I never had any experience with babies, not even playing with them. This book offers a month by month guide to a baby's development and offers solutions for you. So when he is approaching 10 month, I'll read that chapter and you'll find that the phenomenon presented in the book is quite accurate. You can then use the suggestions to stimulate your child's mental and physical faculty.

This is a shocking book- and I'm no prude. The NYT Book Review said of it, "O'Hara has the most authentically dirty mind in American fiction." Throughout the heroine, Lovey Child's, Main Line lifetime, people seemed to suffer from the consequences of intense and out of wedlock sexuality. From her mother's affair with a school chum to her own afternoon tryst with a tipsy priest; the punishment seemed greater than the crime.
Though O'Hara doesn't moralize within the narrative, the story itself, the natural consequences of excess and homosexual affairs, (that would be O'Hara's sense of natural,) condemned with a forceful warning. Though the book was published in 1969,
the story takes place in the twenties, and the reader, responds, as the average reader in that era, would be expected to respond. That reaction, for me, included more than a few jolts.
This is a short and for all extents and purposes, not very important work; but it deserves some consideration for its realism and its historical relationship to our own era. We seem to be bombarded with sex from every angle, as though we would be immune to the sorts of goings-on in the life of Lovey and her Philadelphian cronies; and yet, it remains a question as to the authenticity of our liberation, and if such liberation as we imagine as freeing us, is either possible, or desirable. And, again, I'm no prude.

I was very pleased with this book. It reminds us the importance of complimenting and praising our children. If more parents read this book and used the loving words daily with their children, the world would be a better place. Reading the book gives you a good feeling inside!!

Thornhill has done us a great service in the production of this book. As a PhD student at Boston College, I'm fascinated with the social and philosophical phenomenon we refer to as "postmodernity." But it can be a difficult idea to get a handle on. What is postmodernity? What is modernity? How are they similar or different? Why does it matter? If modernity is passing away, why is this so and can it be redeemed? Thornhill suggests that it can and he sees a way to do this in authentic catholicity. This book is invaluable to me as I prepare to write my dissertation and I highly recommend it.

This presentation, by two experienced Canadian child psychologists, is a step by step address to the evaluation and therapy of children who have been abused and neglected. Their work is sensitive to all of the issues and particularly mindful of the role of the therapist as initial stranger/intruder. The guidance about the role of the therapist as a attachment object for children, who can potentially become critically important in the negotiation of the child's world in foster or home care, is core to their approach to healing.

Well written and especially useful to new therapists, this book makes liberal use of case material and children's drawings as examples of the ongoing process of therapy. The address to the role of the therapists liaison to caseworkers and courts, although from a Canadian view, will be helpful to all who struggle with dysfunctional systems.

This book, which has also been co-published simultaneously in the journal Social Thought (1999;19(2)), came out of a symposium at the St. Louis University School of Social Service at the sponsorship of the Doerr Center for Social Justice, Education and Research. The contributors to the six chapters with topics like Compassion, solidarity and empowerment; Welfare reform and foster care; Delinquency prevention; Collaborative practice in low income communities; Fostering resiliency in children and Ecumenical housing all came from authors within the field of social work. Data from the United States on poor children (The state of America's children yearbook, Washington, DC: Children's Defence Fund, 1998) has shown that three in five poor children are white, one in five live in suburban areas, one in three live in a family with married parents and two in three live in a working family. In 1973 14.4% of all children in America were poor, but in spite of a better economy that figure climbed to 20.5% in 1996. For young families in America the child poverty rate doubled from 20% in 1973 to 41% in 1994 and all these increases even though the federal government had implemented welfare reforms to prevent poverty. The chapter by Nancie Palmer from Wasburn University on "Fostering resiliency in children" based on her doctoral work from 1991 on exploring resiliency in adult children of alcoholics was interesting reading. She introduces the Differential Resiliency Model (DRM) as an alternative and non-pathological approach to the study of children and families, who are coping daily with adversity. She sees resilience as an evolving process and while one person can display one of four types of resilience (anomic survival, regenerative, adaptive and flourishing resilience) this person may develop growth through new challenges and through homeostasis, coping strategies, relationships to environment or the use of energy the person will be able to survive. This book is recommended for workers in social work or perofessionals working with poor or disorganized families.

Professor Joav Merrick... E-mail: jmerrick@aquanet.co.il

As the saying goes the glory is not in never falling but in rising every time you fall. In John Lords Book song of the phoenix he talks of the real purpose of failure and uses real life examples of people who have failed at one or several things in their life but have used the opportunties given by these failures to explore new territory with their selves and their lives. Lord also goes into the westeren attitudes of failure and how it can be destructive or counter productive to growth.He diminishes the myth of failure as being a terrible thing by explaining how often times failure can just be an experiment and opportunity for growth. He even tells of a class at a school where students are encouraged to fail called failure 101. With this fresh new view on failure people can be encouraged to take chances and not let a failure get them down , they can forge ahead and try again with something else. Like Helen Keller once said " Life is either a daring adventure or nothing" Keller also said that security does not exist in nature and the fearful get caught as often as the bold. This book is so enlightening and sheds light on a sore and misunderstood experience in life failure but it is not such a terrible thing. Sometimes it is just lifes' way of redirecting you to something better. With Lords book you will be inspired to try new and different things after you fail at one thing. This book is out of print now but I highly recommend that anyone who has struggled with failures to attain it at a used book shop or see if you can find a friend who has this book. You wont regret it.

There are many good Bible studies out there on the Christian life and this is definitely one of them. Most cover the same materials, but what sets The Way to Maturity apart is in its approach to the various topics. The approach is very simple and refreshing. The "easy-going" style and conversational approach are built into these inductive studies. These are very powerful and natural ways for people to come into contact with the powerful truths of God Word. The power of this study comes from challenging people to simply live out their faith in the areas of how they view and understand God, Scripture, and the Christian life.

The book is very easy to use for leaders since there are margin notes and various suggestions to having a good meeting.

Often it's hard to know whether a child is sick enough to take to the doctor's office. I found this book very helpful--it gives an overview of what to worry about (or not worry about), organized by the particular symptoms a child has. It's also written clearly, with common sense and intelligence. Now I have a much better idea when a fever or rash might be a problem, how to manage diarrhea through diet, etc. Until they start making kids with indicator lights that go on when they need medical attention, I'll be giving my friends who are new parents a copy of this book.

We checked this book out of the library, and my daughters (ages 4 and 2) loved it! We read it over and over, and they were disappointed when we had to return it. They enjoyed pointing out Guzzly Bear (who is hiding) and later anticipate the mommy bear jumping out of the bushes.