Journals Books

Never get tired of this one... love that sweet brown bear and all his friends

There are days when I am just thoroughly annoyed by this book.

And yet it remains a classic, and I grudgingly agree.

How can anyone not love the awesome repetitive rhymes and varying colors and animals? And how can you not get chills at how these animals are all staring at each other?

The original of interactive books and still probably the best.

Great book. My son's favorite. At 9 months of age he knew it by name.

I started reading this book to my son when he was 12 months old and since then he has always loved reading it. The words are flowy and interesting enough to capture his attention. A definate must have in a toddlers bookshelf!

This was one of my son's favorite books!
It brings back a lot of memories!

My two-and-half-year-old daughter loves these "How-To" dinosaur books. I bought How Do Dinosaurs Go To School? first, which she was hooked on and triggered me to buy this one, which she equally loves. She can memorize and articulate the 10 dinosaurs names provided in the book, just as she could with the other dinosaur book, which also introduces 10 types of dinosaurs. However, while the illustrations are highly entertaining to a toddler, the language, like that in the other book, is quite lackluster. It would be ideal if the book also shed literary value and were enjoyable to read aloud to a child as well.

This is absolutely adorable! Part of me is rather suspicious that these dinosaurs are actually projections of small boys, but I have no real proof. This once again proves that Yolen still has the talent for churning out tales for children.

My daughter, who is not quite three, loves this book. In fact this book has started an infatuation with dinosaurs. She wants me to read it to her all the time and the illustrations are awesome.

We got a couple of books in the Dinosaurs series as board books from my coworker, and overall my daughter (22 months at the time of this review) liked them, but the hardcovers are simply gorgeous with large, detailed and brilliant pictures. I got this book in the library, and Anna wanted to read it several times in a row (not to mention every night since then). I plan to assemble the whole series of hardcovers for her over time, since I see these books having a long life in her development from a bright toddler to a curious child.

This book quickly runs through various methods children - I mean, dinosaurs - use to try to prolong bedtime, before finally showing the method that children should - and dinosaurs DO - use to go to sleep on time.

The charm is all in the illustrations - don't worry too much about the text.

I purchased this book simply to replace my original copy, which I loaned out and which was never returned. Reading this book has been a favorite part of my Christmas for many years. While I regret losing my old copy, I am thankful I will now be able to carry on this tradition.

It's a fun story about an untraditional Christmas play. It shows how good can come of seemingly negative changes and find some unexpected, meaningful outcomes.
The Best Christmas Pageant Ever

The worst kids in the neighborhood decide to be in the annual Christmas Pageant and turn the weeks leading up to the event into a very funny, read. I've read this book to many classrooms of children over the years and it's guaranteed to make them listen and laugh.

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I like books and I don't know if this is my favorite book but it is excellent. We read it as a family every year at Christmas. It never fails to touch me. It is fun with a redeeming message.

I have read this book at least once a year for 15yrs and now I'm reading it to my kids. It's a quick read, I can't put it down.

Oswald Chambers gives the awesome truths of the Bible and God's character in this easy, daily study.

If I had to make a choice of only one book that I could have in addition to my Bible "My Utmost for His Highest" would be it. Next to the Bible, this book has had the greatest impact on my understanging of what is means to walk with Jesus.

I have an old copy of this book and love it, but it was bulky to travel with. I love the paper back version of the book and the new updated language. A wonderful companion for my spiritual journey.

I have been studying this book for 6 years and sharing it with others. Oswald Chambers was an exceptional writer, bible scholar, and teacher. This book has given me great insight and direction to walk as a Christian daily.

I highly recommend this book for everyone! The lessons really hit home and are applicable to all lives at all stages.

I was given this book by and friend, and I have to say, it may be the best gift I've ever been given. I have since purchased several cases, giving it out to many people that I care about. It provides inspiring, comforting and empowering thoughts for one to digest daily. Plus, it's supple leather cover and convenient size make it something for you to carry with you throughout each day. I cannot say enough about the power of this book!

This is one of my favorite books of daily devotions.
I've been through it several times and never tire of it.

I use this every morning along with another book by Joyce Meyers called "The Secret Of Speaking God's Word". It is amazing that no matter what day it is the message always seems to speak to something going on in my life during that time. It allows me to better identify certain area(s) I want to focus my prayer and meditation on. Joyce Meyers book give specific scriptures outlined by subject, "Fear, Anxeity, Depression, Hope, etc. . ."

I have purchased at least 6 copies of this book in the past three months because I have friends I knew would benefit and enjoy them as I do.

I had a paperback copy of this book, and it really helped me to grow closer to God. So, I bought the journal..one for myself and a couple as birthday gifts for my friends. If you are searching for a closer walk...this book will help you find it...

I have been reading God Calling ever since the early 1970's. This book has helped me to know God in a personal way. I have given many copies away as gifts and worn out 3 paperbacks. I just received the Devotinal Journal and will now write in it along with my meditations. Every person I have given God Calling to has found peace, joy and guidance in their spiritual life and thanked me for introducing this timely book to them.

What more can be said about this lovely collection of thoughts? Even as it celebrates its 50th anniversary, it is as fresh as the day it was penned. This book is a keeper if ever there was one, a volume to be read and re-read and handed down to one's children, which is what I intend to do with the most recent Gift from the Sea that I bought.

Listed as a 'summer read' in a local magazine list - I hadn't heard of this book. I picked it up and finished it from one afternoon into the next morning. And -- there was nothing surprising or new to be found here in the book - the pace at which its written and the uncomplicated natural way Lindbergh examines her life and her impressions of life's stages will have me passing this book on to many people in my life.

What timeless wisdom there is in this little book. Although it was written many decades ago, the challenges and issues faced by Anne Morrow Lindbergh are the same ones faced by women in today's crazy, bustling world. In fact, although women in Siberia, Cameroon, or Ceylon might not have her specific set of circumstances, they can still identify with Lindbergh's ponderings about a woman's life, her obligations, her relationships, and her needs. She lived in an upscale suburb of Connecticut and was the mother of five children, and yet there's something in her writing that can touch the souls of women everywhere whether in a grass hut or trailer beside a busy highway

The chapters in Gift from the Sea center on Lindbergh's musings during a two-week vacation at the shore. Leaving husband, children, and house behind, she lives in a bare beach cabin without heat, telephone, plumbing, hot water, rugs, or curtains. She finds simplicity beautiful and longs to take it home to Connecticut when her vacation ends.

Lindbergh takes a shell at a time and describes it in relation to other things in a woman's life. For instance, the moon shell reminds her that quiet time, solitude, contemplation, and "something of one's own" is needed. The double-sunrise represents the pure relationship found in early stages of friendship and marriage, and she reminds the reader that there is no permanent return to an old form of relationship since all are in the process of change. The oyster bed symbolizes the middle years of marriage and family, especially as the home itself grows and expands to accommodate the growing family.

I first read this book when I was a young mother and could readily understand Lindbergh's comment that saints were so rarely married woman because of the distractions inherent in raising children and running a house. "Human relationships with their myriad pulls--woman's normal occupations in general run counter to creative life, or contemplative life, or saintly life." Now in midlife, I can better understand her affinity for all the shells as reminders that each cycle of the wave, the tide, and the relationship is valid.

This book came very highly recommended by two friends who are avid book readers. However I hate to admit that the book did not move me as much as my friends claimed that it moved them. I was more interested about the background references to the author's personal life and how the book came into being. That I would have read voraciously. The book is short but I don't intend to read it again to see what I missed. I believe a book either moves you or it doesn't. This particular book despite other rave reviews did not move me despite my great affinity for the sea and women writers. I wonder if perhaps if the book would have touched me differently if I read it in the beach rather than on a plane which I did.

I have never been a big fan of books on CD. This changed with Gift from the Sea with the forward by Reeve Lindbergh and beautifully read by Claudette Colbert. This is a beautifully written and recorded book. I keep it in my car and play it quite often. I have orderered additional copies to share with friends. It is indeed as relevant today as it was fifty years ago and probably even more pertinent in today's fast paced world where we fail to slow down give ourselves alone time to comtemplate our lives. Reeve Lindbergh's forward about her mother was a lovely bonus. Although I have not read any of her children's books, I have read everything else she has written that I can find and encourage anyone who has not read her books to check her out on [...].

84 Charing Cross Road is a great read! The premis simple, but the characters are full and rich. Worth reading again, even if you have seen the movie.

Given the amazing reputation this book has had for over thirty years I wanted to like it so much more than I did. Helene Hanff, a television screenwriter living in Manhattan after World War II, collected a series of letters she wrote to the workers at Marks & Co., a bookstore along London's famous Charing Cross Road, over the course of two decades, from her initial requests for certain books she had trouble acquiring in the United States through her later lasting friendship with the Marks & Co. staff. The book has often been advertised as being all about a common love of books, yet that's really not what comes through in the letters: the bond Hanff forged with the booksellers had much more to do with her over-the-top personality, which fortunately they found quite charming. While their letters to her are very restrained and respectful, hers are pretty zany, filled with all kinds of strange punctuations and with forceful declarations: of enthusiasm when her book orders live up to her expectations, and of mock outrage when they are not. As the letters make clear, she is also extraordinarily generous to the booksellers especially during the lean years in Britain between the War and the Coronation, and sends them all kinds of commodities and foodstuffs which were very hard to acquire during that time (like eggs, bacon, and nylons).

If this were an epistolary novel it might be a bit hard to take the incredible zestiness of Hanff's wild enthusiasms, and even the poignancy added by knowing it is all true only curbs your exhaustion a bit at her gigantic personality. (You even wonder at times whether the Marks & Co. are as delighted by her so much as they're just cowed by her.) It's a sweet little book, but you do feel as if Hanff were trying to clobber you -- and the booksellers -- over the head with her forceful charm.

After seeing the wonderful film starring Anne Bancroft and Anthony Hopkins, I was anxious to read the book. It did not disappoint. I enjoyed the book even more than the film. It was so nice to peek into
the friendship that developed between Helene and Frank through their
letters. I would highly recommend this book to anyone.

If you are a lover or collector of books, or a reader of good literature, this one is for you. An epistolary novel, it consists of letters mainly between Helene Hanff, a none-too-successful writer in Manhattan, and Frank Doel, a clerk in a bookstore at 84 Charing Cross Road in London. It has been a successful stage play and movie. The English were still suffering from the hardships of WWII and rationing was still going on when the letters commenced in 1949. Hanff sends her book requests for out-of-print books, and she gets them at amazingly reasonable prices.
A close friendship develops between the two, and she sends rationed items including eggs to the store staff and Doel's family. The book ends in 1969. Through this twenty-year correspondence the reader gets to know a great deal about the two letter writers as well as other people who are workers in the store, neighbors or friends. Hanff's love of books is the thread that keeps the story together. She grows more relaxed and outspoken as the book progresses.
Hanff becomes a TV writer, but she never hits it big. Throughout she wants to go to England to meet Frank, his family, and the store staff. Something always seems to interfere. She comes across as the consummate Manhattanite, and he is the somewhat reserved Brit. Her outspokenness, slangy humor, and generosity emerge in the epistles. Hanff playfully needles Frank about the slowness with which he delivers some of her book requests.
A novel told in letters can have severe limitations, but this one manages to present characters who grow and evolve, a sense of two cities, and a plot that can draw you into the narrative.
It's a gentle book, a soft, fluffy pillow of a book that doesn't have great pretensions. It's a little story that meanders along giving quiet, unassuming pleasure. First published in 1970 it seems old-fashioned and quaint, yet it is fun to read. Hanff's requests are mostly for non-fiction until she decides to acquire Jane Austen's "Pride and Prejudice." She becomes a Janite, the perfect author for someone with her sensibilities.
The recent best seller "The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Society" is also an epistolary novel, but it's a richer, more complex, and varied book than this one. But in its 97 pages this book will grab and hold you.
Nine Lives Too Many
The Daemon in Our Dreams
The Rice Queen Spy
Clawed Back from the Dead

This book is a charming little story post WWII consisting of letters between an American novelist and a London bookshop employee. Later, other staff members of the bookstore begin writing letters to the novelist as well, revealing little parts of their lives. All letters written wth humor and charm. This book reveals how the written word can serve to forge friendships more lasting than the many casual face-to-face contacts we now routinely substitute for true friendship and create a deeper understanding among people in very different life situations.

I've had this book for many years and still read it every day. It has a dark soft cover. I was just disappointed in the size I ordered first. I then ordered the larger soft cover edition for my children. It does not have the extra lined area for notes as my original book does. That is why the 4 stars. It was a good feature.

I've ordered multiple copies of this book on three occasions, and will probably reorder more. This is a book with more than the typical daily devotion ... it has meat and it has substance. It is a great light to follow during your day and it contains plenty of 'food for thought'. I received my first copy of this devotional from one of my pastors and have shared 8 copies with other people in my life who need/want God's guidance in their lives. It's very easy to share; it's an excellent book. I keep mine at my office desk and read it every morning to start the work day.

Read this book if you have experienced the grief from losing a loved one physically as in my case or you are broken from a life circumstance. This book along with the word of God will uplift you and see you through those difficult days when again your tears seem to be the only medicine for your heart. I love that each day starts off with a scripture. I usually will read the scripture then look it up in my bible and do a small study on the scripture. I will then read the devotion for that day. This book and Oswald Chambers devotional book is what I read daily. I recommend it for anyone who has walked down the road of losing a child, parent or sibling. It also makes a great gift for someone facing cancer or for the single mom who is struggling to makes ends meet and feels hopeless. Whoever you are and wherever you are you will be blessed by the golden pages and by the sweet quiet whisper of Gods spirit revealed in the writing of this book.

This is a great book for anyone going thru a difficult time. I received my book after the death of my son. Took me four years to actually pick it up and I am so glad that I did. It gives me hope for each new day. I just purchased four more to give to friends that I know are struggling. I hope that it can help them as much as it has helped me.

This is one of the most hopeful devotional books I have ever found. If you are having difficulties or going through trials, this devotional will help light your way using God's word and uplifting thoughts, poems, and other writings. This book enriches my relationship with God and helps me trust and rely on Him more. Well worth the money.

This is the second Anniversary Memory Book I'm giving as a gift. Everybody that saw the first one just loved the whole idea of it. It's very nicely done and an item to be cherished.

My mother-in-law gave this book to us when we got married. I LOVE IT! The artwork is simply beautiful, each page different from the others -- with thoughtful quotes as well. But most of all, I just love the whole concept of having an anniversary book! I never even knew something like this existed. But, it has been so wonderful to add our memories to this book each year on our anniversary. I love looking through it -- reading the "Memorable Moments" from that year and seeing the picture we included. We'll be celebrating 10 years this month and I can't wait to open up our special book and review those 10 wonderful years in such a beatifully recorded way. I've given this book as a wedding gift to others because we've enjoyed it so much.

I received this as an engagement gift 3 years ago. I love this book. It's a simple way to keep a record of memories and anniversaries. It's like scrapbooking for people (like me) who don't have the time, patience or artistic ability to scrapbook. I love the paper quality, the photo holders and the straightforward way it allows you to reflect on the past year. Because of the simplicity, it isn't one of those things I put off until I have time and then feel guilty for not doing. With years one and two complete I look forward to a lifetime more.

This is an absolutely gorgeous book! I wish I had received one 34 years ago! I will now pass it on to three nephews and their brides who are marrying this summer as the simplicity of the entry pages makes this a simple but meaningful way to record the most important day of each year!
The quality of the heavy pages will help it last for a lifetime, just as marriages should!

I attended a bridal shower recently and this was a gift that was given to the bride. I thought it was such a cute idea that I decided to order one for my husband and me (ok..so it was more for me than my husband but he feigned excitement).

On the first page of this book is an Apache wedding prayer, which is followed by a space for you to include a wedding picture and details about your wedding. In the following pages, there is a space for you to include a picture (3x5 or 4x6) of the two of you for each year you are married. Opposite the space for the picture, is a place for you to write about where you are living and 'memorable' moments that may have occurred during each year of your marriage. Also included, is information about traditional and modern gifts for each anniversary. There is a space to document every anniversary for the first 15 years and then it jumps to your 20th, 25th, 30th, 40th and then your 50th anniversary.

The book is a little '80s' in terms of styling but I still love it. The pages are made of a fine quality, ivory card stock and every year has its own colorful, pretty design (all of which is in calligraphy).

This would make a great gift for a bridal or wedding shower or for a couple's first wedding anniversary.

This book is absolutely amazing. My mother got this book for me when I was about 17 and just really starting to bud out and become an artist. Dan's work was absolutely mesmerizing and inspiring. His colorful life and tragic death spark something in you to go out and change the world.

This is a dense, rich book of images and words left by Dan Eldon, one of those brilliant, outsized people who burn through life like a flare and are gone. He surrounded himself with beauty and horror and tried to both record and to make some sense of his experiences and the constant, jarring disparity between the extremes of life.
If you love photography and art or are just drawn to precocious brilliance and the intense energy of people who are present in every moment of their lives, you should own this book.

After seeing this book in a Borders store, I decided to buy it. I couldn't put it down, page after page offers so much of the author, yet offered so much to the reader. It makes your own imagination soar again, and as a fellow photographer, it gave me a kick in the butt I needed to start shooting again. The vision of Dan Eldon was not only through a lens, but through his heart as well. He accomplished a great deal in a short life, and definitely contributed to the bettering of our world. His photographs of Africa, combined with the scrapbook like additions of text and objects could be considered a new form of documentary photography. I strongly urge anyone who is interested in travel or photojournalism to get this book and have it transform your outlook on life.

Eldon's story of the war-torn Somolia is as much an artwork as it is an engaging story. This "book" is a reproduction of photojournalist Dan Eldon's journal from his travels in the most impoverished regions of Africa. Part insightful reading, part artistic work, this book should be on anyone's reading list who wants to know more about the world we don't see everyday, and it truly makes one think about all we have, and all Eldon lost...5 out of 5 starts easily!

I bought this book upon it's release in 1997. I can remember allowing the contents of this memoir to captivate me for hours on end. I lent my copy to a friend shortly thereafter and subsequently forgot about it. I recently ordered a replacement and I must say, this book is even more compelling than I ever remembered. Dan Eldon was a profound visionary, an articulate statesman and a devoted caretaker. As a Reuters photo-journalist, he traveled the world and served as a dipomatic embassador to many, yet his life was taken prematurely in a stoning riot in Somalia. He experienced more in his brief 21 years than most of us will over an entire lifetime. A MUST HAVE.