I know many people who have gay fathers or relitives. This book is gentle and reasurring. No matter what type of family yours is they love you all the same.

This book thoughtfully covers a niece's love for her uncle and his partner. It also touches on the difficulties that families have at times accepting other family members.

An honest and gentle depiction of what life is really like.

Every little boys dream...not to take a bath and grow up and be a superslob. Amusing story of such a little boy who runs away to the land of the superslobs where he doesn't need clothes, doesn't have to wash his hair or behind his ears. He can throw rotten eggs and write on the walls with greasy pegs, however after too much of this dirty fun, he misses his home, his clean room and the smell of his mother's hair. How can he return to his home, well that is the key to this story. Delightfully illustrated that your own "superslob" will have you reading this one over and over again.

Saying Goodbye to Daddy is a good resource for when a child has lost a parent suddenly. It starts off with breaking the news to the child. The feelings of confusion, saddness and anger are well described in this book. It gently discusses the finality of death in a way that mimimizes the fear. It also discusses the funeral home and the funeral. The child is given the opportunity to deside if she wanted to go to the calling hours and the funeral. The child was allowed to be angry. She was allowed to discuss her fear that she had somehow caused the accident because her father was upset with her breaking a cup. She was supported by a sensitive and loving family. She was assured that she would always be taken care of. The story showed that the adults were also grieving but they were able to provide the needed support this child.. There was an adult always present with the child and the adult was supportive, kind and loving. Overall, the story shows the need for a child and their family to talk openly about death, reminissice about the person who died , discuss the rituals following the death...ie calling hours, funeral and to discuss feelings after a significant loss. Due to the support given by the family, the child has a degree of peace by the end of the book. Good book for schools, churches and other community resources that might be tapped by people in the community who may be faced with having to provide some support to a child who has had a parent die. I will be adding this book to our Hospice library.

I found this book for my four year-old son who is having difficulty coping with my serious illness. In this book, a little boy's mother fights breast cancer. When she goes to the hospital for operations or treatments, the boy stays with his grandma. The boy experiences a whole lot of anger, sadness, fear and frustrations. He asks some important questions which his father or grandma answer with wisdom and sensitivity. When the boy tries to engage his mother in an activity and his wiped out mother is short with him, grandma intervenes and explains. When the boy acts out because his mother cannot pay attention to him, his mother, grandma and father all deal with the problem compassionately.

When I read this book aloud to my son, he interrupts every few sentences of reading to tell me his own feelings and recount his own experiences. Although we're still struggling with some fear and worry, this book and a couple of others are helping us.

"Boot Weather," with story and pictures by Judith Vigna, is certainly something we can relate to up here in the Northland, where Winter lasts from Halloween to Easter. When her father announces it is "Boot Weather," young Kim steps into her favorite boots and heads out into the backyard. Only young readers will discover that Kim goes much farther than that in her imagination. For each two-page spread, Vigna has a small picture on the left of Kim in her backyard (climbing her slide) and then on the right a full page picture of Kim in her imagination (climbing up a mountain while a goat watches). This is a charming little story that will have your little ones ready to put on their snow boots and head off for their own adventures.

This is a great book for CDA requirements as well as a wonderful resourse for divorced families. The main character of the book lives with her father in a post-divorce family. The mother is very active and yet very supportive of her daugther. The father takes over the day to day needs and much more. A heart warming and comforting story appropriate for a child going through the divorce process.

This is a tender story of a girl's Mother who broke up with a boyfriend. He had given her a charm bracelet and promised her a charm each year, and now the relationship is over.The little girl's heart is broken and she is sure that she will never love or trust anyone again. At her surprise birthday party, her Mother's extended family all gave her an individual charm with the reassurance that they would never leave her.

(0 star review)

Happened across this book in the library, and I thought I'd put in a few words against it, since it's doubtless highly recommended among books to help kids "cope" with alcoholism in the family; that is, if your idea of teaching children to cope is training them to accept their fate, bury it in euphemism, and move on from one depressing day of abuse to another in the shadow of what this book seeks to excuse as a sickness.

The father in this book is typically horrendous, lying and near-abusing his daughter, yet the non-alcoholic mother insists on keeping her child in this situation, breaking down in tears rather than offering a beacon of safety in what must be the poor child's hopeless world.

True, this book is realistic. Yet I cannot imagine any parent or counsellor offering it to a child, since it doesn't offer any real advice besides
a) alcoholism is something to be ashamed of (the girl says she used to not have anyone she could talk to about her father, but now her mother has one friend she CAN confide in)
b) feel free to get out for an evening of fun before returning to the same bad situation.

Yuck, yuck and double-yuck. I'm all for building a body of fiction to help kids cope with issues, but this is a nasty addition to the bunch and could destroy more than a few already-fragile kids...

A girl and her mother deal with the father's drinking during Christmas. The father builds his daughter a beautiful handmade sled, but is then too drunk to keep his promise to go sledding with her. Mother and daughter take theri Christmas turkey to the home of an older woman who is a recovering alcoholic. This woman provides them with a safe haven of understanding and acceptance. She acknowleges the hurt, but encourages the child to find ways to be happy even while her father continues to drink.

The story could help the child of an alcoholic understand that it is not the child's fault.

At the back of the book is information and a phone number for Alanon.

Carol E. Watkins, M.D.