If you're looking for a great gift to give an aging boomer, try this book or another titled "Getting Old Sucks." Better yet, get both!

Lansky and Jones have collected all the greatest lines dads have ever used to get kids to stop fighting in the the car, feed the pet, turn off the TV while doing homework, and get home before curfew. It includes winners such as: "What do you want a pet for-you've got a sister," and, "When I said 'feed the goldfish,' I didn't mean feed them to the cat." A fun gift for dad and the rest of the family, too.

New Rhymes is a real treat. My two year old loves it and I enjoy reading it too her. It's great to find a children's book that parents can enjoy.

Some of the poems in this collection are great. Who can question the brilliance of Shel Silverstein? Why then are we subjected to having a great like Shel having to share these pages with poetry that reads like it was written by children, not for children. The chief perpetrator of painful (to read) poetry is the editor himself, who should have know better than to insert his amateurish efforts into this collection. If you want to read Shel Silverstein, buy his collections. I can think of no reason to buy this pastiche of real children's poetry books.

Wow! My oldest (and loves to read) son borrowed this from the library and read them all the way to school to us in the car! We loved them! Now my youngest (and hates to read) borrowed the book as well and spends the drive reading his favorite poems to us! We all enjoy them!

Wow! My son was in the back seat reading this book out loud, and it was so funny that I had to pull over or risk crashing! The poetry is witty, and the pictures are just as funny. Buy this book! You won't regret it!

I have to say I purchased this as an impulse buy ... early in my pregnancy. I have been less than impressed with it. There really aren't that many names in here and it seems that over half of them are repeats of previous names (different spellings or combinations, for ex. Bobbi + Sue). We are still at a loss for a good girls name and are going to be investing in a different book (I'm doing better research this time).

I bought Lansky's 15,000+ Baby Names book 2 1/2 years ago before my daughter was born and found it to be less than helpful. I didn't like the way the narrative was handled for each name, plus too many names I specifically went to look up were not in the book. Now we are waiting for our baby boy to be born in June. I checked out this book in the store, and found it to be a rehash of the previous book with more alternate spellings. Once again, some names I looked up were not in here in any spelling. I bought Carol McD Wallace's "The Greatest Baby Name Book Ever" instead, and am much happier with it, although it has shortcomings of it's own. A few inaccuracies, and places where better research would have yielded a better history and origin of certain names. Never-the-less, I recommend Wallace's book along with "The New Age Baby Name Book" for a more complete list of available names.

I really wasn't impressed with this name book. I chose a name without this book. The book needs to be updated. Alot of the popular names now were not in it.

I don't get these kinds of books for they're intended for - I'm not expecting and I don't plan to have children for some time. However, I do find them helpful in my constant search for names for the characters in the stories I write. I picked this book up for that purpose.

The authors of this book surveyed many people and recieved between 30 and 150 responses for each name in the book. The book begins with two lists, boys and girls, of personality traits and the names that supposedly make people think of those traits. Then it has two alphebetical lists of names, their meanings, the image people said that name called to mind, and famous people with that name. In case you're interested, the girls list is a bit shorter than the boys list. I looked through some of the names, and I've decided it would be better to just rely on my own impressions. I don't agree with a lot of the images that the book says the names call to mind. Some of them are fun to read, and it's nice to browse your name and the names of friends and family for a laugh, but I don't think it's as helpful as it wants to be.

I love the concept of this book. It's so interesting to see what image people have when they hear a certain name. Of course we're all influenced by movies, TV, and real-life acquaintences. Some of the influences listed in the this book are a bit outdated. For example, the name Ariel doesn't list anything as being influenced by Disney's The Little Mermaid, but the name Barnaby says the image comes straight from TV's Barnaby Jones. Who??? I don't think this book would be helpful to new parents looking for a fun baby name book. Some names that you love might carry a less than pleasant "image," and that might wrongfully sway what should be an objective and personal decision. Overall, the book is fascinating, but once you've looked through it for about 10 minutes, you've already looked up your name, your family's names, and the names of all your friends. Maybe you've had a laugh or two. Even so, you'll probably feel like you made a truly frivolous purchase. I'm sure you could find this same information on the internet somewhere and save yourself a little green.

I love The Baby Name Survey Book. I have read it cover to cover and shared it with my friends and family. It is amazing how much I agreed with the survey results in regards to the perceptions of the names. It REALLY made me think again about what I thought that a good name would be for my child. My husband and I changed our minds a few times because of what we read in this book. However, I have to say that it is already outdated. There are some popular names that we thought of that aren't listed. Also, it references names of famous people, and there are many well-known people that aren't mentioned. I recommend buying a used copy and reading another more current baby name book in addition. If anything, you'll get some good laughs when you read this one.

This confuses me. Most of these poems are poems we know of (anonymous) but the author has just changed a few words or a line or two. This seems very strange to me. The illustrations are watered-down, too. Other bedtime books would be a better bet to read at night.

You will want to pick up this book again and again to enjoy the delightful extensive illustrations that celebrate families. The familiar songs and poems with fun new words will make bedtime an even more special time.

This bedtime read offers mom and dad a rich source of beauty and verse. Your imagination as well as your child's will be enriched by the detailed, softly lit illustrations. The text is short and simple and the artwork takes you into a very warm space where all is loving, safe and cozy. Definitely an evening time snuggle experience.

Definitely not for 9 year-olds! This is a book of lists and questions - trivia games, fill in the blanks, etc. Not stand-up-and-run-around games, but sit-down-and-write-the-answer games. For adults, might be fun, especially if you were into Trivial Pursuit. As a teaching tool or brain-teaser, OK. For a kids party, un-fun.

An anthology only works if all the contents are at a relatively equivalent level of quality. You can tolerate a few stinkers, but only if the overall quality is high. Unfortunately, the editor insists upon mixing too many low-quality poems (many of them his own) with some wonderful efforts by such greats as Shel S. and Jack P. The overall effect is a rollercoaster that moves from pleasure to disappointment as you turn from page to page. You'd be better off sticking with the original collections of work by the same Shel S. and Jack P.

My second graders have tried every day to beat each other to the poetry book box at quiet reading time, and this is the first choice book. Yes, Silverstein and Prelutsky are favorites too, but this one is fun and accessible to so many of them. They copy poems to take home, they'll giggle incessantly while reading. They're reading and enjoying themselves -- what more could I ask?

My favorite poem is Swimming Ool. I like that poem because it is funny. A boy says, "Now the pool is a 'swimming Ool' because I took a P". When the boy takes a "p", a girl is swimming under the water and her eyes get very ''BIG''. I would give this book five stars. This is a good book for ages 5 and up.

Having read in the above hype about Mr. Lansky as being the "the #1 name in baby-names", I was expecting a good deal more than what I found upon actually reading this book.

While having more entries than many other baby-name books, "35,000+ Baby Names" is lacking and occasional inaccurate in the details of its etymologies. For example, as a speaker of Japanese, I noticed that the name Hachi is defined as "8,000", whereas it actually means only "8". In Japanese, "8,000" is HASSEN, not HACHI. Further, many names were listed simply as "American Indian". Given that there are even now several hundred different indigenous languages spoken in the Americas, representing historically a large variety of cultures, this is like narrowing the place of origin of the name "Edgar" down to, say . . ., Eurasia!

To its advantage, though, the book does include apparently useful advice and "Guidelines" to help parents decide on the best names for their children. "The Where in the World" section, which gives an idea of where the various languages from which many modern names originate are spoken is also interesting, though there are inaccuracies here as well. (Ashanti, an African language, is listed under the Native American heading.)

Overall, I was much more positively impressed with the scholarly quality of the book "The New American Dictionary of Baby Names".

I do not recommend this book.

35,000 Baby Names is a very nice collection of names, their meanings, and origins. I have found however that Mr. Lansky's book is lacking when it comes to names from the Far East and traditional names (Jewish, Eskimo, ....) and the African names are not abundant. For an American or Western European I would highly recommend this book. To one who is from a specific ethnic background I would have to point them somewhere else.

although i am not a parent, but i bought this book to gift to some one. curiosity kills. i went through the book, and found that it had some very great names. however picking a name was quite difficult. the book is a very good effort and it should be appreciated.

it is more like an encyclopedia of names. in short

I LOVED IT.