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Meloni's wonderful color illustrations (authentic and detailed) recapture the charm of this distant era, and will hold the child's interest while an adult reads. This quiet tale should stimulate quality-time discussions about warm family values at Christmas. An 8-year-old country boy and his 6-year old assume that an old man who is carrying a pine tree is actually Father Christmas. Their childlike logic projects their own expectations of his bringing them their first Christmas tree--a custom initiated by Prince Albert (from his native Germany). Is the old man really the special personage they wish him to be or will they be disillusioned by adult logic? A truly beautiful book where both story and illustrations blend to create the peaceful glow of a distant Christmas--no farther away than the reader's heart!
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Ray adds to the book's charm with her multicultural representations of characters. In addition to traditional (Caucasian) depictions, readers encounter a Black "Beauty," a Chinese "Aladdin," a Moroccan sorcerer, a henna-tattooed Indian princess, and a variety of other diverse characters. While the stories all hail from Western Europe, the illustrations and character portrayals add an element of multiculturalism and diversity.
Although many of the story titles are familiar, they are by no means ordinary or generic. Berlie Doherty has traced them back to their roots in order to maintain the original "essence" of the classic tales she has chosen. In a generation where many fairy tale classics have been altered and homogenized by the entertainment industry, Doherty's return to the original versions is both refreshing and pleasantly nostalgic. Fairy tale novices and veterans alike will be enchanted and intrigued.
This book has quickly become a valued treasure in my collection for its unique appeal and beauty. The text is candid and honest, incorporating elements of humor, sadness, joy, and more while still maintaining the original "magic" of the tales. A great book for yourself or as a gift - I highly recommend it!
This one includes a variety of stories, all well known, from the obvious choices, like Cinderella and Beauty and the Beast, to Aladdin, and the Wild Swans. The stories are told well, though without any newness - these are familiar, comfortable stories.
Ah, but it wasn't the tellings of the stories which had me sold on this book. Jane Ray's illustrations are utterly beautiful. Normally, I am a fan of neo-renaissance illustrations - almost realistic, almost three dimensional, and full of elegant landscapes (See Kinuko Craft's work) The illustrations in this book are flat, far more stylized - but they're full of movement and feeling, and they look like they came from the best of medieval manuscripts. The touches of metallic gold only add to this impression. The full colour full page illustrations are also complemented by silhouette illustrations and border images along many other pages. This is inspired art, lovely to look on, and perfectly matches the feeling of fairy tale stories.
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This book is about the life of Jim Jarvis, a street boy in Victorian London. After his father died his life was hard and following the death of his mother and loosing his sisters, his life got worse until he met 'Barney', now known as Dr Barnardo, who looked after him.
This story is based on the true story of the start of Dr Barnardo's homes.
The book is exciting but sad in many places so I have only given it four stars, but I would recommend everyone to read it to realise how bad life was not very long ago in England and to realise that there are still children living like that in places around the world today.
Mum adds . . . I enjoyed this book too. It is well written for children. It is not too sentimental, neither does it hide the facts of the rough life of the poor, without being too frightening. It is gripping and keeps you caring all the way. An excellent read.
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This is a good young teenage book for boys or girls. I would recommend this book to anyone who likes general reading. This is a good mellow but interesting book that grabs your attention. I enjoyed this book and I think you might too.
One thing I liked about this how this might be something someone might do in real life, wonder if their real mother wanted them. And in life someone might try to find this out. In this book he wonders this same question and tries to find her. The methods he uses to find the place his mother was were very realistic. I like how she portrait him as a regular boy in a not so regular situation. He was a regular boy who did unique things but still had regular, not farfetched way of life. He was a regular boy who did regular things, but had something about him that made the story. I didn't like how at some points the story didn't seem to go anywhere. Like during the story before the started his journey a few parts of the story lost my interest in the story. This didn't make me want to hurry back and read the book, but this happens very little and doesn't last long.
This is a good young teenage book for boys or girls. I would recommend this book to anyone who likes general reading. This is a good mellow but interesting book that grabs your attention. I enjoyed this book and I think you might too.
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The main characters, Helen and Chris are about 18 years old, love each other very much and are full of dreams when they have sex without contraception and Helen gets pregnant. This changes their lives completely. At first Helen doesn't talk about her pregnancy, but Chris knows something is wrong, they get more and more distant. After Helen has told her boyfriend and her mother about the child, she feels relieved, but they can't really help her and Helen still considers the baby to be an obstacle, a Nobody. But this changes after she has been to an abortion clinic, there she realizes for the first time that it's a human being growing inside her and she decides to keep the baby.
From then on Helen's relationship to her mother gets even worse than it already was and she decides to finish with Chris, she only thinks of the baby now...
I can recommend this book to every young person, because it deals with all the problems and sorrows, but also the joy of an unwanted pregnancy. I guess it shows in a realistic way how the young parents experience this time and it's nice and exciting to read. You can identify with both Helen and Chris and can't stop reading until you know how the story goes on.
the novel "dear Nobody" by Berlie Doherty deals with an unwanted pregnancy of a young woman.
Helen and her boyfriend Chris have sex for the first time, but one month later Helen has an unsure feeling in her. After having done a pregnancy test and having gone to visit a doctor it becomes reality: Helen is pregnant![...]this novel can give young people who are in a similar situation feedback and hope to handle with and it helps them to take the right decisions. It deals with realistic problems of teenies and because of that it is very interesting to read and at some parts surprising. I would recommend it to every young woman and man who like reading stories from real life.
The novel "Dear Nobody" by Berlie Doherty deals with the topic of an unwanted pregnancy of an eighteen-year-old girl called Helen. [...]the novel "Dear Nobody" by Berlie Doherty a very good and sentimental book because Helen and Chris show their feelings, thoughts and fears very strongly. I like this book very much because it is about a taboo topic and because it is very realistic. You can really imagine how Chris and Helen feel because they are my age. I think that it is a novel that you can really read well in class because it is about a topic that everybody knows and which is interesting for young people who can perhaps identify with the main-character. When you read such a book, you really think about how the situation would be if you were pregnant. And so you think about how you would act. You also are informed how difficult such a situation can be. All in all I liked very much to read this novel and I recommend reading it to many other people.
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From page one, Berlie Doherty takes the reader through the mind of a woman, alone and abandoned by the world.
Here is a story of Rose, seeking something her parents failed to give her. Instead, she finds two loves gone wrong and a child that is not hers. Caring for the child begins to invade on Rose, who in turn begins a word affair with her eccentric neighbor.
Doherty leaves the reader turning page after page to discover the secrets of Rose and Paedric, Gordon and Edmund.
The longings of Rose combined with faerie tales and make-believe, 'The Vinegar Jar' is a soothing ride through the madness of being alone.