Rhyme and rhythm tell the story and beautiful illustrations compliment the text! This book is a favorite of my three-year-old son, and also was his favorite birthday present. We read it through at least 3 times each night before bed! Janice Hart

This book is a favorite in our house. A must for all dinosaur book fans, and a great book for everyone else. The pictures are really colorful and the expressions on the dinosaur's faces are great. My three year old son loves looking at the different dinosaurs and telling me what they're feeling and thinking. There are dinosaurs for everyone in this book. It's hard to find books that break out of the typical stories and themes. This one is has a unique story and catchy verse. (The first time you read it you may stumble over a dinosaur name or two but nobody who cares is listening, and you'll get plenty of practice the next 1000 times through the story.)

This book is a blast to read aloud to a child. My four year old daughter loves this book, and is now reading it aloud to me. The story is based on a group of dinosaurs going to a party. And what a party it is. They dance and create an earthquake. The illustrations are as good as the story,an uptempo good-time book. If you know a child fond of dinosaurs, this should be the first dino-story you buy. Trust me, I've read and heard this story over one hundred times, and each time is as much fun as the first.

This book came out at just the right time! My book group is reading Pulitzer Prize winning novels, and we're scheduled to read The Stone Diaries next week. Imagine my delight when I found Werlock's Reader's Guide in one of our local bookstores....and discovered that she has actually asked Carol Shields some of the questions that our group would like to ask her! This book is filled with great background information, useful interpretation, and thought-provoking questions. If all the books in the series are this good, I'll buy them all!

Even though my Chicago-based book club had already read Carol Shields's The Stone Diaries, we all went out and bought Abby Werlock's guide to our favorite novel. What a help this book has been to us! When we first discussed the novel, we had all sorts of questions, especially about whether Daisy or someone else was speaking at any given time. Well, Werlock's explanation solves it all! And even though she provides many answers to common questions, she asks questions herself, providing even more issues to delve into in this very complex and satisfying book. I recommend it to all devotees of Carol Shields.

As a long-time fan of everything by Carol Shields, I was glad to see the United States starting to pay more attention to this Canadian writer, especially for The Stone Diaries, in my opinion her best book. The background information that Abby Werlock provides is incredibly helpful (for instance, Shields is not responsible for the title!). Ms. Werlock's interview with Shields is a plus, especially because she wisely avoids the q and a format and instead spreads Shields's comments throughout the book. I love The Stone Diaries, but now, after reading Werlock's book, I understand it even better!

Oh yes, we can relate to this wonderful tale! It is
so "right on" for those of us who have these royal ladies in our families!

Carol Diggory Shields has hit paydirt with the excellent "I Am Really a Princess." This rollicking tale begins with the irresistible line, "I am really a princess. And when my true parents, the king and queen, find out how I've been treated around here, they are going to be very upset."

From this beginning, we are launched into a list of how our heroine will be living her life differently once the enormous injustice of her current situation is understood. She'll have no chores, no homework, no pet-feeding duties. The king and queen will spoil her rotten!

Paul Meisel's illustrations are colorful and cartoony in a cheerful way. They complement the text beautifully (check out his reverse version of a damsel-in-distress scene!). Lots of fun for any little girl who's secretly convinced that she's a member of royalty!

In this story, a little girl describes how her life SHOULD be, since she is really a princess, and not a little girl! Of course, she is royalty only in her mind, but that only makes this story more funny! A great book for that precocious little girl in your life.

I read lots of books to my 2 preschool girls, but Martian Rock is at the top of the charts. The playful rhymes make it fun for me to read aloud, and my kids get such a kick out of the story and the illustrations.

As a bonus, there are 2 pages at the end of the book with interesting facts about each of the planets in the solar system (lots of info that many adults might not know). This is one of the few books I would run out and buy for a gift for any preschooler, boy or girl.

Every Martian, gazing out into the measureless heavens, has pondered the question "Is there anything out there?" "Martian Rock" answers this question for all time, and you'll love it even if you are Venusian, Plutonian, or Earthling. Four Martian astronauts take off in their shiny-red spacecar in search of intelligent life. It's a long and frustrating odyssey, as they flit from one visually-stunning but unpopulated planet to another. Exhausted and cranky and depleted of clean underwear, our heroes are ready to throw in the interstellar towel and head home, but they decide to make one last stop, and suddenly encounter life---maybe not spectacularly intelligent life, but indisputably genial. Carol Diggory Shields's clever story and charming rhyming text could captivate even the most cosmos-indifferent child, but it's Scott Nash's dazzlingly colorful and funny illustrations that would make "Martian Rock" a heavy-rotation item on any child's book-at-bedtime reading program. Parents will love it, too; it has the same transgenerational crossover appeal of "Toy Story".

I love all her books. Maybe that's just because she's my aunt. But no, they are entertaining. The kids I babysit for have them all. And the illustrations are good. Buy the books.

I stumbled upon this book while doing some lunchtime shopping in a kids book store in Portsmouth, NH. The owner highly recommended it. I brought it back to my office and started to read through it. My chuckling outloud caused my colleagues around me to look at me funny :)

The story of an introverted bug turned hero flows from page to page with a cadence that keeps the attention of both child and parent. There are amusing quips that make parents grin and their kids smile while wondering what's so funny ("the mantysis prayed" is a simple but amusing phrase given the context). At the same time, there's plenty of humor and excitement that the child will understand and enjoy.

Beyond the written word, the illustrations are amazingly colorful and fun. The pages have a depth to them that need to be seen to understand.

My son loves all the bugs and asks questions about nearly every one. It has quickly become a bedtime staple. Highly recommend. A welcome diversion from Bob the Builder and Arthur!

This is such a fantastic book-I cannot rave enough!! It is a story of a bug contest to determine which bug is the "bugliest" of them all. Of course Dilly, our heroine, is filled with self-doubt and low esteem but she attends anyway. Well, she proceeds to save the day but I won't reveal how it ends.

The story is a great learning tool about the different types of insects and their characteristics. Moreoever, it is filled with self-esteem and basic character education.

In the back of the book, you get free bug trading cards loaded with information on the various insects featured in the story. This book is thoroughly entertaining and educationally sound!

I purchased this book for my daughter when she was 6 months old. She is now almost 2 and this is one of her nightly requests. The artwork is captivating to young eyes. The rhythm of the poetry is a joy to read aloud. I was very suprised the book was a translation - the riddle poems seem perfect not stilted, as some foreign translations. Now my daughter makes the sound of the animal before the flap is opened to reveal the answer. This book will make the journey to her naming the animal hidden. With 12 riddles this book is also a bargain.

Charleen Forrest (nee McNinn) is , in good Carol Shields fashion, mostly an observer in her own life. Still in love with her absent, long divorced ex-husband, she alternates bouts of scathing self criticism with ones of gentle dithering. Three days involving enormous amounts of travel, excitement and revelation somehow leave Charleen with just a minor adjustment in her modus operandi. Readers of Ms. Sheilds "Small Ceremonies" will be interested to find Charleen is sister to that novel's biographer heroine, Judith (who makes an appearance here with her husband, Martin, and children as well). Showing the reader what can and cannot be revealed through words as Charleen concentrates most of her energies on correspondence with a mysterious botanist, and showing as well her curious gift for rendering the intangible into a three dimensional state ("Yes." I agree, forcing my voice into short plumes of enthusiasm, "Really good. So tender.") Carol Shields gives this small book the weight of her full talents

This book is an amazing accomplishment! The essays within this critical analysis on the works of Carol Shiels provides insight into all of her novels, not to mention the fact that it also includes a piece by Shields herself. The before unpublished essay on "narrative hunger" by Shields alone indicates the wealth of knowledge found in this collection of essays. Shields's essay, once a speech given at Hanover College, explores how stories are lost or mishapen. In the end, Shields delves into a discussion on literary theory, the nature of our reality, and the stories we create.
Shields is an amazing writer who has given us so so much through her works and saddly, she's often overlooked as a mundane novelist who writes about "women's lives." This book proves that like the poet Swann, her works will not be lost, forgotten, or disregarded. They live, walk, and breath as much and as often as you and me. "Narrative Hunger and the Possiblities of Fiction" reveals just that, the beauty and fecudity of Shields's literature.

If you want to feel less alone in the real world of honest feelings, if you want to get in touch with true feelings, if you want to understand your emotions and explore your guilt and really dig deeper than sentiment--Carol Diggery Shields is the poet for you. Her voice is more original and her psychological depth deeper than most contemporary poets. She makes you feel less alone with your inner life. There is no sentimental frosting here. This is accessible and original poetry with a crafty use of language, a flowing free verse. I've spent my life reading poetry, and I find this poet thoroughly satisfying. Spend an evening or a morning or both with her LUNCH MONEY AND OTHER POEMS ABOUT SCHOOL and you will be moved and amazed at the original angles she takes on truth and human feelings and relationships. This is a poet of psychological, philosphical realization--a thinker who really probes the inner life with grace of expression.

Lunch Money Book Review
Lunch Money is a book about poems. It was written by Carol Diggory Shields. My Favorite Poems are "Pledge" and "Hot Lunch Money". My favorite part of the poem "Hot Lunch Money" is at the very end when a boy goes to his piggy bank and gets money. "The Pledge" is funny because a boy says, "there's a spider crawling up your back!" And in the poem "Lunch Menu" it's gross when the boy says," tuna noodle casserole". I learned that kids can be very funny and silly!

By Emily D.

I am a student teacher and I used this book in a first grade class during a unit on poetry. The students loved it. I had to read each poem at least 3 times each before moving on to the next one. Now, my students want to read the book on their own. The poems are great to use for short skits/plays. My class loved performing "The Flag" and "Moonwalker". This is a must for any classroom that wants to get students involved in poetry.

This gentle tale throws the reader a bit of a curve and leaves you with an "oh, yeah" affirmation. This story recounts the everyday adventures of a grandfather and his grandson, clearly two peas in a pod, who share a fondness for hot chocolate with tons of marshmallows, watching construction equipment, telling jokes, and just being in the "now."

Both the typography and illustrations evoke warmth and love, making this a great choice for reading to four- to seven-year-olds.

The whole book is heartwarming and lovely, but the end is the real clincher. I read it over and over again the first time I checked it out from the library, and decided it had to be part of my kid's permanent collection. The book starts off with "My favorite person is coming to visit me today..." and goes on to take you through a story of two people sharing time together and enjoying the simple things in life, like hot chocolate "with as many marshmallows as you want". It teaches that part of love is sharing small things in common together, and you're never too old to enjoy the company of a little person if you don't lose touch with the kid inside yourself.

I read this heartwarming book and instantly thought of my dad's relationship with his out-of-town grandchildren. Drinking cocoa, working on projects together, telling bad knock-knock jokes and reading stories are EXACTLY what my niece and nephew like to do with their grandpa when they visit. Now grandpa will have a new story to share!