Helen Hunt Books

Giving the Love that Heals is a book that finally gave mepeace. By this I mean it helped to heal the problems from my past and gave me inner peace, and it helped me to deal with my teenage son that I was always fighting with, so now I have peace in the home. This was a book a could not put down once I started to read it. My children and my husband noticed a diffrence in my parenting technique's right away. I have made a conscious effort to see the things in my children that delight me, and not to dwell on the things that they do that are sometimes disappointing. This book taught me that the wounds from my past that I had not dealt with had power over me. Once I dealt with the past, then I realized I could handle the future. Now my future with my husband and children is very bright, and I know I can handle pretty much anything life has to offer me. This is a book I would recommend to everyone. Thank you for the peace in my life and in my heart. Kim Poliacik

The writing of Harville Hendrix's have become my relationship bibles. I find his clear way of taking psychological theory and putting into practice for relationships of all kind very effective.

Lesbian and Gay parents have their work cut out for them in dealing with issues as a parent that are across the board as well as their work on how the homophobic culture will affect their children. What I love about this book is that it invites the parent to look at their own childhood knowing that that is often where parents get stuck. Internalized homophobia will be an important thing to consider for Gay parents in the identity stage of a child's development as well as the intimacy formation stage.

Also, for straight parents worried about their children being gay, there is a wonderful line in the book on page 224: The conscious parent understands that his child is "trying on" identities now in the present, not forecasting who he will be in the future. If a boy dresses up in the pretty party dress his mother saved from her childhood, that does not mean that he will have problems with sexual identity......Obviously he wont' grow up to be Big Bird or Spiderman, although he may identify with them as characters who have powerful personalities". Hurray for Harville Hendrix and Helen Hunt for writing a supurb book!
Joe Kort

I was somewhat disappointed, having read Hendrix's other books. This book is set up very much like Simple Abundance, and each day has its "words to live by". For example, there is no path to follow if you know your child is suffering from the psycholigical disorder that is commonly known as adolescence. Not bad, but not chock full of valuable exercises like his previous works.

Nicole Flowers

Harville Hendrix's book, Getting the Love you Want was fantastic--likely the best book on relationships ever. However this book on child rearing is awful. Let me explain why.... The book is loaded with psycho babble and politically correct themes that mean nothing. If you read chapter 1 and Chapter 2 and then ask yourself, what did I learn? You will have to say, uh.. nothing. Chapter 3 is where it should start getting interesting, and although the topic "unconscious parenting" is a good one, there is too darn much fluff.

Getting the Love You Want was short and to the point. I think this book, Giving the Love that Heals, could have been 1/3 the length of what it is. We are a busy people, and shouldn't have to put up with writing that says nothing. This drives me crazy!

I am sure there is something worthwhile in the book, but believe me, you have to skim it quickly to get to those points.

I recommend this book to every parent who mentions struggling with their child(ren). It goes beyond being just a parenting-technique book to helping the parent identify their own issues stemming from childhood. Through that process, the parent learns where his/her weaknesses or blocks are, so that they have the clarity to discern what is actually occurring with the child, rather than being clouded by his/her perceptions. From there, the parent can use the techniques taught in the book to help the child move successfully through the developmental phase that is causing frustration.

My favorite parts of the book are the detailed explanations of the chronological stages of a child's life; the explanation and examples of symbiotic parenting; and the explanation of how we learn to parent how are parents parented us, which is how they were parented, ad infinitum, with the assurance that we can break the cycle of mistakes.

This is a book for parents who are committed to helping their children navigate through life, even though it requires some self-discovery. It is not a book for a parent who wants a quick solution, because this requires commitment. For me, the healing that resulted in myself, my child and our relationship went far beyond what I was asking for, making the commitment a bargain at any price.

I would recommend "Getting the Love You Want" and the companion workbook to any couple who wants to strengthen their relationship.
Also I is a good match with the book I Love You. Now What?: Falling in Love is a Mystery, Keeping It Isn't

Harville Hendricks has provided a clear and easily followed outline for couples to follow as they work on their marriage. It teaches effective communication which is the foundation of a successful marriage. I heartily endorse this book.

I have studied and practiced several models for couples counseling and this one by Hendrix is by far the best. Make sure to read the book as well.

The philosophy of relationships that Dr. Haskill has developed is well researched and eye opening. The excersizes in the workbook are useful tools for willing couples to use to find a deeper understanding of themselves and better communication.
However, the workbook is not necessary if you buy the book "Getting the Love you want;" you can use your own notebook to do the sessions which comprise section 3 of the book, as well as the workbook.
I do highly recommend this item, for anyone who believes that the answer to trouble in a love relationship is not to abandon the loved one but to first resolve the issues that have surfaced. The author has really hit on something.

I am only writing this to warn others you'll need the other book to be able to use this workbook. I don't have the other book so I have not been able to use any of the workbook.

This CD has a lot of word play, lovely vocabulary (just like the book) and lots of instructions to follow. It is very participatory.

In short, it's not a terrific toddler CD. It's simply too complicated. I think a toddler might enjoy the CD if you played it while looking at the book together. (I'm planning on getting the book to find out.) But, don't count on being able to pop it into your car's CD to entertain your two year old... unless he or she is already enamored with the story.

Get this for a child
- Who is old enough to follow somewhat abstract instructions. For example, the CD asks kids to "Move your hands to show what the following words might look like. Over. Under. Back. Up the stairs..."
- Who has enough attention span to enjoy an oral story on it's own right
- Or, who is already very familiar with the story and loves it!

THere are so many songs on this CD. MY son only listens to the 1st one. As soon as its over, he wants to hear it again. He's 3 and not yet interested in the other ones.

I work with different age groups from 0-5years old. Kids as young as 1 year old enjoy the story telling portion of this cd. I do alot of handplays/body movements which the kids mimic as the story is playing. I use the cd alone and in conjunction with the book. Kids love it either way!
The first track is the lively descriptive tale and subsequent tracks are different "lessons" you can do with your kids/students if you like. I would recommend that the adult listen to those parts and introduce the lessons over time, don't overload a younger child's imagination with it. It's a great cd with charismatic voices and appropriate music that really brings to life a terrific children's book.

We bought this on a driving trip in Maine this summer and our 4 year old just loved it. Still does now home in CA! He memorized the story and loves to repeat the story. Also they have various word and other games related to the story. You won't regret buying it!

This CD is rather a disappointment. It starts off quietly with somewhat hushed voices that I hardly knew it had begun. I have gotten used to the vibrant and joyous toddler cds that this was a surprise and very disappointing considering how exciting the story can be. I like to read Going on a Bear Hunt in a happy exicted voice with little toddlers following along. This is not that story with any of the same excited enthusiasm. I'm sorry i bought this one without hearing any of the tracks first.

This (unfortunately) timeless work is a scathing indictment of US Indian policy from independence until the 1880s. It includes a general treatment of bad-faith attitudes and policies, and a series of more detailed case studies of exceptionally egregious violations of legal treaties & human rights. It is timeless because of ongoing popular and official ignorance or lack of concern for American Indian rights, economic problems and indigenous culture---witness, for just one chilling example, the continuing imprisonment of Oglala/Anishinaabe activist Leonard Peltier, for murders he did not commit.

Jackson was a pioneer activist for Indian rights, and commitment shines through on nearly every page. While it is true that her writing style may seem dated to some contemporary undergraduates, her subject's intrinsic interest holds the attention of any reader with more than a marginal interest in the topic. It is still useful for research purposes, though it is perhaps most valuable for history and/or anthropology courses on changing attitudes & policy toward Indians.

In teaching about American Indian history, a main reservation about assigning it is the need to present what Indians themselves have said and/or written about their encounters with Euro-Americans. For a fine variety of views on these issues, see P. Nabokov ed, "Native American Testimony," and (among many other sources) memorable works by two premier Indigenous scholar-activists: Ward Churchill, "From A Native Son," and Vine Deloria Jr., "Custer Died For Your Sins."

To tell the truth, Century of Dishonor put me to sleep. I was forced to read it for a AP US History class. If you can stay awake to read it, it details everything you need to know about how the U.S. government has swindled and cheated Native Americans in this country. It was written in the late 1800's and we just don't talk like that anymore as a country. Like my teacher said: "The reason this book was so powerful was because it listed every incident with many tribes to bring home this point: There needs to be a change how they handled the Native Americans." No one in the class read the book cover to cover, including myself. I would never recommend reading this book, except for research (there's a 150 page or so Appendix along w/ the actual book)or if you're REALLY into that stuff. Even in the latter case, theres lots of better choices.

Bearing in mind that this book was written at the time when Native Americans were still "Savages" and totally responsible for all atrocities perpetrated in the west,in the eyes of the White Europeans, Helen Hunt Jackson made a brave stand in trying to educate these same people to the needs and requirements of the Native Americans.

With each chapter given to a different Native American nation she tries, and in my opinion succedes,to make people understand the hopelessness the Native Americans found themselves in, and the only recourse they had was to fight to preserve their way of life, all too sadly with devestating consequences.

Through each chapter the same theme occurs, the whites cheat,steal, murder, and abuse the Native American and very few Whites tried to correct these wrong doings, and the biggest offender the US Government, and even today the US Government do not appear to be too interested in the Native Americans.

The book is "heavy going", and one can be forgiven in thinking, as they read through it, that I've been here before, because the facts are presented in the same way for every nation, but that notwithstanding, I feel this is a book that should be in anyones library who professes to have an interest in Native Americans.

Yes Helen Hunt Jackson was a brave pioneer to voice her opinions in favour of the redman all those years ago, had more people listend, perhaps the Native American culture in all its glory would still be with us today.

Like books written by Dickens and Hemmingway, this book is a classic. Written over a century ago, it describes actions and policies of the US and its people towards native Americans that are horrific, cruel and downright unamerican.

Yet he who is ignorant of history is condemned to repeat it. In this case, even though the history was well documented in this book, we continued to repeat it through continued mistreatment.

Helen Jackson's book is evidence that Americans knew what they were doing, knew that what they were doing was cruel and wrong and that they did it anyway.

Evelen I Banning is not a facile writer. Fortunately, on the other hand, she's a dutiful researcher, writing about a personality who was compelling enough in her own right to bear her tale along. If you're interested in Helen Hunt Jackson, this is one of the best resources on an American character, very popular in her own time, whose fame has slipped some since her own day.

When I say popular, I mean to say that the death of Helen Hunt Jackson, too young, in 1884, at age 54 or thereabouts, occasioned for America a day of national mourning. In her own time, "facile" would have been too mildly condescending a faint praise for a prose style as vividly engaging as Jackson's, and her poetry was good too. Toward the end of her life, her main claim to fame was her espousal of the plight of the Native Americans. Today she is more often remembered as the great friend of, and perhaps original discoverer of, Emily Dickinson, whose literary executor she petitioned to become, and might have become, had she not predeceased Emily by a year or so. In equal parts a lady of the old school and lifelong rogue of the first water, HHJ was smart, funny, noble, capaciously sympathetic and a true poet, who could write like an angel or a devil, depending, and her life and writings remain as a fascinating, if too long neglected, field of American literary and cultural inquiry.

This book facinates me. The author Helen Hunt Jackson was a close neighbor to our Iles ancestors who came to Colorado in 1871, living in Manitou & Colorado Springs. Family stories handed down have told us they knew Helen Hunt Jackson and they even named a mine up in Cripple Creek after her other book "Ramona." This books describes our ancestors coming to Colorado in detail, only the names have been changed. Did Helen get her story from them? We'll never know for sure. This is a great childrens book, and is a great book to read if you want to know what it was like coming to the Pike's Peak region in the 1870s.

Great book. If you can stick with it, it will definitely help your relationship.

Do not buy the audio if you're looking to listen to it in your car for some advice...it's mainly to do with your partner in a workbook together. Also, only if you have alot of time to devote to this type of self-counseling.

a friend bought this book several years ago for me, when i was living the single life. i loved it. and now that i am in a relationship, i have read it again and it is even more helpful. this book have been a great resource book for me and how i am in relationships. if you are interested at all in being more aware of yourself, you gotta have it!

I had read a good review of this book in the newspaper, and, since I was going to spend a week in Ramona, California, thought I should read it.
It is the most boring, dry book I think I ever read. About half the book is references to the writing. I finally gave up on it, and threw it in the trash.

The heroine of Helen Hunt Jackson's 1884 novel Ramona started a trend of Ramona naming of landmarks which became part of many a tourist's journey to Southern California at the time. Surprisingly, Ramona Memories: Tourism And The Shaping Of Southern California is the first study to consider the influence of Jackson's fictional character and setting on the real world of Southern California. DeLyser examines the myth of Ramona in the regional tourist history, the establishment of attractions by fans of the novel, and tells of numerous Ramona enthusiasts who took elements of the novel and made them a part of their lives.

I was very excited about this book when I found it. As a woman of faith, I thought it would be interesting to see examples of women who had combined their feminist viewpoints with their faith. How they battled a world dominated by men with their religion as well. However, the book did not live up to the promise. The book is made to feature five women: St. Teresa of Avila, Lucretia Mott, Sojourner Truth, Emily Dickinson and Dorothy Day. While each story is compelling, it is all to brief. Each women have one chapter each, which gives basically a brief life story. It does not really go into depth how these women implemented their faith into their quest for women's right. It seemed more of an overview, designed for a class to discuss. Not for the solitary reader.

Also, I was not pleased with the use of the Imago Relationship Theory in the book. This is a book about feminism and faith, not about couple therapy. Just didn't seem to fit the book.

The little chapters on the women are interesting, however I was hoping for a more in depth discussion, than the overview presented in this book. Maybe in the future, the author will go back to this topic and revisit these women in better detail.

I actually read a 1908 edition of this book but this was as close as I could find. I found Ramona to be a pretty good story but had trouble understanding why it was said to have been monumental in bringing changes to the government's treatments of Native Americans or why it apparently received such myth like status in certain parts of Southern California. I was raised in or had family in nearly all of the territory mentioned in Ramona (which ranges from San Fransisco all the way down to Mexico). I had never heard mention of the story until a local book dealer here in NC offered me a copy of it. It was only recently that I got around to reading it and I did like how well the book describes all the mountainous terrain I grew up in and miss so much, particularly the mention of manzanita trees which are so beautiful but are only indigenous to that area. Also the mention of all the missions, particularly the one in San Diego I visited so often was a nice mental vacation back home.

Outside of the background, I was excited to read this book that was suppose to have been so life changing for the Native American people, as half my family falls in that category. Unfortunately, I was not struck by anything earth shattering. Jackson does talk about the government's early allowances of whites basically claiming public domain over the natives' homes and lands, which was definitely tragic but the true horror of what really happened at that time never really reaches the level it needs to to be moving. You would gain more from reading pure historical accounts or textbooks or visiting native area museums near the reservations. I found Ramona to be more of a love story than anything and even the love story was sweet but again, just short of really moving. Ramona herself goes through mental and physical maturity and it was nice to see her grow with each experience throughout the story but her love Alessandro struck me as mostly annoying to be honest. It seemed he spent all of his time in constant outrage, whining, paranoia, melodramatic smoochy love talk with Ramona, or just bat crazy. Granted his people had been through some hell, but even when things were good for him, Alessandro just never struck me as a real man secure in himself and I wondered what Ramona was fawning all over. Even Ramona at one point makes a comment that she jumped to hear Alessandro laugh because it was so rare.

I saw one reviewer on another of edition of this book mention that it seemed that Jackson was trying to write how she assumed the Native Americans spoke and acted. That is definitely the impression I got too. Particularly with Alessandro but with many of the Native characters, they would either sound White-influenced or Mexican-influenced in their speech and behavior but never really Native American to me. Jackson's "Indian" dialog reminded me of the way they would make Tonto speak in the old Lone Ranger movies. Not to mention that Natives (at least the men lol) are not so open with their emotions and feelings, even with wives. There is a guardedness and stoicism that just wasn't well portrayed here.

Like I said, Ramona is pretty good to get an idea of the Southern California landscape, and there are some great interesting characters - Ramona herself and especially the sassy Aunt Ri (though her deep Appalachian dialect makes for tough reading-at certain parts it goes on for pages!). The love story between Alessandro and Ramona is cute and bittersweet and you do feel for them through their joys and tribulations, but overall it just wasn't QUITE as moving as I was hoping for.