Although I could not relate to the death of a child, I felt that this book helped me to understand that no matter what comes into my life, Jesus is able to bring me to victory. The teaching on healing and trusting God has changed my life. I have used the information in the section on helping others who have suffered from the lost of a loved one. It was encouraging to see that we can suffer losses without changing the Word of God or the character of God. The author truly revealed why tragedy happens and how God is not the one behind it yet he is the answer for all who walk in those difficult places. I recommend this book to everyone who needs to be inspired to trust God in a new way.

This book explains in an organized, easy to understand way, the various aspects of foster care. This book is a valuable resource for foster children and adults who work with them, including foster parents. -Cynthia Miller Lovell, author of The Star: A story to help young children understand foster care, and Questions & Activities for The Star: A handbook for foster parents

Georgiana and Elizabeth were the first and second wives of William 5th Duke of Devonshire. Their tale is an eighteenth century one, but it is also a twenty-first century one. They had a friendship which eclipsed everything that society of their day thought was acceptable and it is only now that the truth is emerging. The best way to find out about the two Duchesses of Devonshire is to read the recent biography about Georgiana by Amanda Foreman which tells the brilliant story of the two duchesses amid a world of love, romance, deceit, adultery and money, from Georgiana's point of view. Then read this book from the 1890's written by a descendant of Elizabeth Foster, one member of the curious Devonshire menage-a-trois. There are letters from two-hundred years ago that tell a first hand account of events in Miss Foreman's book. They are fascinating and you meet many famous people of the day first hand, including Melbourne, Byron, George IV and Fox. I can't wait to read the modern day version of Elizabeth's story which can be found in Caroline Chapman's new book telling the story of Elizabeth Foster: 'Elizabeth and Georgiana: The Duke of Devonshire and His Two Duchesses' which has just been published. For any one who has not yet read about the Beautiful Duchess, her best friend and her husband it's about time you did. Vere Foster's book is essential reading, especially if you want to get an overview of the subjects of two very important eighteenth century figures and subjects of at least one brilliant modern bestselling biography. Read this and then read the two modern biographies and find out the truth!

I read the Elizabeth Gail books when I was 11 years old, and even though I'm 18, I still remember them fondly. They really opened up my eyes about what life could be like for a foster child. This book is good because it is realistic. It doesn't make anybody look like a saint and it shows that even Christians get mad at other people. I hope everyone enjoys the series as much as I did.

I think that this book is a great book. It shows that you shouldn't always jump to conclusions. Also that not everyone's perfect. In fact no one is! It tells me what it must be like to have a mother who doesn't take care of you. It shows that even the most godly people can get mad or jealous. I've always loved these series. Even if this review isn't much help, you should at least try it.

I have read several of Hilda Stahl's books. I bought them for my own girls when they were young; now I am buying them for my granddaughter. I cannot review this book without reviewing the series as a whole. Hilda's books are the most read books in our school library. Hilda Stahl was a gifted, talented woman whose writing has captivated thousands of children. I know this because Hilda and her family were good friends of ours when we lived in Michigan. We attended the same church, and our children attended school together. She will be missed. Diane Augustyniak, McHenry, Illinois.

The book Halinka by Mirjam Pressler is a good book. The main character is sixth-grader Halinka, who lives in a home for girls in Germany. She hates it there, and she has no friends because she thinks she doesn't need any. She wants to go live with her Aunt Lou, but she can't because Aunt Lou isn't married. Then she starts collecting money for the Mothers' Convalescent League. The person who collects the most money wins a prize. Halinka wants the prize to be a book, because she loves reading, especially Huckleberry Finn, which she reads over and over. Then, something amazing happens - Halinka becomes friends with a small girl named Renata, nicknamed Rena. She realizes that is good for a person to have a friend. What will happen to Halinka? To find out, read this book.

Halinka is a unique book about a girl who lives in a foster home in post WWII Germany. The twelve year old protagonist has a sensitive spirit, despite the many protective walls that have helped her survive a difficult childhood. We see how this cleaver girl manages to take care of her own needs, find hope where looks for it, and takes some huge risks to get what she wants. Most importantly, we see in detail the peeling away of Halinka's defenses, and the opening up of her heart. This is a fasinating book. The character development is subtle and very real. The inner-life of Halinka is vivid with emotion and the details of a pre-adolecent faced with many personal challenges. I recommend this book to all thoughtful and sensitive readers over age 12.

I read this book with my 13 year old daughter (adopted at age 11 from Russia.) Halinka's story so closely paralleled my daughter's that there were times she thought I was reading from a book of her own life. It sparked meaningful discussions and was an avenue for my daughter to share her feelings and experiences from her past. I would highly reccomend this book to children adopted at older ages from Eastern Europe. I also suggest that parents read this along with their children. Once I picked it up I couldn't put it down.

The book was enjoyable. Made for some light reading during lunch hours at the office. But it wasn't up to the standards that I expect from a collection like this. Perhaps someone with more of a musical background might enjoy it more than I did. A couple of the stories were very engrossing and entertaining, but overall it wasn't the best I have read.

I liked these stories and thought they were well-chosen. Anne McCaffrey & Elizabeth Ann Scarbourough make a good team. It was an interesting concept, mixing music and science fiction. This was a very good book for a collection, although I did prefer McCaffrey's Pern series.

Generally, science fiction anthologies are a mixed bag, some terrific stories, some terrible stories that you think may be in there just because the author has a "name." Space Opera, however, is nothing like any anthology I have ever read before. It is a one-note song, but that one note sings a joyful song. Made up of short stories commissioned for this anthology, they all share a theme, music. Within that theme, there are as many variations as the human mind can devise. Some stories are only tenuously connected with music, like the faintest hum. Others throb, resonate and pound into your brain like Sony's megabass. But all are worth reading, and some reading 2 or 3 or 4 times to capture all the rich nuances. For anyone who loves science fiction and music, Space Opera is a rare find and a thrilling melody. I particularly enjoyed the story contributed by Elizabeth Ann Scarborough, and not just because we are both nurses. Anne Berson RN (bersonfamily@worldnet.att.net)

In this bleak novel Elizabeth Gaskell deftly weaves a dark thread of history into her narrative tapestry. While war hovers on the margins of the novel, no one is left unaffected by its horror. After a sometimes painfully slow setup of domestic life in the seaside town of Monkshaven in the first third of the book, the sense of doom grows increasingly palpable. Sylvia, the novel's heroine, is isolated by her supposedly protective domestic sphere, but Gaskell shatters the delicate domestic circle that surrounds her. While Sylvia is left to bear emotional scars, becoming an impassive, hardened woman, Charley Kinraid, her true love, returns from war a ghost, haunting the margins of Monkshaven to hide his terrible physical scars. The full realization of the blight on Sylvia's life comes when the novel spirals down to its inevitable conclusion, where even reconciliation and understanding brings a powerful sense of loss.

Mary Barton is the first novel of Elizabeth Gaskell, a female writer who left her influence upon other English writers of the 19th century, like, for instance, Charles Dickens. The book is only an average view about Manchester life in the 19th century, focusing its attentions over the extreme poverty of the working class, the first labor conflicts in the pre-dawn of the Industrial Revolution, all this connected with a tender love story between the young Mary Barton and his old time friend Jem Wilson.
In fact, the murder of the young mill owner, Mr. Henry Carson - he too an admirer of Miss Barton - is not well developed and is not the central point of the novel because the reader knows all the time who is the real murderer. So, it's not a surprise at all the ending of the trial and the revelation of the real murderer in the last chapters.
Miss Gaskell has a simple and an almost näive vision of the social problems that harassed the working class in England when the Industrial Revolution started. Even though, we must recognize that she made a good work trying to denounce the insensibility of the English government about the problems of the workers and their families and the inflexibility of the mill owners and other high economic classes to negociate with their subordinates.
Mary Barton is a book that will hold the attencion of the readers, men or women, because Miss Gaskell has an elegant style and really knows how to tell a good story. Another great vintage of this novel are some great characters portrayed with flavour and undeniable charm, like the old and friendly Mr. Job Legh and the hard and anger John Barton, Mary's father.

Gaskell wrote one of the most vivid descriptions of the gap between rich and poor in this novel of the Manchester 'hungry forties'. The plot is driven by the device of a murder of young factory owner's son, but this story line is more an excuse to present the story as a novel (and to serve the demands and expectations of the novel form as it was understood at the time) than it really is the center of the book. The romance and the mystery (although still well-written) are cursory in comparison to the loving detail that Gaskell lavishes on Alice Wilson, the temptation of Esther and all the little points of life in deep poverty.

Worth reading, particularly if you're a fan of the novel (or history) of the period.

Actually I read this book in three days' time (it can be even faster if I don't have to go to school). Anyway, Mrs. Gaskell's depiction of the working class people in Manchester during the 19th century was so vivid that you can just *see* and *feel* how the rich and the poor's lives were like back then by turning the pages. I believe no one who had read this book will not to some extent feel pity for the tragic hero, John Barton, in the story. But aside from this formal social theme being presented in the novel, there is also a very strong sense of religious/moral theme in it (espeically near the end of the story), as well as some drama and romance in it. Definitely worth a read, especially to those who are interested in Victorian Literature.