Childrens Days Books

My family is a singing family and this book is a fun way to read and sing the words. My girls find the book fun and enjoy hearing my try to sing the funny tunes that the procupine creates while searching for his mate. This book is a lot of fun for all of us.

This is a darling story of love and true friendship. The sing-song prose is fun to read aloud and the illustrations are wonderful.

We both loved this story. The porcupine lives in a petting zoo and is very lonely as you can imagine. He ventures out to find a wife in the zoo but only ends up making the other animals mad. He finally finds his true love. Sure to be a favorite in your house too. Recommended for ages 4-12 years.

Way cute story. Great for reading to children or to your pricky husband!

What a wonderful picture book! This book will continue to delight children and the lucky adults who get to read along. The art is wonderful too. Lucky for us there's a sequel to this book.

My kids absolutely love Racer Buddies. What a great idea to write a kids book about auto racing, especially one that is interesting, entertaining, and beautifully illustrated.

The book is well-balanced in that the author has subtlely incorporated educational information about the auto racing sport without being heavy-handed and ruining the story.

The characters are so well crafted and the illustrations so compellingly drawn that my kids are not only interested while we're reading the story, but they can't stop talking about Ace, Snap, and Spark the rest of the day. We can't wait for the next Racer Buddies.

Although the book is a big hit with my 3-year old and 5-year old, I think it would be interesting for older kids as well, especially those already interesed in NASCAR racing.

As a guy interested in racing, I needed a counterbalance to the horse stories my wife was reading to our young son. I picked up a copy of racer buddies. Actually, I bought three to give away some gifts. My son likes it that much. After just the first read, he was caught up in the drama of Ace trying to defend his record at Daytona. And that he has some other buddies to race and learn with. He keeps telling me that "Ace has a broken wheel, but the man fixed it" since there is a great animation of Ace in the pits with the wheel off.

So I have 2 pieces of advice:
1) buy the book and enjoy it with your kids
2) keep an eye out for the next one. I think there is a real series in here, something that can keep kids occupied...and something with a little more crossover appeal than thomas the train or a horse story ;-)

Racer Buddies is a perfect book for NASCAR fans and their children. A great story, loaded with racing vocabulary (glossary included) and, best of all, fantastic illustrations. William Harper's drawings are full of action and personality. One can almost hear the roar of the engines and smell the cars' exhaust. I'll be ordering all the NASCAR books for my library. Here's a little secret for readers who are not familiar with Mr. Harper's creative art work - look for the chickens cleverly hidden in the drawings. There are at least seven!

I got this book for several friends to read to their kids...moms, dads, kids, they all loved it. Beautiful illustrations, great story. Hope there will be more to come.

My daughters love this book and my husband loves reading it to them. The characters are interesting, the pictures engaging, and the story keeps us turning the pages. We can't wait for the next one to come out.

The artwork is beautiful and imaginative, the stories can be read like folktales. This book is really beautiful. I used this as a tool for teaching saints in Catechism class, and loved the book so much I bought it for my own home. I've read this book to 1st graders and to fourth graders and both grades were fully engaged in the stories.

This is a wonderful treasury of stories.

Saints for young readers tells about the life of a saint whose feast day it is that day. It is on the reading level of about a 3rd grader, though, with very few pictures in the book, it may take a 4th grader to be interested in it. These one to two page stories are enjoyable and about a variety of saints. As the back cover says, "In these books [IE. the two volumes which cover the year] you will meet saints from every nation and race, from centuries long past right down to recent times. You will come to know saintly kings and workers, queens and housemaids, popes and priests, nuns and religious brothers. They were doctors and farmers, soldiers and lawyers, mothers and fathers, teenagers and children. These great and humble men and women prayed and worked, and never gave up trusting in Jesus. You can be like them too." At the end of each story there is some way suggested that you can apply some principle of the saint's life into the daily lives of children.
If you are looking for picture books on saints you may want to read my reviews of over 30 books on the saints.

This is a beautifully illustrated collection of stories about saints and faith-oriented legends. The text is easy to read and well-suited to children age 9 years on up to adults. The story-telling style is wonderful...a great book for big kids to read to their younger brothers and sisters, and for parents and teachers to share with their classes.

Saints for young readers tells about the life of a saint whose feast day it is that day. It is on the reading level of about a 3rd grader, though, with very few pictures in the book, it may take a 4th grader to be interested in it. These one to two page stories are enjoyable and about a variety of saints. As the back cover says, "In these books [IE. the two volumes which cover the year] you will meet saints from every nation and race, from centuries long past right down to recent times. You will come to know saintly kings and workers, queens and housemaids, popes and priests, nuns and religious brothers. They were doctors and farmers, soldiers and lawyers, mothers and fathers, teenagers and children. These great and humble men and women prayed and worked, and never gave up trusting in Jesus. You can be like them too." At the end of each story there is some way suggested that you can apply some principle of the saint's life into the daily lives of children.
If you are looking for picture books on saints you may want to read my reviews of over 30 books on the saints.

The previous reviews are about a different book. STandL is not a comprehensive educational manual about the lives of saints. It is a beautifully illustrated collection of inspiring folk tales and saints' stories told in a manner that adults and children will enjoy. This would be a great gift book for ages eight on up, although my five-year-old enjoys having the stories read to him.

My daughter loves this book. If your kids like Starwberry Shortcake then they'll like this. Strawberry forgets her lunch at home and her friends share their lunches with her. Cute idea about friends sharing. The pictures are very fun too, colorful and interesting.

My daughter is starting to get into Strawberry Shortcake and she really likes this book. She is also starting pre-school soon so it has been a good book to prep her for that.
I do feel that there are too many words so I summarize and skip some parts.

My four year old daughter loves this book. She is a huge Strawberry Shortcake fan and this book is very cute.

You really can't go wrong with SS! All the books and movies are wholesome and entertaining. I love reading them to my daughter and watching the movies with her. Actually, my son loves them too but would never admit it to his friends (he's 9). Good thing he has a little sister ;)

I bought this for my daughter the summer before starting kindergarten and she loved it. I read many "going to school for the first time" books that summer and this was a favorite.

My little girl started Kindergarten this year and I bought this book to help encourage her to look past her shyness and fears of meeting new people. This book starts off with Strawberry being excited about meeting the kids in her class and also she has to decide what clothes she wants to wear. The pictures are colorful and very pretty.

The book also goes through lunchtime, naptime, and recess. At the end of the book she tells her friends that she will see them tomorrow, which really was great for my daughter. She loves the fact that she has a bunch of friends.

I have another book about Strawberry. "Sleep Over" is the title and its also a favorite of my daughters. Get them both- you won't regret it.

This is the second best book that I have ever read. The first is Karen Day's next book (No Cream Puffs) coming out in May.

I happened to get into bed late the night I read Tall Tales, intending to read a bit, get a taste for the story, and put it down until the next night. Karen Day is responsible for my night of not enough sleep - I actually didn't put it down until it was finished. Tall Tales is one of those rare books that take you gently but firmly by the hand and don't let go until you reach the end. I read with trepidation and hope, waiting to see what would happen.

The beauty of this book lies in its realism. Meg and her family could be your neighbors or perhaps even your own family. Karen Day is a master of creating characters who rise from the pages and seem to have life and breath of their own. You will continue to think and wonder about them after you have closed the book. Isn't that the hallmark of a great book?!

As an adult who also reads novels for young adults, I found the book's utter lack of the cloying sentimentality which can creep into the genre so refreshing. People of any age will enjoy this story and I highly recommend it.

Kudos to Karen Day for writing such an accurate and upbeat book about a family struggling with alcoholism! Tall Tales is not preachy or showy and that's what's so brilliant about it. The power of the story lies in its understated and subtle wisdom. How challenging to write a book for middle schoolers which includes a dysfunctional family without making it "a downer". And how refreshing to see a nurturing mother trying her best without being blamed. As a child psychologist, I love how accurately Day portays the ways that Meg copes with her family's secrets. Day's hypnotic message that its OK to want more out of life and love comes through loud and clear. I hope that young teens read this book and see how empowering it can be to enlist others to find a way out of family pain.

Karen Day's TALL TALES tells of Meg, starting sixth grade in yet another new school, and determined to find a best friend. When she meets Grace she believes she's finally found that friend - but Meg has family secrets, and must invent some big lies to hide them. A moving story of what makes for friendship - and what's involved in lying - evolves.

"Tall Tales" isn't flashy. It doesn't leap off of the bookshelf and start screaming about how necessary it is for you to buy buy buy. There are no sparkles, flashy lights, or marauding dragons in evidence. It's slow. Soft. A book manages to tell its tale in a supremely careful fashion. I'll level with you here: It's good but it doesn't stick in your brain the way a gaudy Clique novel might. If you're looking for fireworks and lightshows, direct your attention elsewhere pronto. If, instead, you want a well-written title about friends, lies, and family secrets "Tall Tales" is a decent way to go. A good book.

Meg wants a friend. Badly. Desperately, you might say. When she and her family move to Lake Haven, Indiana it isn't the first move Meg's had to put up with. It's not even the second, third, or fourth. With a father that continually claims to have stopped drinking, Meg and her siblings learned long ago that having friends meant keeping them as far away from their home life as possible. Meg's gone one step further, though. She's come up with elaborate lies to fill in the unassuming or embarrassing gaps in her life. When she begins to grow close to a girl in her class by the name of Grace, it's like she's found her other half. But how long will Meg be able to cover for the fact that much of what she's been telling Grace is a lie? Soon enough she could learn that sometimes the most outrageous tales you come up with are the ones you tell to yourself.

It takes a while to figure out that Meg's a liar. When you first hear her spout off a whopper about her dad being a doctor from Tasmania, you go for it. I mean, it wasn't so crazy a lie that I didn't believe it myself. So convincing was the lie, in fact, that I thought that Chapter One was narrated by one girl and Chapter Two by another. I actually had to flip back and forth for a while to better determine what was going on. So maybe a little clarification would have helped the writing at the start. For example, the first time we meet Meg's little sister Abby she isn't necessarily introduced. It's one of those narrative techniques where a character just gradually comes into focus as the story continues. The fact that this book acknowledges the truly slow nature of change can either be seen as the story's strength or weakness. Nothing here happens too quickly. Make of that what you will.

With the veritable plethora of broken families in children's literature, it's funny that I can't come up with another children's title containing an alcoholic family member to compare to this book. I don't really have to, of course. Day has a good handle on the situation and presents it accurately here. You can watch the charm of the alcoholic and his heartfelt apologies post-abuse. Every antagonist should display multiple sides if a children's book is going to carry any weight at all. It's all the more effective, then, to have the father dancing giddily with the mom one moment and then shaking the daughter violently for dropping some hamburgers the next. The writing is nice as well. Certain descriptions will sometimes catch the eye unawares. Sentences like, "Her shoulders fill her sweaters until there doesn't seem to be one millimeter of space left."

By the way, as a former resident of Kalamazoo I was amused that the town was (in a sense) one of the final straws in finally deciding to try to get away from the dad in this story. All that aside, "Tall Tales" isn't necessarily forgettable, but it does demand a bit of hand selling and word-of-mouth. Consider it subdued and supremely readable.

This book was great for helping plan my son's kindergarten valentine party. The snack ideas were super and pretty easy to assemble. The highlight of the book is the valentine bingo game where everyone wins at the same time. The children just loved the game as they all shouted "bingo" at the same time. We also did the ice cube game and the cupid game. Both were also big hits with the children! I would highly recommend this book for any class parent needing some creative ideas for kids from 5+.

With all the crafts, snacks, and games, you will have everyone entertained for years to come. This book is great for classrooms, parents, day cares, work, & more. Perfect paired with Valentine Boxes.

Wonderful Book - Pleae make more like this!!

What a wonderful book. Valentine parties are always a favorite the crafts/activies are warming to ones heart. Every room parents or hostess/host needs this book for any type of party. Suggestion purchase the complete set.

I run an after-school program for a non-profit organization with children that range in age from 6 to 14. It's very difficult to plan holiday events that will interest all the kids, but I got some great ideas from this book! It covers everything from games, to crafts and special treats. While most of the activities are geared towards the younger crowd, I was able to extract some ideas for the older kids as well. A very well organized and creative book!

an adorable gift for father's day.we read the book together and it's something that we would cherish in the years to come as our son grows up.

A must read on every fathers day and a must read for every father.

I read this book to my little sister every night and we both were very fascinated by the sweet story. The book is very nice and lovely. I recommend this book to everyone who loves his children and wants to read it to them.

I read this book to my little brother and he really enjoyed it! It's lovely and very sweet!

If you have little siblings you must read it to them!

We are big turtle fans. This book has very nice pictures of turtles. They are so lovely. I have a collection of different kinds of turtles and this book fits perfectly to it. We love this book. Buy and read it!

As a kindergarten teacher I've already used this lovely book as the basis for working with children. The 3- to 6-year-olds love looking at the illustrations and having the story read out to them. We talked about their parents' jobs and their own dream jobs. We also talked about the kids' favorite pets. Then the children drew pictures based on that. We even organised a little exhibition of those drawings in our kindergarten. "When I Grow Up ..." is a really nice book!

i'm not sure why this collection is so highly rated; maybe it's because it's the end of the claremont/byrne run.
the tpb is a disjointed collection, which goes from the x-men going through the 9 levels of hell a la dante's inferno, to wolverine and nightcrawler in canada fighting the wendigo, to some x-men fighting mystique and the brotherhood trying to kill senator kelly, to kitty pryde and some other x-men trying to change the past and thus the future.
altogether they are solid if somewhat unrelated stories.

ok let me clarify...x-men 141 and 142, the days of future past, is a great classic comics storyline. but this tpb collects some unrelated stories before and after i guess just to be longer, so it kind of throws off the storyline if you think this whole tpb is one long connected story which it isn't.

This are the two comic books that thrust just about every encarnation of the X-Men into a whole new ball game. Did you ever watch the old X-Men cartoon in the 90's where politicians were about to mess with mutants? Remember the Sentinels? How about X-Men Evolution? Sound familiar? What about the first X-Men movie? That's right folks. All these shows have this in common: whole story arcs based on Days of Future Past.

These two comics started it all. It launched ideas for numerous future/alternate timeline stories in the X-Men comics as well. The trade paperback reprints issues 141 and 142, but I hear they added more issues with new printings. Doesn't matter which one you get because to me is the focal point is those two issues. Still getting more comic for your money isn't bad. Especially when they are all written by Chris Claremont (whom I consider THE scribe for the X-Men).

Why do these comics hold so much clout? This was something totally new to comicdom. Stan Lee never fled from serious content, and racial profiling is what you have here. The story shows a future where mutants are stripped of their human rights and are regarded as inferior. The parallels between this story and what happened in Nazi Germany are obvious, but it puts a different angle on the issue that makes it something younger audiences can click with.

The artwork is solid and striking without being gaudy and flashy. The background (future) story you get is going to blow you away. And the "modern" activity will give you the classic team you know and love. There is no reason for any X-Fan not to have this TPB... other than if you have the original issues.

"X-Men: Days of Future Past" is the epilogue to the Dark Phoenix saga, the swan song for the team of writer Chris Claremont and penciler Johny Byrne as the co-plotters for "The Uncanny X-Men," and the arrival of Kitty Pryde as the newest and youngest pupil in Charles Xavier's School for Gifted Youngsters on Graymalkin Lane outside the Westchester County Township of Salem Center. What you will find in this trade paperback collection are issues #138-143 of "The Uncanny X-Men" and Annual #4, where the artwork is handled by John Romita, Jr. & Bob McLeod.

"Elegy" (#138) begins with Jean Grey's funeral and ends with Scott Summers leaving the X-Men for a while. It really is the true epilogue to the Dark Phoenix saga and most of the issue is a walk down memory lane, recapping the history of the X-Men from when Jean first showed up at the school. Fans of the series will enjoy recognizing issues from the past (remember Grotesk and the Living Pharaoh).

The Annual story, "Nightcrawler's Inferno," has a demon who is fighting Doctor Strange yanking the X-Men off into another dimension, leaving Professor X and Kitty behind. This one involves a more classical interpretation of Hell, what with Minos and Cerberus from Dante coming into play, but like most Annual stories seems a bloated attempt to do something big as opposed to the much bigger impact of a solid multi-part story (see below).

"...Something Wicked This Way Comes!" (#139) has Kitty being introduced to training in the Danger Room, and Wolverine and Nightcrawler head to Canada to meet up with Alpha Flight and an old problem. That would be the Wen-Di-Go, who they fight in "Rage!" (#140), while Ororo takes Kitty to dance lessons with Stevie Hunter. Then we get to the two-part story that gives this collection its title and which remains a classic X-Men story.

"Days of Future Past" (#141) begins with Kate Pryde making her way through a New York City slum in the 21st century (remember, these stories were published in 1980). She is meeting Logan and wearing an inhibitor collar that neutralizes her power to phase through solid objects and an "M" that marks here as a mutant (number 187 in fact). At the South Bronx Mutant Internment Center she walks by graves of the victims of the Sentinels, which includes most of the X-Men and all of the Fantastic Four. Only four X-Men remain: Logan, Ororo, Kate and her husband Peter, and are joined by a wheel-chair bound Magneto, Franklin Richards and his girlfriend, Rachel, a telepath. There last hope is to change the future by changing the past, when the Brotherhood of Evil Mutants murder presidential candidate Robert Kelly and others. To do this, Rachel sends the mind of Kate Pryde back to the present to inhabit her body at age 13.

"Mind Out of Time!" (#142) juxtaposes the battle in the present between the X-Men and the Brotherhood, with the attempt by the few remaining mutants in the future trying to keep Kate's body alive and away from the Sentinels. You know how this one is going to work out in the end, but Claremont and Bryne know how to milk the emotions. This two-parter is the reason that fans of the series would want this one on their shelf.

"Demon" (#143) is basically Kitty Pryde "Home Alone," as the X-Men go out to a Christmas party. While doing a basic gymnastic workout in the Danger Room, an intruder enters the mansion and Kitty finds herself going up against an alien monster. I would say that the alien monster actually looks a bit like the monster in "Alien," but you will find that there are other aspects of that film that come into play as well. Basically this is Kitty's baptism under fire and underscores that "X-Men: Days of Future Past" is ultimately about the littlest X-Man.

I am in complete agreement with the other reviewer's sentiments regarding the "Dark Phoenix" saga. There's just one problem: THIS IS NOT A REPRINTING OF THE DARK PHOENIX SAGA!!! This is a reprint of the also classic "Day's of Future Past" storyline, which was also penned by Chris Claremont and John Byrne. That storyline actually consists of only two issues, but for this latest edition the good folks at Marvel were kind enough to also include issues 138-140, and issue 143 in addition to issues 141-142. A wonderful collection consisting of the issues that FOLLOWED the "Dark Phoenix Saga". This book also features one of the best comic book battles ever as the X-men face off against the new Brotherhood of Evil Mutants. So buy this book people, but please Amazon, get your act together.

Though it's really only a two-issue event with more stuff crammed around it in this graphic novel, everything about Days of Future Past is just plain awesome X-Men adventures from the golden age of Chris Claremont's prolific run on the title. Picking up after the Dark Phoenix Saga, Cyclops quits the team and reminisces about all the events that took place up until the death of Jean Grey, Wolverine gets his classic brown costume for the first time (and gets called Logan for the first time too) as he treks to Canada and takes on the Wendigo. Angel rejoins the team, and Kitty Pryde becomes a new member as well, just in time as the X-Men get a visit from the future, and we get a glimpse at the future world ruled by Sentinels and get to see the future versions of Magneto, Wolverine, Storm, and Colossus get slaughtered. This prompts the present day X-Men to stop an assassination plot of Senator Kelly by Mystique and co., and concludes with a demonic Christmas visit. The art by classic X-Men penciler John Byrne and early art by the great John Romita, Jr. has been remastered here and it looks great, as does the revamped cover by Byrne. All in all, Days of Future Past was one of the best stories from the golden age of X-Men comics, and while not as influential or groundbreaking as the Dark Phoenix Saga that came before it, if you missed out on it, then you've missed out on a great deal.

I am on a one year leave from teaching second grade to stay home with my 5 month old. The teacher in me purchased this product because I wanted to make sure my baby was not missing out on any learning. I wish I would have discovered it sooner as the guide is set up for babies not able to sit up, babies able to sit up, and babies able to crawl. It gives activities to do at each of these stages. It is easy to use and activities are divided into categories: listening and talking, physical development, creative and learning from the work around them. We were already doing some of the activities included, but the book offers many ideas I would not have thought of. Overall, I feel it is a great resource to have.

As a first time mom,of a child with special needs to boot, I had no idea. This book and the others in the series are great resources for finding things to do with your child other than watching Teletubbies for the thousandth time. If your child needs extra help in a certain area, like fine motor or listening skills, you can easily find a variety of exercises to help here. The later books in the series (Threes, Fours, and Fives) would also be a great resource for a homeschooling parent.

It's almost overwhelming. There is no way you can spend this much time teaching everything, but it's nice to be able to pick and choose fun things to do with your baby. It's easy to use in a well thought out layout from birth on, divided by sensory perception.

Not just for daycare! I am a first-time, stay-at-home mom and needed a way to tell if I was "doing all the right stuff" in regards to play, development, speech, music, etc. This book gives you exercises that are so easy for each stage of the first year of life. There is not a lot to read like a typical baby care book, but each section outlines what the child should be accomplishing and gives you exercises to ensure that your child reaches those development milestones. If you can look past the idea that it is written for daycare providers, you will find this book extremely helpful. I knew I was giving my child all he needed because I had these exercises to use as a handy guide. Good luck to you!

I absolutly recommend this book for all providers working with infants. It is loaded with ideas and learning expeirences for babies. A must for providers and mothers who want to expand their child's learning!

I just discovered this great book. Alicia is an interesting character who must deal with a bad mood. The art is a bit primitive, but bright and colorful. I love this book and so does my 4 year-old!

I just discovered this great book. Alicia is an interesting character who must deal with a bad mood. The art is a bit primitive, but bright and colorful. I love this book and so does my 4 year-old!

Where else will you find the word lugubrious, especially in a book for children? This book is excellent for all the reasons stated by the other reviews, as well as a vocabulary builder!

This book is a delight for readers of all ages. The pictures are vibrant and energetic. The things Alicia does are the same things I do when I have a bad day (except for smooshing ant hills). I want everyone to read this book!!!

I thought this book dealt really well with the issue of kids having bad days. I read this to my first grade class and they had a lot to say about how they deal with their own bad days. It's great to see a book (besides Alexander and the terrible, no good, very bad day) addressing the fact that young people have bad days, too! Alicia gets herself out of her bad day on her own accord. She is a great, spunky character. Her dog is a treat, too. I hope Jahn-Clough will write more about Alicia. She could be an important character and role model.