the author talks about 7 questions children must learn to ask and answer:

* Am I safe?

* Who am I?

* What are the rules?

* Is life good?

* Am I loved?

* Where do I belong?

* Why am I here?

Excellent questions that everyone needs to ask regularly (ie adults too!) for understanding ourselves and our lives, for having good mental health.

For many, it seems, the relationship between child and parent is one of the most difficult as the child matures into an adult. Parents often have a difficult time letting go of established patterns of behavior that may have been appropriate during their offspring's childhood, but no longer serve the best interests of either parent or child as they relate to each other as adults. As I completed reading this book I made a visit home and found that my own mother was reading this book too. It seems that age had little to do with the applicability of this information. Helpful for anyone working on continuing the process of self-growth and keeping their relationships alive and vital. . . Gary L. Flegal, Ph.D., Professional Stress Management Services.

In this readable but well researched study, Dr. James illustrates how many contemporary social and family woes were also prevalent in Shakespeare's time.

This is the first book I've seen that looks at a suicide attempt from the family's perspective. In so doing, it acknowledges the family's terror, the stigma issues the family faces, and the family's love for their child as they struggle to try to understand and help.

Williams helps parents explore their own feelings about suicide, encourages parents to overcome their reluctance to reach out for help and support, then discusses suicide issues and theraputic approaches.

On one hand, the book seems too simplistic. It doesn't discuss the impact of the suicidal person's moods and behaviours on the family; the terrifying roller coaster of therapists and medication before the right combination is found; the families torn as they try to help their precious child.

But the author's calm, compassionate presentation may be the more useful and helpful approach, particularly for parents who have never been to any kind of mental health professional and are afraid of being blamed for their child's behaviour.

William Irvine has written an intriguing book exploring our notions and attitudes toward procreation, parenting, and governmental/societial responsibility to children.

As any good philosopher would do Irvine quickly abandons political correctness and engages in a dispassionate critique of Eugenics and argues that it has a proper place, if we operate on the stewardship model of parenting. (Which was developed in detail in Irvine's Doing Right by Children) His arguments are intriguing and well thought out, and at times provocative.

In this section of the book he also explores when government can interfere in reproductive freedoms, and how to do so to ensure the continued viability of society. This section successfully attacks the premise that we should have complete freedom over when to reproduce and with whom.

Irvine then explores licensing parents. While many would instantly balk at interfering with parental freedoms, Irvine provides a sound and reasonable argument for requiring parental licenses, that is sure to leave readers in a quandry.

Irvine's text unfortunately ends on a semi-related chapter on divorce. While his background appears to hold to the stewardship model of parenting in high regard it also feels like an inappropriately muddled reaction to current day political/marital thinking.

Overall Irvine's book provides a provocative starting point for thinking about how children in America are thought of and how they should be thought of.

Thomson's book is a compilation of essays about moral theory. Although the latest essay was written fifteen years ago, all of them deal with issues thet will never turn old fashioned. Amog the thirteen essays that compose this book there are three which I loved the most. The first of them is one that speaks about rights and compensation. In this essay Thomson tries to explain why should a right-holder must be compensated when his right is violated. The essay which I rank second is one which title is "Self-Defense and rightys", which deals with the well known problem about killing or harming someone acting in self-defense. Finally I really liked "Imposing Risks", where Thomson explains when it's legal to impose a risk over another person. I must say that all, the thirteen essays are great. I highly recomend the book.

I emphatically agree with the book's central message: Small schools are greatly preferable to large. (I went through public school in L.A.; I should know.)

The book gives many wonderful examples of how small schools have revolutionized education in a number of places where public schools had been failing their students. The authors were among those dedicated enough to see through the building, running, and nurturing of such places of learning.

The book also gave a glimpse of what education is meant to be-- intense investigation, asking endless series of questions addressing issues of student interest, a process of learning for teacher as well as student--and contrasted this with what goes on in a typical factory-model school. Hurrah!

Unfortunately, the book made two glaring omissions (thus the four stars, not five). First, there was extremely little discussion of the resources needed to make this happen, and the corresponding lack of political will. It is easy to point out that wealthy school districts think $12,000 a student-year is an appropriate amount to spend for top-flight education, and that the special needs of poor districts suggest that even more is needed there. (And this is still mostly using the factory- model school for middle and high school.) But it is another thing altogether to develop a political strategy to deal with the discrepancies.

Second, I believe that the factory-model school is actually failing almost everyone, not just the poor in the city. Ideals of education are met no better in Novato, CA, than in Oakland. School is an impersonal waste of time in Novato, too. Issues of social justice are nowhere on the radar screen there, either. Kids go to "civics" class, biology, etc. Curriculum never changes, kids do not get to develop major educational programs based on their interests.

We need to find ways of encouraging everyone to engage in a discussion of social justice. Reagan and his welfare queen, Bush and Willie Horton, and years of perverse race-based criminal justice approaches (most notably the war on drugs), have set us back immeasurably. Milton Friedman has won; all the progressive tax systems are being whittled back; social services--from health care to welfare to, you guessed it, public education--are on the out.

Everyone should be in on this mission. I think the book speaks far too narrowly to the inner city and not broadly enough. (An important question here is whether we are asking city schools to perform wildly different functions from suburban schools, and if so, whether this is serving either of these populations.)

The reason I liked this book is because it had a good plot and the characters had good lives and the book was good because of the problems that they had to go through and the school year the way that they did. They had to overcome that principal because of the color of there skin.

Ms Berryhill has taught three spiritual lessons for little hearts through a little snowflake's fear of jumping to earth. Children will see the importance of replacing fear with courage and trust, the importance of obeying one's parents as commanded in the ten commandments, and the joy of making others happy. The illustrations compliment the text and show Teeny Tiny's fears through the facial expressions drawn. This is a great choice for parents and Sunday School teachers to share with young children.

I found one chapter "Not to Worry" to be of help to me. There I found a reassuring word about all of the typical reasons why parents worry about their children not eating. That said, I found the first three chapters to run on about nothing relating to the title of the book. Perhaps parents of older toddlers and preschoolers would find this book helpful. But as the mother of a "typical" 18-month old, I was completely appalled by the instruction to use a "restraint such as a harness tethered to the back of the high chair" and "a firm mechanical restraint will give the child few choices to do the wrong thing" terrible advice and, frankly, I was a little concerned that the author had been advising patients for many years as a pediatrician. It was then that I decided the best place for this book was in the trash!

I found a couple of good ideas (i.e. not discussing eating during the meal and placing food on the plate and giving your child the option of eating it or not), but for the most part I found the suggestions by the author to be a bit extreme. I should have known it wasn't the book for me when he suggested using the Ferber method to get your child to sleep and not nursing on demand past the first few months.

I don't think locking your 2 year old in his/her room will make for a better eating style. In fact, I think down the road it will cause problems when your child is a teen and decides to lock YOU out of their room.

If you are someone who thinks using the Ferber method on your child is a good idea, you will probably find this book helpful, but for the parents with a more AP approach will find this book extremely distasteful.

We found this book to be tremendously helpful. I was at the point of cooking completely separate meals for my partner and me, and for our boys. Using Dr. Wilcoff's ideas of serving at least one food the kids like, insisting on tiny tastes of new food before they get seconds of the other foods, has made mealtimes far calmer. Our older boy has discovered a taste for salad and for brocolli! Our younger son actually tried his grandfather's salmon pie and liked it! But even when they don't like the new food, life is easier because they can ignore the teaspoonful I put on their plates without my fretting that we are wasting a whole serving of food. Our boys are challenging, with a variety of special needs, and this has worked well for them.