Birthdays Books

My kids (2-1/2, 5,7) love this book because every kid wants to please their Mom on her birthday, and every kid has had the mishaps that Jason has. They love the fact that in the end, all Jason's Mom really wants for her birthday is a hug--something that Jason had all along! Very warm and enjoyable.

I thought it would be fun to learn how to read AND be the first person to read this currently unpublished book. It was a lot of fun. I learned that Washington is not just a state -- it's a person too! Washington was born on, uh, his birthday. I was born on my birthday too, we have something in common. I thought the book was pretty good, but I have a few suggestions for the author before he actually finishes writing it. You should include a little bit more about Washington's Birthday. I thought that part was really neat.

- Jewel

"Washington's Birthday" is part of the "Best Holiday Books" series, which tells young students not only about the life of the George Washington but also how his birthday became a holiday, which eventually became Presidents' Day. Author Dennis Brindell Fradin presents Washington as "The Father of Our Country" and the most famous person in American History. This book covers Washington's life as a boy, his military career both before and during the American Revolution, and his final service as the first President. Fradin concludes by telling the various ways in which Washington has been honored, including making his birthday a national holiday. There are also suggestions for how students can celebrate Washington for Presidents' Day. "Washington's Birthday" is illustrated with paintings, drawings, and etchings, and also includes a survey of his half-brother's turnip field that Washington did when he was 16 years old.

This would make a great gift for someone with a sense of HA HA.

"Master astrologer Phyllis Vega reveals what the stars hold for you--and everyone you know. Each day's analysis offers fresh, startling accurate insights into the character, personality, relationships, and prospects for success for those who share that birthday. Learn things you never knew about your spouse or lover, your family, your closest friends--and yourself." - From the back of the box

Having researched the numerological and astrological profiles of every day of the year, prolific author, metaphysician and astrologer Phyllis Vega offers her discoveries in a handy page-a-day calendar for the year 2009.

Based on her book of the same name, What Your Birthday Reveals About You Calendar provides an in-depth personality and psychological profile from January 1-December 31, offering insights on romantic tendencies, vocational approach, temperament, preferences, deep desires, habits and sticking points.

For example, if you were born on February 19, you are drawn to the spotlight, but too much scrutiny makes you uncomfortable. You are inclined to help others because of your charitable instincts, and tend to magnetize people to you with your enthusiasm and charm. You enjoy being pampered, and are more than happy to return the favor to your lover!

However, if you were born on June 27, your volatile nature impels you to action, even to the point of being a "crusader". Yet, you always side with the underdog, always ready to defend the helpless and fight inequity, largely because your nature is charitable and caring. In fact, your attunement to others borders on psychic.

Also featuring fascinating "On This Day" sidebars as well as famous people born on a particular day, the What Your Birthday Reveals About You Page-A-Day Calendar will entertain you all throughout 2009, as well as provide uncanny insights into those around you, as well as yourself. In addition, it would make a great holiday gift for those interested in astrology, personality systems and psychological profiling!

Take care when opening the package, though, as each side is glued tightly shut. (You may have to wrestle a bit to get it open, because cutting around the sides may accidentally slit the pages!) Also--and, unfortunately, there are no directions in the box--be careful on manipulating the plastic stand so it can sit upright. I couldn't figure out what to do and almost snapped off the part that props up the calendar.

Instead, fold the central perforated part in on itself until it "snaps" into place and you can then lean, and display, your calendar on a desk or flat surface. After that, you should be good to go, having 365 interesting astrological profile for every day of the year!

Janet Boyer, author of The Back in Time Tarot Book

"Your birthday is more than just the day of the year you were born. Each day in the yearly cycle in its distinct vibrations and contains its own unique characteristics. The influence of your day of birth is one of the dynamics that distinguishes you from other people. It's a defining factor in who you are and who you hope to become." - From the book

A New Age counselor for over 30 years, author Phyllis Vega has provided seekers with exciting, practical information in books like Power Tarot, Celtic Astrology, and Your Magickal Name. In What Your Birthday Reveals About You, Vega applies her extensive knowledge of numerology and astrology to create 366 distinct profiles for each day of the year.

A lively, up-to-date guide to self-awareness, this book is divided into three sections: Part One covers the 12 signs of the Zodiac, including a relevant mythological tale conveying the symbolic meaning of the sign, Character and Personality, and Relationships. Part two explains the nine basic numbers of numerology, and the profiles for each of these root numbers. Part three, the 366 birthdays of the year, gives a comprehensive reading for each birth date. Each birthday profile contains insight on fostering natural abilities in challenging in meaningful ways, as well as noteworthy birthdays and observances associated with that day.

Melding numerology and astrology, Vega paints 366 fascinating portraits that reveals secrets and highlights strengths, revealing accurate personality quirks, motivations, preferences, and paths to fulfillment.

My birthday is November 6, and I found my profile to be eerily accurate. Here is a portion of what Vega writes for this profile:

"The charming, gregarious, and seemingly easy-going outer façade of those celebrating birthdays today camouflages as a tougher, more intense inner nature. You actually are all that you seen--idealistic, judicious, fair-minded, and honorable. But there is a part of you that his shrewd, secretive, and mistrustful of the motives of others. Moreover, you refuse to settle for quick answers or superficial assessments. You want to believe in the goodness of humanity, so you optimistically hope for the best. However, you've seen too much of the dark side of human nature not to be prepared for the worst."

My husband, a fellow Scorpio, was born on October 27. Two plus seven equals nine, so his numerical vibration for that day is nine. However I've never found the nine profile to describe him accurately in ANY numerology text. Nines are usually characterized as ambitious go getters and compassionate crusaders, and Vega highlights this in her October 27 profile. As a result, his profile is mostly inaccurate.

However, in addition to the incredible accuracy of my own profile, my dad's profile (July 11) was also quite accurate. The author mentions how these ones side step conflict with aplomb and make great managers. My Dad has served as a manager in several jobs, and he does indeed retreat into his shell when conflict arises on the home front.

At 479 pages, What Your Birthday Reveals About You brims with mythos, symbolism, personality traits, compatibility issues, sticking points, and more. Readers only need to know the day and month of birth to access amusing and often intriguing profiles of friends and loved ones. While this book may not be a 100% accurate manual (what book on human personality CAN be?), it is thorough, engaging, and informative. What Your Birthday Reveals About You would be a great ice-breaker at parties and would no doubt provide some interesting fodder at family reunions and gatherings!

Janet Boyer, author of The Back in Time Tarot Book: Picture the Past, Experience the Cards, Understand the Present (coming Fall 2008 from Hampton Roads Publishing)

The narration sounds like a cake recipe, and the illustrations show trucks, but Who Made This Cake? is neither a cookbook nor a truck book. Instead, readers gain an entirely new perspective of a fleet of construction vehicles in action baking a relatively large cake from scratch. In another twist from the ordinary, the vehicles and their operators are all miniature versions of their true sizes, while the cake and the ingredients are drawn to scale. Adults and children alike will enjoy guessing the true functions and names of construction vehicles that are not usually depicted as sucking up cake batter from a bowl and pumping it into a pan. Mixed into the merriment are economics lessons based on human, capital, and natural resources that go into the production process.

Buy this book if you love farming and cows. Even though I'm not a lover of either of those, I'm thrilled to have the Birthday section of this book. After the address section, each month has a page where you can write in people's birthdays beside the date. It really helps me send my cards on time by allowing me to look at the month in a glance. Also each year I no longer have to transfer everybody's birthday over to my annual calandar.

My children loved this story. This is a wonderful tale about how a child sees Rosh Hashana in comparison or reference to her own world. If the world was created on Rosh Hashana, it MUST be the world's birthday therefore we need . . .

If I had known that so many great authors had written a short story in this book, I probably would have read it a long time ago. Unfortunately, I didn't read it until now, but what I read of it was excellent. Honestly, I didn't read all of the stories. I picked through for the ones by authors that I knew and liked. I especially liked David Levithan's story, and also Sonya Sones's. Although most of the stories in the book were great. I would recommend it.

Megan McCafferty's edited collection of short stories "Sixteen" contains sixteen stories about being or turning sixteen.

If you aren't familiar with Megan McCafferty - she is the author of the wildly popular 'Jessica Darling' series, if you can call it that. Sloppy Firsts, Second Helpings, and Charmed Thirds (a fourth is on its way) are three books that cover a young woman's journey through most of high school and college. There is in fact a short story on Jessica Darling about the last 15 minutes she spends before her best friend Hope leaves town (which is exactly where the series picks up from shortly afterwards).

The other fifteen stories in the book are all extremely varied, but the majority of them are quite good. I'm not a short story fan by any means, but unfortunately have to tackle the task of writing one this term - and this book was so well-compiled and written it inspired me quite a bit. Some of my fave stories were probably "Infinity", "The Many Lives of Emily Milty", and "The Perfect Kiss" - most of them were really good, a couple were not my fave as they seemed to really stray from the subject and style of the book, but it's hard to judge what makes a good short story to everyone.

The one critique I do give to the authors of these short stories is there was a consistent theme of either - kissing (specifically first kisses or momentous kisses) or discovering/experiementing with being gay. Not all sixteen year olds are that confused about their sexuality - yet at least half of the stories in the book dealt with that topic, I guess to provoke some more intense emotions or meaning.

If you are expecting a novel specifically in the style of Megan McCafferty - don't. Her story is hers, just as each other's is their own. I personally found this to be a well organized collection, with plenty of hits to compensate for the couple of quasi-'misses'. If you like young adult fiction, you'll probably dig this book.

Final Grade: A-

I read all the stories, but some were not so enjoyable. I would recommend getting this from the library, or purchasing if you don't have high expectations of liking every single story in the collection. However, since there is a wide range of stories, I think everyone should be able to find some they enjoy. My personal favorites were "Cat got your tongue?" by Sonya Sones and "The Alumni Interview" by Devid Levithan. I also enjoyed the stories by Sarah Dessen, Sarah Mlynowski, Julianna Baggott, and Megan McCafferty. These stories, for me, made reading the book worthwhile.

I don't disagree with a majority of the reviewers for this book. I thought nearly every story was amazing. My favorites were probably Cowgirls and Indie Boys, Relent/Persist, and Grief Diet. I think a bit of a problem was people were expecting one primary genre, like Sloppy Firsts and Second Helpings variety books, but this book offers a plethora of different authors, styles, and perspectives on the teen years. I was drawn to the more eccentric stories, but all readers can find one they like. I highly recommend this book.

I really enjoyed reading this book because it has so many different points of view on being sixteen. This book gives the reader a wide range of opinions from girls and boys. Megan McCafferty chooses a series of writers in her book to write a story about being sixteen. She said she choose a series of Authors with whom she respects and since there are many good pieces of writing in this book I have to say I agree with her and I also respect their writing too. Sixteen deals with many events that occur when turning sixteen such as learning to drive, getting your license, dealing with boyfriends/girlfriends, friendships and just life in general as a teenager. I have to say my favorite story is "Mona Lisa, Chad, and Me" by Carolyn Mackler. This piece of writing in the book deals with balancing a boyfriend and your friendships. This is my favorite because with me being sixteen I can really relate to this one particular experience, because I have also been through something similar. This is another reason why the book is so good because I believe there is a story in here for every one, even adults. I say Adults because this book can take them back to remember a lot of good times they had as teens and even help them relate to their own kids if they have any. Overall I really enjoyed this book and I would recommend it to any one who is up for some laughs and a pleasant read.