i loved this book! i couldn't put it down. it was the most creative book i've ever read! Jean Ferris did a very good job using her imagination when she wrote this book, and i just enjoyed every minute of it. i would highly reccomend it to anyone looking for a fictional adventure book!

If you have not read "Love Amoung the Walnuts" you definitely must! It is a wonderful book filled with many different emotions. It was certainly a funny book but it had meaning to it. I was never bored when I read this book. It kept me turing the pages the whole way through. I met all the charcters and I felt like I knew them well. I recommend this book for all ages and sexs. It is one of the best books I have read and I'm looking forward to reading more books by Jean Ferris.

Two money loving uncles, Bart and Bernie, try to squadder thefamily fountune. A poisened cake puts almost the entier family in to acoma, exapt for Sandy, the son, and Bently, the butler. They checkt hem into the nuthouse next door, and soon get to know the inmates, while trying to gather evidence to arresst the uncles. I recomend this to any young adult reader.

The book Eight Seconds was a good book about some kids the for there high school graduation present they got to go to bull riding school. They went to the school and learned a lot about how to be a good bull rider. But while they were at the school they learned that one of their friends was gay. At first only one of them knew but eventually the others found out. Not everyone agreed with that kids decision on being gay. That caused a lot of problems throughout the book.
In this books there was a lot of imagery you really thought that you where there watching the kids ride the bulls. At one point one of the kids fell off a bull and the bull was running after him and you really thought that you were there watching it.
This books had some emotions that were stirred up because of the conflict of one of the kids being gay. Not all of the other kids thought that it was ok for him to be gay because of this there were some fights that started.
I think that this book would be good for kids to read who are around 8 - 12. It was a good book and there was a lot that you could get out of it. It also was interesting to lean some about bull riding.
In all I thought that this was a good book. But a lot of the book you could guess what was going to happen. Also a lot of the book had the same things happening over and over again.

I was very impressed with this relatively short story. This is the story of John and Kit. John is a year behind in school due to heart surgery when he was a baby. He is eighteen. Kit is a college student who is going to become a veterinarian.

The Plot to this story is: John feels he is out of step with the world in Montana. He often finds himself in fights with bullies, where he holds his own, but he is generally viewed by everyone as "Gentleman John," a nice guy. John loves his family, but his older sisters are either married or in college, and his younger sister, Clemmie, who adores him, is a pest. John still plays with her, however. He gets along with his parents, but his mother expects too much from him. ... his father has arranged for him to attend Rodeo School so that he can more successfully compete in rodeos at local fairs. He goes to this camp with his best friend, Bobby, and Russ, a bully with whom he often fights, also is attending. ... .

This was a very good, quick read. The story is one that keeps you engaged! It also allowed me to learn a great deal about the rodeo circuit, and how the guys train to ride the bulls.

A good book should take you to someplace new; new surroundings, new emotional territories, new ideas. Jean Ferris has done that in this book.

In addition to the slightly exotic (to an Easterner, at least) world of Rodeo and Bull Riding,the delicate handling of a young man's heart facing a truth that will change him forever, is beautifully rendered.

Johnny's thoughts on realizing that he is gay, and that facing that truth isn't nearly as bad as denying it, say it all:

"Maybe love was love, no matter who was doing it, and if you found it, you should be glad, because it wasn't such an easy thing to find."

A sensitive subject, sensitively handled. I hope this book gains a wide readership. It touched my heart.

This was a great father and son story. It is about a boy named Brian. Brian has to stay with his father in a small Florida town while his mother remarries. He is resentful and angry with his father - there are no close ties. Throughout the summer, Brian meets the neighbors, starts diving, and starts seeing his father in a new light. This is a feel good book - it leaves you with a great feeling.

I think that the book "Signs of Life" was a really good book. It dealt with a lot of major life situations. For example, Hannah has a twin sister named Molly and they were at a New Year's party and Hannah was the one drinking, not Molly. Well Molly was on her way home, early, and she was killed by a drunk driver just a block from their house. The ways that they delt with Molly's death were very real to how we deal with death. This book is for almost everyone, mainly one's who enjoy reading about other's life situations and love.

I was looking forward to reading this book, because I know people who are deaf and have survived strokes. However, the characters in this story are very one-dimensional, the plot is thin, and even for a book written for young adults, the main character and his mother are much too angst-ridden.

Lastly, I know very few people who are deaf who as DEPENDENT and ISOLATED as Palma, especially in contemporary society where we have so much technology to take advantage of (TTYs, closed captions, computers, etc. etc. etc.). Most people who are deaf lead very fulfilling lives in the company of both deaf and hearing people.

I thought that this book was great! It shows how Theo a hearing 17-year-old young man lives and deals with an all-deaf family. How he has to make phone calls for his mother, and help his brother with homework because he doesn't understand the teacher. Theo never goes out or hangs round with friends because everyone at home is counting on him to help him with the thing they need to do to get on with life.
I also liked this book because it shows how mature Theo is. He has to take care of his father and brother, after his father had a stroke, because their mother/ wife is too frightened to deal with the family's situation.
This was a great book and I recommend it to everyone, young and old.

Jean Ferris' Of Sound Mind is a striking story of a boy whose family is deaf. He serves as interpreter and often as the semi-head of household in a silent world where his parents often struggle with hearing people and daily living challenges. Theo wants to go away to school - but how can he leave his dependent family? A striking story of coming of age and disability.

The story of Rosie and Raider was wonderful! I couldn't put it down. Jean Ferris makes the people in her book come to life. She has the talent to do great things with her stories and the people in them. The book also included things that really did happen in history, that made the plot all the more fun to read. I got the first book of the three because I had read the small preview in the back of the book, Plainsong for Caitlin, another book from the same publisher. After I read the first book, I was hooked! Everyone should read this book and it's the two other stories that follow.

This book brought the characters from all of Jean Ferris's novels to live. Octavia, Baptiste, Rosie, Raider, Charles Lawerance, Big Tom, Animal, Rip, and Nicodemus McNair all jumped off the page to me and made me feel like I was there with them. I myself fell in love with raider just by reading her books. These characters and their triumphs and shortfalls will stay with me always. This book was a real page turner and I couldn't put it down. This is my favorite book of all time and I think Jean Ferris deserves a round of aplause for her succes with these novels.

I loved this book and all the rest of the series! The second and third books of the series may not be for younger readers but I loved them! As soon as I started reading "Into the Wind" I was deaf to the world. I love how I felt like I was IN the story, watching what was happening to Rosie and Raider first hand. I wish I could find these three books for sale somewhere, they're definitely worth the search! Anyway, I would highly recommend the whole series for a fantastic Young Adult Romance Series!