Childrens Days Books

"Hickok's Gold" is a fine second installment in the Kaye family vacation series. Like the first book, "Bowleg's Bounty," there are really two stories unfolding for the reader. Young readers will enjoy making connections between the story being told by Mr. Kaye each night around the campfire and the events that transpire during the family's vacation. Any family that has gone on camping vacations will enjoy this book. Mr. Kropp's accounts of the highs and lows of family camping ring true. The book should work as a read aloud at bedtime book, as well as a book for young readers to read on their own.

When Benjamin and Martin arrived in the Black Hills with their parents, Mr. Kaye was ready with campfire stories of Cowboys, Indians, and the Gold Fields that sparked danger and a host of legendary characters. A fascinating and engaging story of adventure that blurs the distinction between fantasy and reality, there are ancient riddles to be solved and a quest for wild Bill Hickok's lost gold mine to be made. Author Joseph Kropp is a superb storyteller and "Hickock's Gold" is a deftly crafted novel that will hold the reader's full attention from first page to last. Also very highly recommended is Kropp's previous novel, "Bowleg's Bounty".

I recently read Joseph Kropp's Hickok's Gold and was enthralled by the story. I can recommend it to anyone who enjoys a good yarn about the old west, or the new west. It's really two books in one, one story about intrigue in the old west, and the other about vacationing brothers who share an adventure unravelling an old west mystery. Dr. Kropp does a superb balancing act with the two tales, keeping the reader guessing and always wanting more. I never wanted to put the book down.
I read Dr. Kropp's Bowleg's Bounty, primarily a pirate story (very exciting), and he has elevated his game with his second effort. His writing has matured, and Hickok's Gold will be a satisfying read not only for those interested in stories of the old west, but for those who appreciate good storytelling in any genre. Buy it, enjoy it, and spread the word: There's a new writer in town, and he's a good 'un.

"Before long, they climbed into the van for the short trip to Deadwood. The boys couldn't believe their eyes when they arrived. There was a real Wild West town, just like their father had been describing in his campfire stories." ~ pg. 124

Joseph Kropp is an excellent storyteller, and as he weaves two stories together, a family on vacation experiences the excitement of the Wild West. Throughout the vacation in the Black Hills, the story of Wild Bill Hickock and his gold mine introduces children to real characters who live in a world of intrigue. The creative introduction in a dream leads to real-life adventure as Benjamin and Martin learn to ride horses, sleep out under the stars and meet bear cubs.

"Dawn and the faint beginnings of the new day found Destiny and Buck at the western edge of the Badlands - a mystical, wind-swept, collection of hills and valleys, ringed with the intense, soft colors of the earth. A morning mist hung like a feather bed over the barren landscape, welcoming Destiny home." ~ pg. 139

Destiny is a girl who is separated from her family during a battle and is a member of the Sioux nation. She is part of the story in the past told by the father and we also learn about Chief Sitting Bull and General Custer. Joseph Kropp excels at describing the landscape and creates an adventure infused with reality and imagination.

~The Rebecca Review

I couldn't improve upon the previous reviews - I agree with them all! Recently, I had the opportunity to give this book to several friends and family members as shower gifts. It was a huge hit! Every person made a point to tell me how special it was ... sometimes more than once. Apparently, their extended family members had come across the book and fallen in love with it, too. The usual comment was, "Wow! What a great book! Who gave it to you?" Needless to say, I was very pleased to know it was such a joy for all the new parents & families.

A note from the author: I'm hoping that this lovely, tender book touches and warms the heart of the reader. "I Know I am Loved" reminds all of us of those glorious moments of joy and discovery as we met our precious baby outside of the womb for the first time! This book is a pure celebration of the miracle of birth, and the outpouring of love from parents to baby. Keepsake pages in the back of the book allow parents to journal, add photos, and capture dear memories. Enjoy this beautiful keepsake book for yourself, or give it as a wonderful memento to celebrate life!
May our great God and Creator hold your families close as you cherish and nurture your precious children! Blessings from Dolores G. Mize

I am a first time expectant mom and I love this book! I am due in October and I have read this book a million times already. It makes me weepy in anticipation everytime! My husband and I are especially looking forward to writing out memories of the pregnancy and birth in the back. When I ordered the book, I also ordered an extra copy for a friend who is also expecting. It will make a wonderful shower gift. I highly recommend this book for anyone who is expecting or has already had a little bundle of joy!!

This book is a beautiful story about the first moments of a baby's life. It is written from the baby's perspective as they sense their new environment and meet their parents. The baby learns how much they are loved by their parents. It is filled with wonderful black and white photographs of newborns and they show the love parents have for their baby. There is one photo that almost makes you feel like you are holding the baby in the picture and the baby is looking straight into your eyes; it reminds me of when I held my own children. This book brings tears of joy to my wife every time she reads it. The last few pages offer a place to write some memories of the birth of your child, which your child would cherish as they too read this book in years to come. It would make a great gift to any parent, especially those that are expecting or just gave birth. Get several copies; you'll want to give this one to all the new parents you know.

My 14 month old loves the book. She can study the bright shapes and colors for several minutes. The text is short but sweet.

I think this is a great book for infants. the dazzel atrracts the baby and he laughs and smile everytime I read to him it is great.

I think this book is great for infants it really attracts them because of the dazzle and the book also ryhmes. my baby loves it and always smiles when i read it to him.

I have ALL of the Razzle Dazzle books and this one is my favorite. It is in the form of a poem, with each page being a line telling something else that "I love". It's fun to read and easy to learn. When I am somewhere with my son and he is getting fussy, I start reciting, "I love the sun, I love the moon, ..." and I have his full attention and he settles down to hear the rest. A wonderful book!

This is a classic young childs book. Told through the eyes of a young boy the book takes on a real young child feel. The rhyming words that make it easy to read and the bright expressive pictures have captivated my young childrens imagination.
I would recommend this book and also the first book by these two creative individuals; The Boston Ballonies.

We found this book while vacationing in Maine and it's beautifully illustrated, rhymes, funny, ironic, a good book to enjoy. It's probably perfect for a 3-5 year old but a 2 year old and older kids would probably enjoy it too.

Loved this book. It is for children and will be enjoyed by the adults reading it to them. The illustrating is great. Highly recommend.

I got this book because my son loved the "Boston Balloonies" so much and this had the same illustrator and author. This book tells the story through the eyes of the little boy, so the illustrations are even more expressive. The bright colors and expressive facial expressions on the characters helped captivate my 1 and a half year old. I'll admit that he doesn't have the attention span to get through the whole book yet, but I imagine that it would be perfect for kids starting at 2 and going all the way through grade school.

Just like Boston Balloonies, the text rhymes in a "Suess-ish" fashion, so that also is great for little ears.

It's a nice hard-cover binding with full-color pages. It's not a board book, but the pages are thick enough to not tear easily. Great price!

This clever, rhyming dinosaur book is as much fun for the adults who read it, as the kids who listen. And it is very informative in the process. I love to give books as gifts. This one would be wondeful for children of all ages!

Original, witty, delightful and informative. A book for children and adults to read together - and there's no telling who will enjoy it more. I hope Howard Temperley will do more such books.

We have six grandchildren aged from 3 to 8 and they have all loved this book. Informative and fun at the same time, it can be read aloud to the little ones and savoured silently by the older ones. All ages will enjoy the delightful illustrations which complement the text.

Teresa O'Brien and John White

This is veteran writer Howard Temperley's first children's book, but it is hoped it won't be his last! It is a delightful "rhyming romp" as the subtitle suggests and children will love the poems, while parents and teachers will also enjoy reading them aloud. I especially like "Dinosaur Nightmare" which is scary and funny at the same time. A accessible book like this can spark an interest in finding out more about dinosaurs. The colorful illustrations by Michael Kline are delightful and children will respond to them.

My 8 year old son loves this book. He's not a big reader but loves all the facts and strange things this book compares. I would highly recommend it for children.

This book has many facts and pictures which are truly incredible, and the text is well written and researched. However, for me anyway, the layout of the pages was such that it was quite overwhelming. Things were placed here and there in what seemed like almost a random fashion, and I found myself always feeling like I was missing something. I felt almost relieved to be done reading this, which is too bad, as it's really a neat book and I wanted so much to enjoy it more. My feeling might just be because I am older than the target age for readers, and a younger reader raised in the information age entirely would probably not have that problem at all!

This book is enticing to the eye and the mind! It's chock full of pictures, graphs, and charts that help define just how big a blue whale is, or just how long the Titanic is, or just how many people were killed by the Plague! It's absolutely fascinating for children AND their parents!! I was almost more excited than my son was about it!

Incredible! Just incredible! Russel Ash's "Incredible Comparisons" is a lively book that sends across amazing facts and comparisons about all sorts of subjects. Such subjects include politics, the environment, city life, space, people, geography, money, big buildings, and many more. The whole book keeps the reader on his/her toes, completely facinated with all the surprising facts and comparisons that are displayed. On every page I was inclined to say, "Wow! I never knew that before!" I think it is fair to say that the title is very appropriate; it is certainly incredible because I found out so many interesting details about our world, which Russel Ash so skillfully shows in this book.

The kids in my second grade class loved this book! We used it to talk about geography and used a globe to find the different countries mentioned in the book.

I used this book during the first week of school with my sixth grade World Geopgraphy class. The stories gave my students a great peek at the lives of children around the world and led them to compare how school and life are the same (and different) for children everywhere.

I think the book would be appropriate for children throughout the elementary and intermediate years.

What a wonderful and warm way to show the amazing similarities and differences among children around the world! A charming book and one that will endure. The author captures the excitement of children returning to school in a lovely way.

This is a fabulous book for expanding children's curiosity and knowledge of other cultures. Every child can relate to the challenge and excitement of the first day of school. Children from Peru, India, Australia, China, Japan and many other countries tell what a typical day of school is like. Each child who speaks has a unique personality. A great resource for teachers, parents, and children.

You are rotten, you are crummy
nasty, smelly, and a dummy
you are absolutely awful
and your breath should be unlawful.

You are ugly, you are simple,
and your brain is like a pimple,
you should soak your head in brine....
WON'T YOU BE MY VALENTINE?

The above is titled VALENTINE FOR A FRIEND and it's from this excellent book for early readers. It's true my son is a little too young (almost three) to understand all the words, but he likes the poetic sounds. Maybe he'll grow up into a poet. Of course, most of the poems are not about rotten, crummy dummies, the one above just happens to be my favorite.

Mr. Prelutsky has penned a nice little book that is perfect for reading to a two-year-old child before he or she falls off to sleep. I used to read this one sometimes at naptime. The soothing sounds of the rhymes would put Devon to sleep. Of course now, nothing does. He just plain hates naps. Something about being almost three.

Also the pictures inked by Mr. Yossi have kept my son pointing at the pages and identifying things he knew or has just learned. That's important in a kid's book, illustrations they like. All in all you cannot go wrong with this book, not if you have a child. They'll love it. Devon does.

I love this book. My mom used to read it to me when I was small, and it has always been one of my favorites. I lost my original book many years ago but now that I am an aunt I have searched high and low to relocate it as a gift for my nephew. The short stories in the book are touching as well as humorous and have a way of gripping readers both young and old!!

This is a great children's book. It is filled with Valentine's Day poems for kids of all ages. The poems are simple and easy to read, and theres pictures for each one, too. This book will surely bring happiness to your next Valentines Day.

Jack Prelutsky has a talent for writing silly little poems about everyday things, bringing delight to young and old alike! In this book, he gives poetic justice to Valentine's Day in the most lighthearted way. My sons, now teenagers, were all fortunate enough to be introduced to this book, Jack Prelutsky, and poetry in general, by their first-grade teacher. They spent many happy moments reading these poems depicting a child's view of Valentine's Day...and I enjoyed them as well! Put this one on your list!

Junie B. Jones books are so funny! Barbara Park has a real talent in being able to write as if she is really a little girl... Some parents might complain about Junie B.'s "bad grammar", but the fact is that she is only a kid trying to immitate the way adults act and speak around her. Read them and laugh out loud, they're so good---for kids and for adults with a sense of humour!

My daughter, just entering kindergarten this year, adores the Junie B. Jones books! While I admit, that I'm not overly fond of the grammatical mistakes (I tend to edit while reading aloud), the books are great fun for adults as well as kids. These books have helped my daughter deal with everything from a new sibling, to the start of kindergarten. I recommend them highly.

Who is it??

Junie B. Jones got a mushy gushy valentine from a secret admirer!! Who is this secret admirer?? She went outside but she forgot her valentine . She came inside. She saw Jim taking it. She said, "HEY WHAT ARE YOU DOING!!!" Did Jim give Junie B. the card??

These books are terrific for kids in a wide range of ages--mine are 3, 5, and 8, and they all love them (they are over the head of the 3-year-old, but he's still mesmerized). Amazingly, the audiobooks are even better than the print versions. Lana Quintal, whose child-like voice seems a little grating at first, stands up incredibly well to repeat (and repeat and repeat) listening. She gets the tone just right. My kids are happy listening to these tapes in the car even on those long journeys that are usually occasion for hours of complaining. Worth gold! Check out the collection of books 9-12 too; if anything, it's even better than this one.

We love this book! You will love this book! I have 4 1/2 year old twins and they cannot get enough. It is also a great resource for teaching them the "color" and "days of the week" sight words. Inspired! Go get it now!

Well done Elizabeth! My kids love this book - they make a mean mulch Earl Grey. Well illustrated too.

This is a book sure to make both kids and parents happy. Using both colors and days of the week as its frame, the book helps change fussy "bath-takers" into kids who see baths in a whole different way. The text and art are a perfect match, with the joy of the text brought to life in the kid's faces. These are real--and really messy--kids, but they're contagiously happy. The rhymes are clever and funny without being forced, the refrain will have kids chanting along, and the whole idea of Kid Tea is inspired.

She did it again! I love this book, and bought several to give as gifts! Kid tea is whimsically written and thoroughly enjoyable to read. My 8 year old son commented: "It's not really a book about God, but she still got it in there!"