This book is beautifully illustrated and has a very moving story line. I recommend it. The only possible down side is that some people may be offended by the perfect little blonde beauty of the little girl. Don't let this stop you...

The Best Gifts is undoubtably the best childrens book I have ever read. The beautiful watercolors depict a woman breastfeeding her child- a very refreshing change to the usual bottle fed infants shown in books. A wonderful book for those who want to clearly give their children the message that breast isn't just best- its normal!

An exquisitely told and beautifully illustrated story that begins with Sara, enveloped in her parents' love, as she breastfeeds, and ends with Sara's son Sam, surrounded by the same love, as he drinks from his mother's breast. The lavender hues in the illustrations emphasize the light scent of lavender present throughout the story--the reader can almost smell this gentle scent that is symbolic of the depth and warmth of mother's milk and the warmth of the love that pervades the story. The author beautifully demonstrates that breastfeeding is a natural and precious part of life, not to be hidden in bathrooms and bedrooms. But there is more--Sara's life is followed from her birth to her fifth birthday, her graduation from school, her wedding, and the birth of her child. On each occasion family and friends gather to celebrate and bring gifts that are joyfully accepted. But, after these gifts are put away, the best gift is given--parental love that is deep and constant. This is a book for both children and parents. It makes a fine bedtime read-aloud. The brief bibliography of books for breastfeeding moms and the list of breastfeeding organizations adds to the value of the book for new and expectant mothers.

Hope's War is a wonderful story set in two worlds, decades apart. Kat Baliuk is off to a new school, where she tries to find her place as a new student while pursuing her passion for art. Kat's grandfather, an immigrant to Canada from the Ukraine is faced with a struggle of his own. He is accused of war crimes in a concentration camp during World War Two. Marsha Skrypuch skillfully weaves these two stories together to create a compelling portrait of one Canadian family. While addressing troubling historical issues, Marsha Skrypuch also creates compelling contemporary characters with very modern problems. Kat learns both from her new friend Ian and from her grandfather that appearances can be decieving and that the world can be a very complicated place. Hope's War is a thoroughly well-written and thought-provoking tale.

In her previous work, Marsha Skrypuch, has shown herself to be fearless in tackling issues from which others might shy away as being too controversial. "Hope's War" is no exception. It tells the story of Kat, a young Canadian of Ukrainian heritage, whose comfortable world is turned upside down when her beloved grandfather is accused of being a war criminal, put on trial and faced with the prospect of his citizenship being revoked and of being deported. The great strength of the book is the way in which Skrypuch allows the reader to learn along with Kat as she struggles to understand her family's history, and realises that there are no simple answers. By also using flashbacks from the point of view of the grandfather as a young man, Skyrpuch very subtlely shows how everyone is shaped by the times in which they live. These interludes are particularly vivid and show just what meticulous research has gone into this powerful book.

Hope's War is a fantastic novel based on a grade 10 student, Kat Baliuk. Kat is a Ukrainian Orthodox child whose family immigrated to Canada. She lives in her home with Genya her sister, Walt her father, and her mother Orysia. Her grandfather Danylo Feschuk spends most of his time at Kat's house. His wife Nadiya died just this recent year.(In Ukranian Nadiya means hope- Hope's War)
Kat attends the Cawthra School for the Arts. After getting home one day from school she finds her grandfather at home talking to two RCMP officers. They started interviewing him about his life during Wold War ll. It brought back horrible memories, but she didn't hear them during the interview. Danylo felt pain as he answered questions for hours and the officers recorded the conversation. Once Kat saw them, she waved them away, and told them to leave her family alone. This isn't over, they answered.
The goverment has decided to search Canada for suspects of which
have something wrong with their immigration forms, and are trying to prove many Canadians who have worked with the Nazi's or done something wrong during the war. People are sending junk mail and rude pictures to his house, and under the doormat Kat found a slip of paper that said murderer.
On Ukrainian Christmas Eve they are startled by a protester who says Nazis live here. On Christmas day the newspapers are flooded with stories about Danylo, and a campaign has been started against him.
A hearing is called, and even though Danylo is innocent without any real proof on either side, what will be the final decsision in court? Read this great, realistic fiction to find out! ...

The Hunger makes thought-provoking reading for anyone, though it is aimed at young adults. Marsha Skrypuch deals intelligently and gracefully with sensitive issues, primarily anorexia and the massacres of Armenians during WW1. She effectively contrasts the self-imposed hunger of anorexia and the involuntary hunger of starvation in two teenagers separated by eighty years but linked by blood, Marta in 1915-18 Armenia and Paula in 1990s Canada. Skrypuch explores both girls' desperate situations realistically and without pulling punches. This book would be an especially suitable gift for a young person struggling to overcome an eating disorder or to deal with personal or family trauma. I recommend it highly.

Anorexia and Bulimia are subjects that are all too often dealt with in a sensational manner in young adult fiction. Marsha Skrypuch, however, avoids these pitfalls in her wonderful book, "The Hunger", and has written a novel that is thought provoking but never didactic or preachy. The device she chooses to use - of linking fifteen year old Paula's struggles with food to the struggles of her ancestor in early twentieth century Armenia - works beautifully, allowing both Paula and the reader to put these struggles into a context, whilst also broadening the issues raised.

A compelling read with characters that jump off the page. This young adult novel is sophisticated enough for the adult reader, and offers insight into issues facing contemporary teens as well as adults in today's world. The characters are vivid and believable, as are the relationships between them. The facts they uncover, the secrets they reveal, and the self-discoveries they experience give them a life of their own. Obviously well-researched, this novel draws astonishing parallels between a modern-day affliction and man's historical inhumanity to man. The story centers on Paula, a teen obsessed with perfection. A straight-A student, she throws herself into a history project while trying to attain the perfect body - and becomes bulimic and anorexic in the process. As her illness progresses, she has a brush with death and comes face to face with the horrors and privation of the Armenian massacres of 1915-23. The reader is pulled into Paula's world, and along the way learns about the mechanics and treatment of anorexia and bulimia, and the warning signs. Historical facts, like the obscure but chilling 1939 Hitler quote "Who today remembers the extermination of the Armenians?" add depth and relevance to Paula's quest for answers as she struggles with life...and death. A must read.

Few children's books set out to reflect on the tragic. Marsha Skrypuch's "enough," located in 1930s Soviet Ukraine, reminds us of the genocidal fury that Stalin and his collaborators unleashed on a Ukrainian peasantry that refused to submit to communist tyranny, and of the heavy price they paid for their resistance (many millions deliberately starved to death). While charming in its evocation of how a young girl helps to save her one village from this man-made famine, the true story, beguilingly intertwined with this folk tale, is one with a far less happy outcome. For me as a parent, and for my daughter, this important book took on a dual quality - not simply a good read it is simultaneously a reminder of the horrors that befell Ukrainians and many other victims of communism in the 20th century. Those crimes against humanity must never be forgotten. This book is not only a must read, it is a must have book, not only for children but for adults, for all of our futures may well depend on just how accurately we remember who the villains were and what they did. Some of them are still alive and amongst us.

I loved this picture book. The paintings are funny but sad at the same time, and so is the story.

It reminds me of a Grim fairy tale. I didn't know about the Ukranian famine until I read this book.