Middle school is tough enough without being in the spotlight.
Act 1, Act 2, Act Normal hits the mark for middle schoolers and
their multitude of concerns. A very funny and delightful ride
down the road to growing up your own way.

We love this book! I have 3 daughters, ages 6, 5, and 3 -- they ALL love to hear me read this book again and again and again. They have SIX grandmothers (counting those wonderful "greats") and none of them are within a day's drive of our home. This book helped our daughters identify their feelings of anxiety about recently meeting one Grandma (just this month) they had NEVER MET in their entire lives! This is a terrific "feel-good" book for children & their families! I'm buying copies to send to ALL those grandmas in our family!

This book charmingly deals with a child's fear of being away from home when the Easter Bunny is due to visit. How will the Easter Bunny know where to find him? It's a dilemma handled with grace and style by author Kay Winters. This is a reassuring, satisfying read for young kids and their parents.

My mother gave me this book when I was a kid. I just found my old copy, read it again, and decided my 13-year-old absolutely must have a copy (though I'm not about to part with mine)! I'm thrilled to see it still in print!

Margaret Burns writes wonderfully for adolescents. It's such a tough age for kids, and they're pretty sure they're the center of the universe. Ms. Burns points out (in ways they might actually listen to) all the things that you really wish you could impress upon them, but can't since you've been relegated to the role of "dumb grown-up" for the next ten years.

She really gives them a chance to think about what kind of kid they really want to be, emphasizing that the choice is really theirs, and without telling kids what their values ought to be. (That part is stil up to parents.) It's an important lesson for kids to learn, and this book is a great tool.

This book was the first book my daughter ever picked up and read entirely on her own. She beamed with pride as she was able to sound out every word. It's simple story and helpful pictures gave her such a sense of accomplishment as she mastered her very first story. This book will have a place of honor on our bookshelf as my little reader speeds onto other more complex books and continues to develop a love for books.

This books gives each and every money-making idea a special chapter. For example, when it suggests being a party-helper, it gives you recipes and advice on how to take things out of the oven. This book would make a good present for young entrepreneurs who want more advice on how to get started.

For over twenty adventures now, Nate the Great, the young detective, has searched for his friends' missing things. He's searched for missing stamps, weeds, boring beach bags, missing pets, musical notes, stolen bases, and even saved the King of Sweden (kinda!). In all of this, his mom has been quietly supportive. He leaves a note on the refrigerator to tell her what case he's working on, that he will be back, and that he loves her. But in NATE THE GREAT AND THE MONSTER MESS, Nate investigates the disappearance of something his mother has lost: a special cookie recipe. If Nate and his dog Sludge cannot find the list, Nate will never again enjoy Strawberry Draculas, Chocolate Frankensteins, and Cinnamon Werewolves (his favorite cookie!). Nate is on the search, and he's reluctantly rounding up the usual suspects.

Marjorie Weinman Sharmat is the author of over twenty Nate the Great adventures, including NATE THE GREAT STALKS STUPIDWEED, NATE THE GREAT AND THE BORING BEACH BAG, NATE THE GREAT AND THE HALLOWEEN HUNT, and NATE THE GREAT AND THE MUSHY VALENTINE. She has written dozens of books for young readers. She named Nate the Great after her father. Her books have been named as Children's Choice books and Junior Literary Guild selections, and been picked as Books of the Year by the Library of Congress.

Although most of the Nate the Great series have been written as long stories, this book is one of the series' more recent additions to be broken into chapters. The short, punchy chapters make great stopping places for reading out loud when traveling, or to dole out as rewards-or for those nights when little listeners don't want to go to bed right away and can ask for "just one more chapter." Reading Nate the Great books out loud is always a treat, especially for the reader willing to do character voices and make the most of the terse, first-person narrative. In this book, Nate encounters Annie and her dog Fang, Rosamond and her cats, and Oliver who follows everybody-including Nate the Great on this case. Again, Marjorie Sharmat makes perfect use of logic and clues, building an intriguing mystery that young minds will ferret out and understand.

The entire Nate the Great series is recommended to younger readers and parents who love reading to their children that might have tired of (or memorized!) all of the rhyming Dr. Seuss books. This series makes a great transition to leap from to Nancy Drew or the Hardy Boys later.

My children demand this book every night, and the soothing rhythmic verse usually does the trick about the time I turn the last page. Thank you, Ms. Bennett for these very useful and loving pages.

This is one of my toddler's favorite books. He loves to look at the colorful pictures. We both were very amused by the surprise ending!

I confess this is not an unbiased review because Martha is a friend of mine, but I just have to report an incident she shared with me. As Martha read her book to group of 300 students recently she was delighted to hear some of the kids spontaneously reading along. At the end they clapped and cheered. But the real reward came when a teacher reported that an autistic boy who normally keeps his head down during assemblies had been enthralled with her reading. Back in the room the teacher checked in the child's desk, and there at the bottom was the school's copy of the book. I just bought a copy of this fun, zippy little book which I can't wait to give to my four year old grandson. I'm betting it will be a "read it again".