This book is a guide to find the perfect rock friend. A girl shares here experience and knowledge about rock hunting. We liked the illustrations expecially the animal pictures hidden in the rocks. This book inspired us to find our own rock friends...

Everybody Needs a Rock by Byrd Baylor is an entertaining book. It tells why and how rocks can be useful. This book tells you what to do with and how to use rocks. The illustrations are also as excellent as the writing.

This book has beautiful artwork (amazing line drawings) and neat words. But its ideas apply to more than just rocks. There's something in it about the rock search being a very personal thing, and I found that applied as much to househunting as rock hunting. Get it for anyone you love.

My husband and I purchased this book because we are always searching for good books to read to our nine grandchildren..they have loved the Byrd Baylor books. "Hawk, I am Your Brother" is education and sensitive to being quiet and watching to learn. It is an easy read for all ages of our grandchildren, ages 18 years old to 9 years old. No matter the age they loved being read to, especially by Grandpa. They already watch TV that does nothing for their imagination or originality. We have found the local bookstores thin on Baylor books. :(

HAWK I'M YOUR BROTHER is a touching story of how a child learns that there are some things in life which cannot be achieved by enslaving that which holds the knowledge you seek but rather to understand the secret of this special freedom is how you will treat and respect the needs of the wild creature who holds the answers to your quest.. that to be trapped and held against its will is not the best way for the creature to teach what it knows. Each time I read it I understand Rudy's need to keep the hawk and the Hawk's need to be free and how Rudy comes to undertand the simplistic belief that to really be one with any creature it cannot be enslaved, it must be set free. By learning and letting go, Rudy can truly be as the hawk. Free.

this is a good example on how to start your life and how to face it

This book for children shows how so many different peoples and cultures (from American Indians to African tribes to ancient Egyptians) have greeted the rising Sun with songs and praise. This book, illustrated by Peter Parnall, was a 1979 Caldecott Honor book (i.e., a runner-up to the Medal winner) for best illustrations in a book for children.

I am an elementary school teacher. Byrd Baylor has helped me teach reading, and loving to read, to first through fourth grades. It seems the more reluctant readers are most easily hooked!
Each school morning in September, I read The Way To Start A Day to my class. By the end of September, children are saying the words with me. Soon, kids volunteer to read the book, alone, or in pairs, depending on their abilities.
The children take extra copies from the classroom book baskets, and read them to their families. They are surprised at how many of the words they can read. But the book has become so familiar to them, it doesn't surprise me at all!
The Way To Start A Day flies off the school library shelves, and Byrd Baylor becomes a favorite author to my students. They innovate on the text, writing stories, poems, picture books, and more.
Peter Parnall's illustrations are as captivating as Baylor's lyrical text, and as fascinating to children as "Where's Waldo?"!
I love this book!

Kent Durden's "Gifts of an Eagle" was a rare find at the Public Library, and one of those books you want to own once you've read it. There is something about "Lady", the eagle that Kent and his father raised, that reveals a personality, a wild conciousness that was quite marvelous to witness "firsthand". Kent and his father got a liscense from the state of California to capture and raise this golden eagle, (something I doubt is even possible any more, which makes this a piece of history too.) For anyone who loves eagles, you will never get a more personal experience than this. Jeff

The book "The Twilight Seas" by Sally Carrigher was a terrific book. It was a very descriptive book. I really liked it. It is aboout a baby whale and the first crucial moments of his life. It is also about the migration routes and how careful the whale had to be when people were allowed to hunt them. I recommended this book to any person young (no younger than about 10) or old that really enjoys learning about animals and how they live. But it did have some unexcting points. Some times it was on a subject too long and it lost my interest sometimes. It used very advanced vocabulary that I didn't understand.

"Winter Barn," written and illustrated by Peter Parnall, reveals how a Maine barn serves as a safe haven for animals during the long, cold winter. The stone foundation protects a ribbon snake, red ants and a white-footed mouse, while in the rafters there are sleeping bats. Stabled in the barn are horses, chickens, sheep and fourteen cats pretty much all over the place. Beneath the barn woodchucks sleep in their burrow, while in the hay there is a porcupine and a raccoon. Unfortunately, a skunk comes visiting. Parnall, who raises wood and sheep on his Maine farm, shows how life goes on in every nook and cranny of the old barn. He even pays attention to how the centuries old barn is held together by moritses and tenons. The overall effect of these pencil drawings is a simple reminder to young readers that life goes on all around them even in the dead of winter. Children who have never been on a farm or been around a marvelous old barn, will be entranced.

This book gently explains to young children the reality and inevitability of death. I enjoy reading this book as much as my daughter enjoys hearing it.

I'm a little puzzled by two negative entries in the review section for this book. The one by the second grade class seems to have missed the particular theme of this book and the second claims the story is predictable. Well, in a way, it is predictable. The grandmother's death is an inevitable event, and dealing with that death and loss is a story every child must deal with in their lives. The young girl in this book reacts with horror to the thought of losing her grandmother--and even tries to fight it--keep it from happening. In the end, she comes to an understanding and an acceptance of what death means and finds new strength for herself and her family. This is a wonderful book for those children who are dealing with the question of death in their own lives.

Twenty years ago a child librarian recommended "Annie and the Old One" to me. I have explained death to small children using this book. Several are now adults. None have ever feared death. "Annie and the Old One will always remain part of my personal library.

Today, I send a copy of it to a dying grandmother to read to her small grandchildren. I am honored to send this gift to my friend, and thankful to the author, Miska Miles, for writing "Annie and the Old One" for all of us.

This book was very well illustrated. The pictures matched perfectly with the words. The book had an interesting topic, but the way it was written made it boring. The vocabulaary was a little higher than the vocabulary of a child who would be atracted to this book.

In the late 80's/early 90's, Peter Parnall did a series of childrens books as both illustrator and author; Quiet is one of the best of those books. Quiet is the story of a young man who has gone out into the woods to experience the wildlife. He accomplishes this task by lying quietly on his back with seeds and apple cores on his belly. He slows his breathing and doesn't move. The birds and the rodents come! The beautiful illustrations and the simple story do a good job of showing a child what quiet is. It saddens me that this book is out of print and not widely available. My 9th graders don't seem to enjoy quiet at all. They don't know what they're missing.