This book is not about self-help. It's about letting go of the things that are making you unhappy. Let's Develop offers individuals tools on how to develop again the way we did as children. That trying to get what we need is what is making us feel so needy.This book offers the only practical guide to gaining higher self-esteem that I have found. The tools in this book can give any person a greater sense of worth right away. You don't have to resolve the past or confront issues to feel better today. Today is about what you make of it. This book gives real guidelines on how to improve your life through giving.

I've read a number of books that claim that they can help you solve your problems. This book makes no such claims. Instead, the author relates stories that are easy to relate too and gives you techniques that you put into practice every day of your life. I have one copy in the office and the other at home, and everytime one becomes a little overwhelming, out comes the book. With each reading the book continues to grow.

The Boxcar Children #2 Suprise Island is a great book for kids and others 15 and under. My favorite part was when the kids found Indian Point and all the artifacts hidden there. After they found all the artifacts they made there own museum. My other favorite part was when the dogs raced each other. When they had to leave they weren't very disspointed because they knew that they were going to come back.The author is such a realistic writer that when you read this book you think that you are there with them.

I still enjoy these books even though the real thrill of reading them only happens when you're still a child. I remember not liking this one much the first time through, actually, but then a year later or so re-reading it and liking it.

Basically it's a summer of re-living the survival skills of the first book, except they are in a barn on their grandfather's island. A captain and his so-called handyman live close by to help if anything should happen. But the handyman seems to know a lot, and the children find it hard to believe that he's only a handyman.

This book also marks the first appearance of Benny's friend Mike, who plays a pretty important role in some of the books to come. It also hints at the yellow house, which was what spurred the story of the third book (the first real mystery in the series).

Definitely should be read as part of the real Boxcar Children experience - not the foundationless fluff written by various authors of today.

If you like adventure this is the book for you! This book takes you on a quest to a new land. The Box Car Children always find a way to kepp that book in your hand!!I reccomend this to anybody who like discoveies

This was the first real mystery story I ever read, when I was about eight or nine years old, and I madly adored it, except that for some reason the part about the grating brick freaked me out. It has never scared any other child I know who read the book, but for some reason after reading that I couldn't go to sleep for a long time many nights! It really is a well-thought-out mystery - I always thought it was, but after it scared me I didn't dare to read it again for years!

But last week I read it again, and enjoyed it very much again. Of course nothing is as exciting to the adult mind in such a book as it is to a child, but I can still see the appeal in the story and get pleasure from reading it all the same.

Basically the story is... Grandfather's "Surprise Island" has a little yellow house on it. The children sense there is a mystery about it, so they ask Grandfather to tell them about it. He says that a man named Bill lived there with his wife. He disappeared one day, presumably with a large amount of money, and no one was ever able to find where he went. But the Boxcar children are always ready for a challenge and they set off to look for Bill.

Excellent story that all boys and girls should read or have read to them.

When I was a child, I had a very hard time concentrating on reading. That was untill my mom entroduced me to the Box car children. I have never forgotten about those kids. It is my favorite child hood story. I always wished that I had have my own box car to go to. I think it the best fantasy land any child could ever enter.

I liked the part when Benny found a box of money when he was playing with a frog.I also liked the part when the four childern's grandfather told them a story about when he was a boy.

I'd heard of social therapy from some folks I respect, and wanted to read about it to gain a greater understanding. Unfortunately, this seems hard to do. Apparently, since this approach takes issue with the very concept of "meaning" or "having a point", then it is not conducive to a lucid overview. I found several aspects of this book population, people wishing to better themselves, philosophers, therapists, all of the above? It's hard to speak to so many different audiences in the same book. It seems to presume that the reader has read "Let's Develop", a previous work by the author. There are almost no examples of technique given. This may be in line with what seems to be a general pish-poshing of technique as being just another hatchet-man of categorization. Almost despite itself, the book makes some interesting points, even while denigrating the value of 'points.' Those it does make are not laid out until the last 10% of the book, and some not even there. For instance, there is mention of the value of "Wittgensteinian language games", but never a clear explanation or example of what they are. Again, it may be a function of the approach of social therapy that you have to "perform it" to have any use for it, and that to talk about it logically is to limit and pervert it. Yet it seems to me that some better way can be had for transmitting some of these ideas in book form -- otherwise, why even write a book to begin with? While obviously a very smart man (the preface and cover tell you that), Newman explains his concepts indistinctly over and over and over in a way that left me looking forward to the end of the last chapter so I could get it over with, while not wanting to quit because I kept thinking that there must be "more to it" on the next page. There wasn't. There needs to be a better book written about these ideas.

This is the most boring book I have ever read! I loved the boxcar children books, and all of them I would rate better the 3 stars, but this one was so borring. MYSTERY ranch? What MYSTERY? The was no mystery in this book at all. The whole thing was just so borring. It's the worst boxcar book I have ever read, and I have read about 42 of their so far 87 books! It's just so borring.

This was the book where the Boxcar Children ate peas for dinner and went to bed at 8:00. They took an entire chapter to plan what they were going to do that day, instead of just doing it. I think this is the right book, but I don't remember because they were all so boring I forgot them. If you are looking for a series for your children to read, I would advise you to keep this out of children's reach. They may need psychiatric treatment after reading this bore of a lifetime. Nothing worth your time is in this book, except that going to bed at 8:00 was a good laugh. --Andy, 12 years old

Why isn't this book as good as the rest? I hated it when i was little, much as I loved the rest of the original series. Years have passed since then and I read it again and it's not so bad. But the other reviewers are correct in the fact that this is no mystery, really.

As for the purpose of this book in the scheme of the entire series, it's actually very important. This book is the important link between books 3 and the rest of the series. This book introduces Aunt Jane, a very important role in the future of the children, and it sets the groundwork for book 5, "Mike's Mystery", which takes place on the same ranch some time later. And book 5 is the springboard for Mike to be more important in later adventures. So there is a purpose to this book.

I can't really recommend it though. But any child who wants to read the whole series should not skip this book - it's still part of the experience, no matter how dull it may seem, and it's really not THAT bad.