What a tribute to motherly love! Becoming a first time mom is an adventure in itself, but Mary Beth learns more quickly than most that for her child, a mother will do most anything. Following the De Ribeaux family through its adventure truly made for great reading. I read this book in three days, not wanting to put it down because I had to know what happened next. The story is personal and the style truly makes the reader feel that he or she is one of the family's close friends. Congratulations to the author on capturing the essence of family and illustrating how making the most out of a bad situation often creates memories that are not only lasting, but cherished.

I thoroughly enjoyed reading Mary Beth's personal account of her experience in Mexico while waiting for the finalization of her son's adoption. As a mother waiting for her son from Guatemala, I found this book to be comforting. Although Mary Beth and her husband had a difficult period in their lives (Mary Beth being in a foreign country, Eugene being away from his newly found family), they all remained positive about the experience. I truly felt as though I knew Mary Beth as she described her experences in her emails to her friends and family. I also enjoyed the lessons in Spanish that were embedded within her leters. As Mary Beth's stay in Mexico came to an end, I too felt a sadness that the journey was ending.

I thoroughly enjoyed reading this book about the trials and tribulations associated with adopting an infant from Mexico. It is written so that the reader shares the emotional highs and lows just as if he/she had lived through the experience. The author cleverly incorporates humor and tidbits about Mexican culture and customs. Best of all, she demonstrates how to make the best of a difficult situation. I found the story totally inspiring.

I thought this was a very good book, and I am going to read lots more of this series. I like the character of Mary Anne and she is very kind to help Jenny to get happy again. I would recommend this book to a lot of people.

Story kind of amusing, yet poignant. Kind Mary Anne seems to be the only one who understands why Jenny acts so fussy for a four-year-old. Touching how Mary Anne worries about Jenny, especially when Jenny's own parents don't seem to understand her & pour a lot of attention into baby Andrea. The book was kind of funny in that Mary Anne goes through a lot with Jenny, especially when Jenny turns messy & makes a HUGE mess of peanut butter in the kitchen, testing even Mary Anne's patience. Another cute scene which also reflects Mary Anne's gritty, honest humility is when the other kids reject Jenny openly from their games & Mary Anne is startled to notice that Jenny doesn't seem hurt or upset, then thinks, "if it had been me, I would have turned bright red & burst into tears." Typical Mary Anne humility! I'm past my teen years now & I read this book a while back, but I sometimes re-read Mary Anne's books & as I'm reading, I sometimes forget that Mary Anne is still a child in this series; her mind seems so...grown up & mature. I love how perceptive she is & sees beyond the superficial facts of behavior & understands why people behave in certain ways. Mary Anne's truly enchanting & unlike any other character I've read about.

This was one of the best BSC books yet!! Jenny P. is shown in a new view. Before she was always the favorite and spoiled child. Now Andrea seemms to have taken over Jenny's plaace as the princess. She doesn't know how to deal with this. She tries to attract attention by being Miss Perfect. Mary Anne sees that Jenny is hurting inside and decides to show Jenny that her parents still love her. This was a very good book and I know every sibling has felt the same way Jenny has.

Mary Anne finds herself very curious of her mother. So she looks in the photo albums in the attic and discovered an awful secret.

If you want to meet a truly unforgettable, memorable book character that will forever touch your heart & even change how you think, read this book & meet Mary Anne Spier. Her mom died when she was a baby & her life hasn't been very easy. Yet she faces that with a rare courage & dignity that I admire. She searches the attic to find out more about her mom & discovers her long-lost grandmother! She also finds out a BIG secret that happened between her dad & grandmother that involves her. Even though it upset her terribly, she had the strength & courage to confront it & talk to her dad. It was so touching that she finally got to see her grandmother after all these years & form a bond with her. I liked finding out more about her mom along with her & here we meet Mary Anne's grandmother, Verna Baker. I like Verna too & hope she's in more future books!

The reason I give this book a 10 is because it was very while written. In this book Mary Anne finds something about her past that she wishes that she had never laid her eyes on it. I hope you enjoyed this book as much as I did.

It was a great book! there's this guy, fowler, and he wants to redo stoneybrook with malls and junk. so ther's this fire at a client's house,and the babysitter quits. mary anne is the first one to babysit the kids, luke and amalia. luke doesn't seem to trust his sitters. the fire was in a townhouse in miller's park, where fowler wants to tear them down. the mystery has to do with allie, the old babysitter's boyfriend, fowler's twin brother, and a map of stoneybrook the way fowler wants it. i just wish the book was longer. luke isn't a silent witness like everyone thinks. he just finds that map. very interesting.

When a new client askes for a babysitter every weekday untill they find a permanent sitter Mary Anne is the first to be free.Meanwhile an evil man plans to rip down a park!The BSC have to do somthing and just their luck the new client lives near the park!The clients are a boy and his little sister.But Mary Anne decides somthings wrong with the boy after all their was a fire at their house not too long before the last sitter quit and BSC took over the roll.But wierd things are going on threatening messages,strange neighbours and alot of questions the BSC have to answer before the park gets ripped down and a kid being terrified forever!!!!!!!

I haven't read this book, but it looks good! I hope I read it soon. It sounds very dramatic, and I like dramatic books! I know I'll like it because all the BSC books I've read are great! This review was written by Erin Cohenour, age nine and a half years old

This is a great coloring book! It is a fun, kinesthetic method of learning and enjoying 500 years of great paintings. The drawings are not overly detailed, enabling you to use your imagination in coloring with just enough detail to do justice to the painting.

The stories are brief but entertaining. You are given information about the painting, including the nationality and style and date of the author as well as where the painting is now located. This is very useful in searching for more information on the painting.

Highly recommended to anyone who would like to expose their children (or themselves) to great art in a fun and relaxing way! A great springboard to learning.

This book is a great resource for any art teacher. I am an elementary (k-6) art teacher and I use these coloring book pages for my students to help re-enforce the art history lessons that I use in the classroom. It is great for them to see and color a copy of a painting that they have learned about at the end of the lesson, and they have a masterpiece to take home with them. I have used them with all my students, and all age ranges. Some of them are a little difficult for the kindergarteners because the pictures are very detailed...but it is a great way to help develop those fine motor skills for the little ones. My students love to color their own masterpieces after we have discussed the actual painting in the classroom. I use this at least once a week, and the interesting facts that accompany every painting are well written and concise.

I have just received my coloring book of masterpieces and I was very happy at the kinds of paintings that were put into the book. They are some of the ones i have studied in humanities and art history. They are really neat to copy onto a canvas and paint them. I like the information they include on the artists and what time period they lived in. I hope they come out with a second book of just more masterpieces to color.

Mary E. Cochran presents the story of Harold S. Jones, who in 1921 became the first American Indian bishop of the Episcopal Church. While much of Jones's narrative is in the third person, whenever possible editor Cochran allowed Jones to present his story "in his own words." Raymond A. Bucko and Martin Brokenleg's introduction does a good job of contextualizing Jones's story. The volume sheds considerable light on missionary activities among American Indians in the 20th century and offers welcome documentation of the complex interactions between Christian missionaries and Native peoples of the Plains. Choice, vol 28, no. 7 (March 2001).

What a find this book is!!! Having spent time this summer working on the Pine Ridge Reservation among the Lakota, I was thrilled to read a book containing not only historical facts, but "real life" detail. The joy, humor, sorrow, endurance, and faithfulness of this man of God (and those whose lives entwined with his) truly touched me. This book may be sucessfully used for historical, theological, sociological, or devotional purposes. Make sure to read and reread Fr. Deloria's (Tipi Sapa) testimony concerning Jesus, several times. It is the most compelling witness I have ever heard. It is no wonder that the little one, who listened to this wise man speak, grew up to be a Bishop.

It was very good the way how Mary-Anne tries to help out but ends up doing EVERTHING! I like the way she gets tired of it and tries to relate it to Mrs Towne. (Mrs Towne is the lady that Mary-Anne helps out)

This book was awesome! It was about how Mary Anne helped out an ederly neighbor, Mrs. Towne, who later on became her friend. But she only became her friend after they communicated. They had to beceause, unknowingly, Mrs. Towne was taking advantage of poor Mary Anne.

At first, I was skeptical about this book. It looked like Mary Anne was so dull she couldn't solve her own problems! But you can't judge a book by its cover, so I read it. Very good and well written. I liked it because Mary Anne really stood up for herself in the end, and that's what communicating is about: making yourself and your point clear to all who hear you. I was glad when Mary Anne realized that whether or not she hurt Mrs. Towne's feelings, she owed it to herself to explain HER feelings.

You will like this book if you have trouble sticking up for yourself, or if you just want to read it on a rainy Sunday, like I did. Rainy Sundays are THE best time to catch up on good reading as this.

A fairly average novel as far as BSCs go.Mary ANne and Dawn are mothers-helpers again and there's lots of boys and flirting.You know.

When I was 13 and I saw a preview for this book in the Scholastic book order, I was so excited since I had enjoyed part 1 of Sea City in #8 Boy Crazy Stacey. I went out and bought it just in time for summer vacation and took it with me to read when I went with my family to the Oregon Coast. It was very appropriate reading material for that environment. It was so good, and I enjoyed it except that I feel like there was too much 'romance' in it. And that seemed to make it dull. But it was still good, although I preffered Sea City part 1 in Book #8.

This was a very enjoyable. It involves a lot of romance and is also very heartbreaking. If this was a movie siskel and Egbert would give it two thumbs. It deserves five stars.

I have read this book, and I would say (not being too familiar with the field of "exit counseling/abusive church counseling" literature, though I read Steve Hassan's book (Jew former-Moonie) - COMBATTING CULT MIND CONTROL - years ago) that it's a pretty good book. If you deal with people who are or were in controlling churches (a lot of the book focuses on the Shepherding/Discipleship movement), or if you yourself were a victim or member of such a group, or even any abusive church, then you should buy this book.

In fact, this book is good to read if you're involved in most conservative Christian denominations/churches/movements, even "good" ones, as it will prompt you to continue to "prove all things [and] hold fast that which is good" as the Scriptures teach us to do, and not just accept leaders' statements or teachings. If you are discipling someone, or if you yourself are being discipled, this book has many good checks and balances and insights that should help you discern between good discipling and abusive or poor discipling. If you are in a small group that is designed to help you and others grow spiritually, this book will also be of value.

We were in a church that had some serious problems, and we finally left it. Skimming through her 6-page checklist at the back of the book of abusive characteristics, I would say that for us at least (I can't speak for the persons in our church who lived together at the "Bible School") we experienced few of these things, at least not in as overt a way as many controlling groups, but I would bet that if I sent Ms. Chrnalogar all my documentation of the things that happened that led to our decision to leave, she would agree that we were in an abusive church situation. She used to be a member of an abusive church or sect or cult (she never names the group) and was rescued by family intervention. She has helped rescue people for 17 years (as of 1997 when the book was written).

She only mentions a few names. She explicitly criticizes several items from the book/workbook EXPERIENCING GOD by Henry Blackaby, a very popular book that my wife and I studied from for at time. She seems to criticize Campus Crusade for Christ, as some of the items she comments on are from their literature (based on the footnotes). One comment, I think, criticizes Navigators literature. She criticizes YWAM at several points. She appears to be an Evangelical Christian (and CCC and Navigators are "favorites" of Evangelicals, so it's interesting that she faults their literature for being unbiblical at points), but I couldn't tell if she is Charismatic.

The Appendix on the history of the Shepherding/Discipleship Movement is fascinating. A particularly relevant item for us these days, as the "Five-Fold Ministries" and "New Apostolic Reformation" movements are continuing to gain adherents, is this one:

"During this same time [i.e., late 1960's and early 10970's], former leaders of the aberrant 1950s Pentecostal 'Latter Rain Movement' taught that the proper church governmental model was the 'Five-Fold Ministries.' The phrase refers to the presumed hierarchical ordering of the apostles, prophets, evangelists, pastors, and teachers found in Ephesians 4:11-13. This group taught that the ultimate purpose of these ministries was to unite all believers, and to acquire a divine nature. The Five-Fold Ministries doctrine also held that there are living apostles who are to rule the church and eventually the world."

Chrnalogar's book is such that you could give it to a person in a controlling group and, if they read it, they would be challenged, but not harshly or forcefully or stridently, to examine what their church does and why, and they would be led, if they allow themselves, to do an objective (if that's possible) evaluation of what their group does and teaches - which could result in loosening the hold their group has on them. This book is said to be the foundation of her exit counseling program.

>>... I have read about half-way through the book "Twisted Scriptures" and have recommended the book to no less than a half-a-dozen people. It has been a God-send to me. Ø >>I read "Toxic Faith" about 5 years ago and it helped me to realize that my family and I were in an abusive system. Although the book touched on manipulation of scripture, Mary Alice Chrnalogar's book, "Twisted Scriptures" has really given me new life. The scriptures that used to haunt me no longer do because they are no longer twisted. So much made sense to me. Obeying, sacrificing, not touching God's anointed all now have new meaning because Mary places them in correct context. I pray that someday I will be given the opportunity to teach from this book. .....read the book... you will never, never be the same.

Wow! This is just the book we needed after discovering that our adult children are infact, in a religious cult. We had our suspicions, but thanks to Mary Alice Chrnalogar and the information leading us to this point, we now know with certainty.
This book is a must for active members, former members, relatives and loved ones who have any connection to an abusive church, "the decipleship, shepherding" type of movements.
They have successfully snared so many to a life of bondage and to a never-ending state of works and guilt mentality.
Our heart breaks for our children, as we watch them sacrafice their own personal choices to the whims of a "discipler".
I can not recommend this book highly enough. It is a must read. And I pray that when one who has found themselves deceived and need answers, "Twisted Scriptures" will find it's way into their hands. They will know that they are not crazy or beyond God's grace, but rather find unconditional acceptance and love from a loving and personal God. With correct understanding of the Scriptures, God's word will present freedom and life and the truth will indeed set them free.
Sincerely,
Parents who are praying for their children's deliverance.

I had to read this book for school and boy what a drag it was! This book is so focused on symbolism that it made me want to puke! If your like good literature stick to the classics.

I wonder this now that I have finished this book. Was this book formed from actual diaries of a poor housemaid secretly in love with her employer, or is this just a creative approach at writing? Don't be misled by the movie - the book is actually fascinating! Some scenes in the movie made absolutely no sense to me, so I had to check out the book. They are almost completely different. There are objects that make them bear resemblance with each other, but you will be very surprised at the difference. The movie was very exaggerated. Be prepared for some very boring chapters as well. For example: when Mary plants the herb garden. It goes on for pages and pages it seems! And her somewhat paranoid mind that actually makes you pause, feeling a little paranoid as well, and wonder "Was Dr. Jekyll's boot really there? Is it a senseless trick of Hyde's?" Umm...what does it matter??? Who on earth would move a shoe...just to be moving it??? Be patient, it gets better. Once it gets going, you can't put it down. You'll wish for more after you've finished. It ends so suddenly that it feels incomplete. A hard to find book, but worth the search. If you wouldn't mind a used copy, try http://www.half.com where I purchased mine. They always have it in stock.

I read this so long after it first came out that it was hard to get the image of Julia Roberts and John Malkovich from the film out of my head (two actors I loathe). But it is a great tribute to Valerie Martin's crisp writing that you soon forget it was ever a film, much less who starred in it, and are caught up in the quietly creepy spell she weaves as a housemaid in Victorian London slowly discovers the truth about her Master, Mr. Jekyll, and his strange, brutish assistant, Mr. Hyde. Martin wisely allows the story to unfold slowly, and she brilliantly ups the ante with the threat of impending violence and its ultimate tragic ending. Her portrait of Mary Reilly, an abused housemaid who finds solace and kinship in her strange master, is poignant, richly detailed, and gorgeously written. Forget the film, read this remarkable book and treat yourself to first-rate story telling and writing.