Schirado and Assenzo had the right idea of bringing children and parents together over a picture book about emotions and experience; however, they would have done better to stick to prose. The rhymes are so stilted they illicit winces from my husband and I. Illustrations and idea content is good, and does generate talk with our children.

Creatures is a clever, humorous book that adults and youth will find stimulating and engaging. It uses a playful rhyme scheme and colorful artwork to discuss feelings and emotions. I have given the book to friends with children and colleagues working in art, counselling, and education. I have received rave reviews from each of them. One friend who lives in Germany uses the book's rhyming to help her 6 year old child learn English through discussing his emotions/feelings. I also recommend the book to adults (without children) who love colorful artwork and the humor of puns.

The first 9 chapters of this book are a waste of time. The author uses these chapters as a "cookie cutter" to describe bad fathering styles and good fathering styles and it is doubtful that anyones father would match the descriptions provided. There are only 2-3 chapters remaining that have any meaningful information. Save your money and have dinner with a good friend

This book has 3 sections to it. The 1st section has great examples of "bad fathering", the 2nd section has excellent examples of "good fathering". The 3rd section nicely ties up what we can learn from all this, and also includes a nice section on men as mentors. Personally, I got much more out of the 2nd and 3rd sections than the first. I found that there was a lot I learned from "outstanding fathers". The book holds steady, but starts a little too slow to give it 5 stars. It definitely deserves at least 4 stars.

As a Young Adult librarian, I read this book thinking I could recommend it to my readers if I liked it. I really liked the 1st half of the book, a real page-turner. The whole tie-in with the story of Great Expectations is wonderful, and the idea of a "quest" sounded fun. I even managed to smile at the references to the nasty, unhelpful "librarian" working at the "Circulation Desk" - most of us that have set foot in a (largish) public libary know that librarians do not work at Circulation Desks anyway, so I tried not to take it personally. Towards the end of the story, I had really lost a lot of interest in the "quest", and in the characters as well. I was waiting for a climax, but there was none. I thought the ending was totally ...well, boring actually. Maybe I just didn't get it, but I still can't figure out if going on this quest (risking their life, really) was worth it to the main characters,in the end. I don't think so.

I enjoyed this book a lot. I was interested in the people that the characters had to research and the quests they had to do. It made me want to learn more about them. But I feel the plot itself was lacking a little. All in all though I thought it was a good story and I would read other things written by the author.

I found this book to be very exciting. As a Pittsburgh native, the vivid descriptions and the awesome facts about the city really peaked my interest. Mark was an interesting thoughtful young man that wasn't sure where he was going until he met and feel in love with Zeena. I was disappointed, however, that Zeena stayed so angry throughout the book, but I tried to understand her viewpoint. Also, I would have liked to have seen what happened with Mark and his father, but overall the book was a good read.

I purchased six books in this series and I can tell you that this one is the best in the bunch. While this book still contains a lot of "filler" (e.g., blank pages where you can note details of your child's medical history), there's a lot more meat to this book than the other titles in the series. The chart on childhood illnesses is actually quite useful. Still, when you look at the other books that have been written on this subject, you can see that you're not getting a lot of value for your book buying dollar. You'd be much better off purchasing the KidsHealth Guide for Parents or The American Academy of Pediatrics Guide to Your Child's Symptoms -- too vastly superior reference books.

I really enjoyed reading this book, and learned quite a lot about myself, and how to deal with my pain. I learned that things I did in my daily activities were efects of the child abuse, which I would have never guessed. I also learned how to deal with my guilt, and where it was all coming from. Since this book is a guide to parents, teachers, and councelors, it really helped to also see there perspective of things, and it helped me figure out how to deal with my struggles, based upon the advice given to them, in order to help people like us. I recomend this book to not only the teachers, parents, and councelors, but also to the abused. It helps more than you could ever imagine!

We expected a useful guideline for parents. Instead we found a money regime that is unbelievably extreme. Willard Stawski recommends paying kids to do just about everything - pay them an allowance to read books, for example.

It may have worked extremely well in his family - good luck if it has - but I find the underlying money-centric values quite disturbing.

If you want your kids to earn every penny they have than this is a great book. If you are less militant than this book is way to extreme. It is very biased towards having the kid EARN every penny they get. I believe that some money should just be given to them.

It's a complex world today and kids somehow seem to have distorted notions of the value of money. It's no one's fault but many families could help themselves with this refresher course on financial basics. Stawski's ideas on how to educate kids about money make sense, whether your kids are very young or teens. This is a user-friendly book that includes worksheets you can use whether you have one kid or a houseful. Everyone in the family will benefit from this book!

What a disservice to parents this book actually is. Starting with the title itself, Sears uses the printed word to mislead parents into believing that he has somehow magically found the answer to a syndrome that have baffled experts far more qualified than he. While Sears may be a credible source on some subjects, he clearly is not when it comes to SIDS.

Sears seems to use this book as his venue to tout his own personal theories - most of which are about as far from scientific fact as you can get. Because he intersperses well known facts about SIDS throughout, it seems he is purposefully trying to confuse the reader into believing that his pet theories are well accepted by the medical community and have held up to peer review.

For instance - he hypothesizes that bed sharing with an infant reduces SIDS. This has been studied by LEGITIMATE experts and to date, there is NO scientific evidence to support this claim. In fact, the adult bed with pillows, comforters and pillow top mattresses pose an INCREASED RISK for infants. Babies can and do die beside their parents, just as they do in cribs.

The tragedy of this book is that Sears, in his egotistical zeal, misleads unsuspecting parents into believing if they follow his advice, they can prevent SIDS by following *his* parenting philosophy. As many attributes that "attachment parenting" may have, prevention of SIDS is not one of them. The greatest tragedy of all, however, is that this book is available to bereaved parents. SIDS parents are well known to torture themselves with "what ifs" and Sears' junk science only adds to this with false and misleading information. That in itself makes this a publication worthy of the wood stove.

First of all, anyone who uses the phrase, SIDS Prevention is either trying to sell you something, or doesn't know what they're talking about. You cannot prevent SIDS. Second, Sears is a huge bed sharing advocate. The US Comsumer Product Safety Commission, just concluded a 8 year study that strongly advises against bed sharing to reduce SIDS. The American Academy of Pediactrics and US Public Health Svc. backs up this study. Dr. Sears may know a lot about bonding with your baby, but please do not look to him about SIDS info. My little girl died of SIDS a in Oct. '99, and it's important to me that the correct info. gets circulated. See the SIDS Alliance web page for more information about SIDS.

This is a must read for every parent, especially since much is unknown about SIDS. The syncronization of an infant's breathing while sleeping with his/her mother is incredible. Important Note: Not much is talked about the number of babies who are killed/injured in a crib. This book addresses this important issue.

I'm an adolescent (aka: angry teenager) and after my mum bought this book, I decided it'd be a good idea to see what sorts of useful suggestions these 'parenting teenager' genre books had to offer for desperate ol' mum. Well, I'm not impressed. This book offers, in part, several cookbook situations where (from other reader's post) _defiant_, _rebellious_ teenagers are engaged in heated conversations with their overseers. Almost comically (though, I suppose most psychology has a definite farse element to it), the author points out a series of motives that a teenager will have in certain situations. Militaristically addressed as "Plan A", "Plan B", ..., "Plan N", we are to believe that the Angry Teenager(tm) is cool and calculated--full of alteriour motives and hidden secrets. It sure sounds like a criminal to me. The second distinct greviance I have with this authoritive guide is the conflicting, dual roles that parents are to assume when dealing with the teen. A) Like my fellow book reviewer, the parent is to be a harsh disciplinarian. Stick to the "No," demonstrate one's role as authority figure, and never lose the upper hand. B) As the book's title points out, parents are supposed to _help_ teens grow through it. The second role is as loving, caring, (mothering? sexism uh oh), gentle helper who guides her/his troubled youth during the most difficult years.

With my two greviances pointed out, I'll give some free advice to a prospective reader. Don't buy these books. (That includes other parent/teen guides available.) They will turn you into an analyser and psychologist. This is not the role for a successful parent. Keep a teen-parent relationship simple and responsitory. I think the key word is _reactionary_. I like that word. Why do the model teens in this book always state that they want to "learn by [their] own mistakes and not have [their] parents gloat over [their] failures?" Because they do! Educational professionals agree that hands-on, exploratory learning is a very effective technique for obtaining a mastery of some subject material. All years (not just teen) should be spent this way for ideal growth and development. And after all, this is what this book's title is all about: growth. As a parental reactionary, you always allow the individual (scrap teen) to take control of the situation and accept responsibility. Dictative parenting only brings out ====the defiance! ===

In sum, thumbs down on this book and its genre. Suggestion: talk with your individual and avoid philosophical, psychological looks into the mind of the angry teenager.

I ordered this book hoping for some concrete answers/assistance in helping my angry teen cope with his emotions. This book is filled with stories and examples of other angry teens but offers little in the area of realistic suggetions. Here is another professional who wastes time describing the symptoms and is unsure of the cure except to blame parents for their kids problems, i.e. an angry parent makes an angry teen. I suggest "Parent in Control" by G. Bodenhamer for some real help in dealing with defiant, rebellious teens. Good luck!

I am a grandparent who is again parenting a young teen. I found this book helpful and easy to read. The author has extensive understanding of the teen and his tone is caring. It is not an in depth analysis of why teens are angry. It has, however, some really good insight and advice. I read the review of the teenager and he seems to prove the point of what an angry teen sounds like. Adolescence is a tumultuous time and it is essential that those caring about and for them have some understanding of their feelings. Read it, you will both enjoy it and learn from it. As a matter of fact I will purchase it for our Church Library!

The book really focused on outlining the pitfalls of the three types of educational choices: 1) public, 2) private, 3) homeschooling. There seemed to be an obvious bias in favor of homeschooling, although it did describe the challenges of that choice. In a nutshell, the point of the book is that regardless of what choice a parent ends up making for the child, the real key to success is parent involvement. I really felt that he was preaching to the choir. If a parent went to the effort to find this book and read it, that parent is probably already the one who is going to be heavily involved in their child's education.

What the book didn't discuss at all is various personalities of children and what types of environments might suit them best - which is really what I was after. The book is completely void of any mention of learning styles, or things that a parent might specifically look for or ask about in making a school choice for their child.

Why is an MD writing on learning disorders? Some inaccuracies Inoticed..autism is a neurological disorder, not a developmental disorder. And I question the statement "shyness and autism are sometimes confused". He never discusses motor delays as a reason for poor handwriting. Some useful information here, but much inaccurate information.