Reading this book, I realized that I held shame from some things in my past, that were causing me to think I was a failure, and there was no fix that would work. Through this book, I was able to know what to pray for to be healed. It's been about a month now, with no relapses. I can make close friendships now, I'm comfortable with myself, and I thirst for God's word daily.

I cannot recomend this book enough, as it has turned my life around completely and restored me. I'm a whole new person now.

Outstanding book on topic. Gives clear insightful information that describes how ordinary people can be healed from toxic emotions. Everyone will recognize themselves in it. One of the best books I've read on the topic of "inner healing"--with a Christian perspective.

With Heaven In A Wild Flower, Vera Glenn shares the joy of growing things and what it can mean in the life of a woman. Glenn captures the life of her flowers in each season, as well as the essence of her own growth and development. Illuminating each month with inspirational anecdotes, as well as horticultural and literary insights, Heaven In A Wild Flower is a beautifully woven tapestry of life in relationship to the garden. This splendid collection of nature essays will be greatly appreciated by readers with an interest in human spirituality, growth and development, the divine in the ordinary, and what nature can nurture within the human soul.

A Dove at the Window is a beautiful book for the soul. Vera Glenn's collection of people's personal loving encounters with heavenly visitors will give comfort to all who have lost loved ones....The book also contains many precious quotations from Emanuel Swedenborg (1688-1772) about the life after death and the connection between heaven and earth. The mixture of personal stories and quotations are uplifting and enlightening. I recommend this book for everyone, not only because of its hopeful message, but it is a delightful adventure to read.

This book was invaluable as a guide and resource for conducting the Women in the Bible Study group I'm currently leading. While somewhat academic, it provides various opinions and indepth information on the Women in the Hebrew Bible. I am indebted to Alice Ogden Bellis' fine work and applaud her effort to reclaim what we can about our foremothers. The bibliography is an additional treasure!

This book offers a comprehensive look at various modern interpretations of familiar biblical stories about women in the Old Testament. The distinguished author provides a helpful orientation to the diverstiy of methods of feminist interpretations applied to each biblical story. These interpretations directly oppose many of the standard explanation of these stories, so the insights gained by the reader are many and fresh. The book is excellent for lay readers wanting a feminist approach to the biblical stories of the Old Testament and for college and seminary students who need scholarly details. The book uses a balanced mix of a conversational style and scholarly methods to make it equally accessible to students, teachers, and general readers. I highly recommend it

This was a great book. I really enjoyed the main character Randall. He is going through the struggle of his parents divorcing, moving to a new town, starting at a new school, and making new friends. I really feel that children will be able to relate to the struggles that Randall experiences in the book. I think this would be an excellent choice for beginning readers. I found this book to be both funny and interesting!

Randall is an irresistible hero. Young readers can't help but relate to his efforts to fit in at his new school. Warm-hearted and true-to-life, this book will draw in even reluctant readers with its humor.

The illustrations in this book are superb. The story of the rescue of the passengers of the Despatch by a Newfoundland dog are so vivid due to the bold, colorful pictures. My older daughter loved another Newfoundland dog rescue book called "The Wreck of the Ethie" & my 6 yr.old loved the pictures in this book. What fun to read & enjoy such exciting stories w/ my children!

Isle aux Morts means "Island of the Dead" and was thus named because of the number of ships and lives lost near its shores. One early morning in June, 1832, Anne Harvey was awakened by two familiar sounds: the howling wind of a storm and the distress call from a ship offshore. The pounding waves prevented Anne's family from approaching the ship in their small boat. The only hope was to send their dog Hairy Man into the sea with a rope. Hairy Man was a strong swimmer and reached the ship safely. Using a breeches buoy the Harveys were able to rescue 163 passengers, one-by- one, from the sinking ship. Splendidly illustrated in a 19th century evoking style by Geoff Butler, Alice Walsh's Heroes Of Isle Aux Morts is a vivid, engaging, and highly recommended retelling of a true story for young readers ages 8-11.

Rarely is a friendship between two women as tested as that between Hilda and Pearl, the two sensitive and scarred sisters-in-law in the novel that bears their name. Novelist Alice Mattison has summoned her considerable talents and created a series of characters and conflicts so real and so intense that it is easy to forget the beauty of her narrative. "Hilda and Pearl" is a masterful work, one which reminds us of the beauty of friendship, the imperative of memory and the possibilities of forgiveness. Set in the grim repressive atmosphere of McCarthyism, with skillful flashbacks to earlier decades and pivotal events, the novel traces the resiliency of the human heart when bruised by betrayal, confusion and loss.

The two featured protagonists develop a profound friendship, one rooted not only in the circumstance of marrying brothers, but nurtured by respect, need and fear. Hilda and Pearl mutually confront interrelated conflicts, weighty enough that most friendships would wither and die, and emerge with their integrity and sense of self intact. This is no easy task, as the women not only must face reciprocal recrimination but observe their husbands' relationship fracture as well. Burdened by a restive child and unsettled by a husband whose career is threatened by a witch-hunt mentality, Hilda searches for a sense of peace and place, elusive and ephemeral. Physically dissimilar, Pearl, whose long blonde hair and manifest physicality distinguish her, faces life without confidence or structure. If Hilda is acutely analytical, Pearl is intuitive and accepting. Hilda' sense of history contrasts with Pearl's ahistoric approach to life.

Parallel to the two women's encounter with frayed trust and broken dreams, Nathan Levenson and Mike Lewis suffer a deterioration of their bond. Idealistic, patient and calm, Nathan ruefully observes his own demise after a brief association with communism in the 1930s. Reminding him of the futility of political change is his assimilation-bound brother, Mike, who changed his last name in order to further his own career. Angry, resolute and frustrated, Mike bears the full burden of betrayal, first by his wife and brother, then by his own broken dreams, and finally by his son, Simon.

Mattison advances the action of her novel through pivotal emotional explorations made by Hilda and Nathan's daughter, Frances. Her persistent inquiry about a hidden pair of shoes becomes the string which, when pulled, unravels the secrets of the two households. The author deftly interweaves Frances' coming-of-age with her parents descent into sorrow, recrimination and resolution.

There is no cheap grace in "Hilda and Pearl." Characters unflinchingly face the worst possible circumstances conspiring against loyalty, cohesion and trust. The sheer beauty of how a tested friendship emerges from the crucible of doubt, the generous spirit which animates the women's resiliency and the authentic notion of redemptive love make "Hilda and Pearl" not only worth reading, but worth remembering.

If your relationship with your best friend has survived rocky times, read this book; your experience of the love and friendship between women will be affirmed. If you want to remember the innoncence you had as a girl, read this book; Frances will let you visit with her childhood. This story is honestly told by the the unique voices of young Frances, who in her niavete fills in the holes of her family's story with her own childish fantasy, of her Aunt Pearl, who misplaces the intense love inside her, and of Hilda, Frances's mother, who teaches us that when love is stong enough, there is nothing that can't be forgiven. This is the story of a Jewish family, set in a New York City stuggling through the depression, grappling with Europe's facism, and touched by McCarthy's witch hunt for communists. Read this book; it is beautiful.

Alice Morse Earle has written several books on life in Colonial America. This is the first one of her books I've read, and I am eager to move on to another volume, perhaps Child Life in Colonial Days. Mrs. Earle's "Home Life" is a fascinating description of everyday life --- the chores, the tools, the dwelling places, the foods, the sights and sounds --- that Colonial Americans knew. Have you ever seen a strange tool or implement in a museum, an antique shop, or hanging on the wall at a country restaurant, and no one seems to know exactly what it is or what it was used for? Read this book: its many illustrations will more than likely include that mysterious object; and Mrs. Earle will describe clearly what it was and how it was used. This book should be in the library of every enthusiast of American antiques. Without a doubt, this book contains information found nowhere else in a book now in print. This is not a history of Colonial America --- although it contains many interesting tidbits about our country's earliest days. It is, however, an excellent description of everyday life in America, 1600 - 1800, with special emphasis on New England and Virginia. As such, this book would be useful not just to historians and antique collectors, but to writers, museum curators, and anyone who wants to understand Colonial America.

This hundred-year-old work retains its vitality and usefulness.
In her wonderfully readable narrative, Earle conveys life in the colonies with vividness missing from most conventional texts. Starting with basic shelter, which were sometimes actually caves in the earliest days, she goes on to describe in detail the critical element of food supply, with careful explanations of culinary practices and useful drawings to illustrate the often-obscure utensils. (This latter feature will fascinate antique buffs.) Also covered are the home production of textiles, the dress of the colonists, travel, religious and social practices, flower gardens, and other matters, providing modern readers an insight into everyday colonial life hard to find elsewhere.
Earle's work is a feast of enjoyable information for history readers, collectors, and anyone else who wants to know how the early settlers lived. (The "score" rating is an unfortunately ineradicable feature of the page. This reviewer does not "score" books.)

facts cannot be doubted, this is a real good read, gives a great overview on the whole problem of the MiddleEast.
go on, have a look!

This book is very well organized and edited, and it includes a helpful index. It contains the stories of Palestinians from all walks of life. Some of them are tragic, others disturbing, and still others heartwarming. The translations are very good. It also steers clear of all the usual clichés about Israelis and Palestinians.
If you've ever wondered how Israeli policies over the last 50 years have opressed Palestinians and helped to create both their rage and despair, I recommend that you read this book.

I thought this this book was an exemplary piece of children's literature. I remember hearing this story as a kid myself, and I think that children everywhere can be touched with this story in the same way that I was. Enough said.

This book is a joyous read of rythmic rhyme through poetry. The illustrations are deliciosly realistic with a touch of sparkle. I recommend this book for every educator. And parents, your little ones will love the animals and will chime in with the rhyme.

When I first picked this book up I was a little apprehensive, but after the first page I was engrossed. Andre Norton and Susan Shwartz do a fabulous job at showing both the light and dark sides of Silver Snow's journey from beloved daughter to forgotten concubine and finally queen of the barbarians. They paint a realistic picture of the subservient nature of women in Han China without over-emphasizing the fact. This book was a perfect blend of fantasy and history.

When I first checked this out from the public library, I was desperate for a good read. Andre Norton has always been one of my favorite sci fi/fantasy writers, so I checked to see which of her books were in. I saw "Imperial Lady" and thought it would be worth a try. I'm only 15 and very picky about what I read, so I was surprised to be totally engrossed in the life of Silver Snow. I was definately captured by the elaborate life styles and customs that differ greatly from my life half-way round the world in Gretna, Nebraska. I also enjoyed "Willow", whose changling ways offset Silver Snow so greatly it was almost humorous. "Imperial Lady" was of great historical value and was also a great read. I encourage anyone to check it out from a local library or buy it here on Amazon.com soon.