For anyone who wants to help a child cope with the saddness, anger, and memories that come with losing a parent, I would recommend this book. While my children have not suffered such a lost, this book has helped them to appreciate the feelings that their friends who have lost a father or mother are having. Very well written and beautifully illustrated. Can help children and adults talk together about their feelings and move forward with their lives. I recommend that you share this book with anyone who is grieving or knows someone who is.

As a collector of children's books, it is rare to find one that is life changing. Such is DADDY, UP AND DOWN. Although dealing quite honestly with death, it is life affirming. I plan to add this book to friends' collections and predict it will be useful as it opens communications in one of life's adventures. Thank you, Lila and Anna for making your Daddy proud, for making us all proud.

This touching, poignant book speaks to the genuine grief and pain felt by children - grief and pain that too often goes unexpressed. Having worked with children for many years, I will use this book to help get the conversation flowing with children facing many kinds of loss. Truthfully, I believe the book will also help adults face their own grief and pain.

"Daddy, Up and Down" doesn't dodge or hedge the tough questions. With the forthrightness of children, Lila and Anna tell it like it is for them and, in doing so, allow other children (and adults) to find their own words.

Another book says, "a little child shall lead them." Lila and Anna lead us all into coping with the loss of one we love too much to lose. An excellent, beautiful book.

Peter and Anna Lisa Montessi's Everybody Wants Your Money: A Guidebook To Keeping It is quite different from most financial guidebooks, which tend to be written for people who already have a sizeable amount of money to invest. Unlike those books, Everybody Wants Your Money is designed specifically for people on a paycheck and a tight budget; it concisely and clearly narrates strategies to save, invest, and accumulate wealth even for the most perpetually cash-strapped workers. Chapters discuss topics such as goals and plans, maintaining records, cutting back spending, saving through a checking account, balancing one's checkbook, credit, and building one's reserves. Samples, examples, forms, and questionnaires to self-test your knowledge are included throughout. Written in highly accessible language for the lay reader, Everybody Wants Your Money is a "must" for any working person looking for tips, tricks, and techniques to making their money work for them, create a college fund, put aside something for retirement, or just make a simple emergency cushion in case of unforeseen financial hardship. An excellent, "user friendly", very highly recommended financial and instructional book.

I THINK THIS BOOK SHOULD BE IN EVERYONE'S HOME AND IN THE SCHOOLS. IT IS JUST WONDERFUL. I WISHED I HAD READ THIS BOOK WHEN I WAS IN HIGH SCHOOL. SO INFORMATIVE. CONGRATULATIONS TO THE AUTHORS.

This is a great book on the basics of budgeting and money management. Step by step, the authors guide the novice through saving accounts, checking accounts, and how to avoid credit pitfalls.

Gifts from our Grandmothers is truly a gift to all readers. The stories are diverse, some funny, some touching, some even bring a tear to your eye. I love that the stories reflect different backgrounds and ethnic groups.It was nice to read stories from different age contributors. There a children who share their grandmother's love and adult women who take us back to another time. Wonderful treat - thank you Carol Dovi.

This book is a true celebration of the grandmother...it includes uplifting, loving and sometimes funny first-hand accounts of grandmother/granddaughter relationships from women of all ages, races and backgrounds. Very well put together and a great gift for grandmothers, mothers and grandchildren..

The stories in Gifts from Our Grandmothers put a smile on my face and warmed my heart.The love and sharing only Granny can give comes across on each page. It allows me a chance to honor and recognize my Grandma Nellie with more than just my immediate family.

I originally picked this book up for the Akhmatova translations, but I found the interviews highly informative. Though I am not a published poet (in spite of describing myself as the most spaced out poet on the planet in a few reviews), I have been to Ann Arbor, Michigan and New Hampshire, and I was surprised with how similar some of our experiences have been. I have been to a writing workshop, so it was possible for me to follow the process by which she has shared and refined poems before attempting to have them published. I have also been to church and taken part in discussions in that context, and was not surprised that Jane Kenyon never found the courage to submit the final poem in the book, "Woman, Why Are You Weeping?" to that process. People don't usually talk about `apathy and bafflement' while "waiting/ for the bread and wine of Holy Communion" after having been to India. (pp. 205-09).

It would be awful for me to joke about the contents of this book, but I think I found a joke by Jane Kenyon in the article, "Poetry and the Mail," originally published in "The Concord Monitor," 16 August 1993. "All poets share one thing, however--a daily dependence on the mail. `It is joy, and it is pain,' as the great Russian poet Anna Akhmatova once said, though not about the mail." (p. 128). The poem itself, "Like a white stone in a deep well," (p. 16) is included in this book. Memory is mentioned in the second line, and in the final line of the poem, and must be what Anna Akhmatova was thinking about, or about "how the gods turned people/ into things, not killing their consciousness." (p. 16)

Most of the poems by Kenyon in this book show up in the Interview with Bill Moyers (1993). What I find most modern is the open discussion of depression, crept up on with a question about the melancholy of winter in the poem, "February: Thinking of Flowers." (p. 151). In a poem, "Having it Out with Melancholy," the second part starts with a list of pills that takes up three lines, and I would bet that none of them ever appeared in any book that Freud read. I like the poem "Otherwise" on pages 168-69. The last one in the Moyers interview was "Let Evening Come." (pp. 170-71). I suspect that most of the readers of this book will be serious poets. It is difficult to imagine another group who would be eager to contemplate an article like "The Physics of Long Sticks." The last paragraph of that article is devoted to the question, "Why can't people be more like dogs?" (p. 103).

Jane Kenyon's poetry reawakened my muse and my love of poetry at a time in my life when I sorely needed it. I have read everything of hers I can get my hands on, and when I found this book I was thrilled. It is like sitting down in the living room with her. I always felt so close to her, like she was my friend, and this book almost makes that impossibility possible.

Jane Kenyon is sorely missed; her volumes of published poetry are cherished members of my library. How wonderful to have now a collection of her translations and her occasional prose pieces. She was as observant and trenchant in essays about gardening or hiking as she was in her best verse; this collection is another chance to hear her voice once again. For all her fans, this volume is a must. For those who don't know her work, it might be a good introduction, and it will surely lead them to her published collections which, thankfully, remain in print. A warm tribute to a much-loved writer.

If you lived at the time of Martin Luther King J r.
By Ellen Levine

The Book is about when it was the 1950's to 1960's. A man named Martin Luther King Jr. was the leader for the blacks. White people were very mean to African-Americans. They had to use different schools, phone booths, neighborhoods, bathrooms, restaurants, hotels, and drinking fountains.

I like this book because I wonder about if I were there, would I have tried to help the black people? I know I would have.

I also think the illustrator did a great job on coloring the pages. I think the author wrote this book because it was about segregated laws. She wanted kids to know a famous leader or what it was like if the kids were there with him.

Whenever teachers in our predominantly white elementary school ask me to recommend a title pertaining to Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., or to African American history, this is one of the first books I suggest for grades 4, 5 and 6.The question and answer format lends itself to reading aloud and then discussing topics that come up, like segregation, white supremacy, the Montgomery bus boycott, etc. I recently read part of this book to a fourth grade class who just had "segregation" as a vocabulary word. The students were quite attentive and asked some excellent questions.The title is a bit misleading in that some might view it as a biography of Dr. King. While many sections do draw upon personal events in Dr. King's life, such as when he was a youngster riding in the car with his father and he heard a police officer call his dad "boy." Or again, when he was young and he was told he could no longer play with his white friends. But as the title says, it's really about if you lived at the "time" of Dr. King. Therefore, it's an excellent introduction to many aspects of the Civil Rights movement.While the watercolor illustrations are an improvement over the black and white drawings in earlier editions of this "If You Lived At the Time Of" series, in this case I think the text could be more fully enhanced with actual photographs, especially since many of these illustrations are copied from well-known photographs.All in all, this is an excellent introduction to the Civil Rights Movement for upper-elementary students (and apparently for middle-school students according to another review here). This is one title that, in my opinion, should be in every elementary school in the nation. Recommended.

I read this book to my middle school students every year. Levine explains the need for a civil rights movement in terms that kids can understand. This book makes students want to learn more about this important event in American history.

I got "If You Sailed on the Mayflower in 1620" for our Thanksgiving unit based on several glowing recommendations. I was not disappointed. Both my 5 yo and I had a hard stopping once we got started. I learned things about the Pilgrims I'd never known. And, the content is fascinating for children. It covered such curious topics as Did they bathe on the Mayflower?, What did they eat?, How were people who broke the law punished?, What did children do? It was written to entertain anyone over the age of 4. It's a question/answer book and exceptionally well done.

I purchased this book for my Grandchildren but this is not only a great book for 4-8 year olds but for anyone over 4. You might learn some things you didn't know. By the way, if you ever go to Plymouth you can go on the Mayflower II, and be sure to visit Plimoth Plantation (it's like going back in time to 1630).

This book by Ann McGovern depicts the life that you would have had on the Mayflower. You get a sense and almost feel like you are there with the rest of the pilgrims in 1620. The detail is just great and is a book that all kids should read from a historical standpoint.

I HAVE NEVER IN MY LIFE READ SUCH A SUSPENSEFUL ROMANCE NOVEL. I MEAN I COULD NOT WAIT TO TURN EACH PAGE TO SEE WHAT WOULD HAPPEN NEXT. I DIDN'T THINK THESE TWO WOULD EVER GET TOGETHER WITH ALL THAT WAS AGIANST THEM. I GUESS TRUE LOVE ALWAYS WINS IN THE END. HEATHER AND GERALD MADE ME BELIEVE IN REAL LOVE AGAIN. I JUST FOUND OUT THAT ANNA LARENCE HAS WRITTEN OTHER BOOKS WITH THESE SAME CHARACTERS. NOW I HAVE TO GO ONLINE AND ORDER EVERYTHING SHE HAS EVER WRITTEN. I'M SURE I WON'T BE DISAPPOINTED!

Wait until you have the pleasure of reading this book. Ms. Larence is a romance writer that doesn't even make a suggestion of a bedroom make out torid love scene, let along even approach the bedroom door. But guess what! It works and will hold your attention from the very first page.

And that first page reading literally had my jaw hanging down to the floor. I couldn't believe that a woman could leave a man at the altar. Especially, a millionaire NBA, MVP, handsome and loving man as Gerald Forrester was, and claim to love him.

But this is what Heather Chadwick did. But that's not all folks! Girlfriend expects the jilted groom to understand and still remain with her.

When I first starting reading this book, I said this woman has lost her mind, and immediately settled down to hate The heroine with all my heart. But guess what! I found myself rooting for girlfriend to get her man back! I couldn't believe it myself.

Wait until you read the many ways she devises to get her man back (she's very creative). Have a box of tissues ready. I still get weepy thinking about the restaurant scene where she lays out everything to Gerald - and in the presence of his girlfriend! Ms. Larence has written an ending that surpasses all endings. You'll never guess.

I won't say another word. Experience it yourself. Needless to say, I went online and ordered everything Ms. Larence has written. I have some catch up to do, because this is her third novel. I hope you take my advice to buy this woman's books, she will have your emotions tied up in knots!

Heather is a wonderfull character with a not so common problem. i was very anxious to find out just how "mr.sicko" was going to convince heather that he was the man for her. i never thought that it would be in that fashion. it was shocking, shocking, shocking. heather's mom was a jewel. she was another controlling mom who actually believed that she was doing all the right things for her daughter. the idea of introducing the wnba into this storyline was a bonus for all women. i never expected it. after reading this book, i had to find the first book and was not disappointed. thanks for really thinking of women with color in a positive roll.

Not only was it great to find a book on Malinche, but also a book that looks at her in a light other than as the evil betrayer we all thought she was. I started the book thinking "How could she have done that?" and ended up feeling sorry for her predicament in life. Or at least understanding why she made the choices she did. This book wasn't just a defense of her actions, but it explained why she became the enemy she has become and who and why made her that way. She was used while she was alive for political purposes and she was manipulated and used for political purposes hundreds of years after her death also.

For a brief moment in the 16th century, a teenage slave was the most influential woman in the world. Malinche, to use one of her many names, was the translator and go-between in perhaps the pivotal cultural drama of the last millennium - the moment when the Old World represented by Hernan Cortes, conquered the New World in the form of Montezuma's Mexico.

Anna Lanyon, an Australian backpacker, stumbled onto the story of Malinche while travelling in Mexico in the 1970s. Intrigued, she returned home, studied Spanish and Portugese to literary translation level, and revisited Mexico in search of this enigmatic woman.

So few are the clues, and often so contradictory, that Lanyon works like an archeologist with a soft-haired brush to bring Malinche's life into relief from its bedrock of myth.

In official Mexican history, Malinche is the "betrayer". Her name forms the root of a modern-day word for traitor. Lanyon finds a teenager blessed with intelligence, intuition and a sharp instinct for survival. Her options were few. Given as a sexual slave to the conquistadors, Malinche became Cortes's concubine, adviser, and mother of his first child. She died in obscurity, probably before she was 30.

But those close to her admired her. Lanyon makes the point often forgotten in facile renderings of the conquest: to vast numbers of people in what now is Mexico, Montezuma's "Aztecs" (more accurately, the Culua-Mexicans) were the feared and hated enemy. Malinche was therefore not a betrayer so much as a warrior, within her own context. But even more than that, she was a woman, condemned to slavery as a child, "assigned" to alien men when not yet 20, who simply did the best she could.

While the full personality of Malinche may be irretrievable from what history has left us, Lanyon does great work in debunking many of the myths about her and in exploring how national myths come about. And tantalisingly an impression emerges of this accidental figure of history: a woman we would like to have known, a woman from the lowest rungs who took a hand, for better or worse, in changing the world.

I really enjoyed reading this book. I have since bought several copies for friends and family members. It is a wonderful look at the way that society views one of the most important women in the Americas in the past 500 years. People are quick to judge her as a traitor or whore, but after reading more about her life as a slave and the conditions around her, I feel that she was an incredible survivor who became the mother of a new generation of people. This book which chronicles Anna Lanyon's journey through Mexico to discover who Malinche was, inspired me to learn more about the Conquest and Mexico's history, as well as more about who the flesh and blood woman "Malinche" might have been. I have since read, "La Malinche in Mexican Literature - From History to Myth", and "The Discovery and Conquest of Mexico" by Bernal Diaz. I recommend it highly.

The actual marriage of Anna Maye Potts occurs on p.200 of this absorbing and wonderfully grounded novel. After much disappointment and hope, Anna and Louie finally become man and wife, and they make love for the first time in a motel room in Atlantic City, where they have chosen as the destination of their honeymoon.

This love scene is among the best I've seen in any work of fiction. We view the entire episode through Anna's eyes, a woman inexperienced in sex and craving for tender love. She feels that "the joy and freedom was lost to the suddenness and his bruising kiss, his angry struggling with her bra;" she notices that "the room was too visible and the light too harsh." The man she is in love with has a "lurid grin" on his face; when his shirt is off, she sees his "shaggy chest and gray, as he undid and stripped off his pants." There does come a point, though, when "the rudeness had turned to grace," and he strokes her back and kisses her when he sees her tears.

There is nothing sentimental in this almost brutal depiction of sexual desire and loneliness. As in the rest of this truly remarkable book, love always comes with heart-wrenching costs, and happiness always demands painful personal sacrifices. I read this book in a café in a single afternoon, identifying with Anna Maye Potts without any reservation, and was completely captivated by the story. There was deep empathy in my heart after I finished reading; it was as if the gravity and compassion the author showed in the novel also illuminated my own life, and I was sharing his anger, sorrow and, yes, also love, for this imperfect world and our imperfect lives.

The gritty realism and shattered lives of the characters here make this an outstanding debut novel. Henry delves deep into these mundane lives, slowly unearthing the humanity and complexity in characters exhausted by their day-to-day doldrums. This blue-collar odd-couple romance has zero by way of sap or senitment and was a genuine pleasure to read.

This is a great book in the tradition of Hardy, Zola, Norris and Dreiser. Alcoholism, adultery, violence and dialogue worthy of Chandler make this book a must-read for anyone interested in the American working-class experience. The power of the unspoken and even the unsayable is so strong between all these characters, but especially the two lead characters, who struggle under major personal burdens without whining about them. Reminds me of Cather, but also Carver, although a different milieu here. The only novel I've ever read where the protagonist in tough times is a woman working in a factory. No sugary ending -- you really wonder whether trouble is not as much ahead of these two as it was behind. Terrific piece of American realism, get it and read it.

I want to exalt Anna Jaworski for writing one of the most thoughtful books that I have read in a very long time. Inspired when her son Alex had to be hospitalized for open-heart surgery, the author saw the trauma on her other son, Joey, and realized there was a need not being addressed in this area.Her work has met this need with flying colors.

Of course when a child must undergo an operation, we all zero in our attention and affection on them, and we should. However, without meaning to, we often forget the other children in the family and do not realize the emotional conflicts that they are encountering. This book will open your eyes to their feelings.

Ms. Jaworski does a wonderful job in "My Brother Needs An Operation" in showing, with honest words and colorful illustrations, what will happen during this time.

She establishes the family relationship, the different activities they share and the bonding between siblings.She speaks of the fear that the sibling feels when he hears his brother will be in the hospital and she begins to deal with that fear in many constructive ways. She takes you into the mind of the child, what he is thinking and feeling. Excellent!

Ms. Jaworski includes in the back of the book a Hospital Diary and Activity Pages.
This is great. She has pages for the child to fill in his name, feelings, draw pictures and play games.

I can not even imagine the heartache a parent feels when their child must undergo an operation, but I will tell you this. If you are experiencing this trauma,and you have other children in your home, this book is a must for you.
It is one of the most outstanding books, touching the emotions of a hurting child, that I have read in a very long time. If I could stand and applaud this author, I would.
But all I can do is write a review that I hope will touch you enough to make you seek out this book, if you have this need or know someone who does, it is a must read.

My Brother Needs An Operation, words from the heart of one who knows.

Highly Recommended!

This is a story about a young boy needing open heart surgery and how it relates to his brother. It deals with feelings, and with staying with relatives while his brother is in hospital, plus more. It is a wonderfully told story, with questions to ask your own child as you read through it together. I found the tips for parents especially helpful and the back of the book has activities for the sibling/s to do while the brother/sister is in the hospital. I originally bought this book to read to my twin boys when my older son will need further surgery, but it is he who loves this book and asks me to read it to him often. I change the words around to suit his needs and I believe it has helped him cope with his own medical issues. This will be a book that we will treasure for many years.

If so, this book is for you. My son loved the suggested questions, the diary, & activity section. He felt more involved plus, it helped him pass the time away from us. Our son is young so we wrote in the diary & helped with the activities. Plus, you can make it a sister also. The story is written on an easy to understand level for young sibs & easy read for older sibs. Anna Jaworski did a great job on this as well as "Heart of a Mother" which I also reccomend. This book is based on her son's experience, therefore it is realistic.