E Books

Small Miracles is a very very good book. All the pages are filled with very special, interesting stories about small miracles that happen to ordinary people. When you open the pages you will experience the magic of a good story and reading.

This is a wonderful heartwarming collection of short inspirational stories written from a Christian and Jewish perspective. I usually read a few right before going to bed and find that they put me in a happy and hopeful mood. If you need a lift beyond your circumstances, this book helps you look for the small miracles in your life.

Small Miracles is a very very good book. All the pages are filled with very special, interesting stories about small miracles that happen to ordinary people. When you open the pages you will experience the magic of a good story and reading.

I keep buying and rebuying this book because I am constantly giving my copy away as a gift and therefore need to replace it. This book is especially meaningful to me because I was reading it at a time of my life when I was brought closer to someone by what I believed to have been a miracle. The matter is very personal and without going into the details, (no, it was not a potential romance, I am happily married) I will allow as how the hoped for miracle, so far, has not panned out. However, reading these tales of people brought closer together has been uplifting and this book has carried me through some emotional moments in my own life. I recommend this to all people who have a spiritual and sensitive side to their personalities.

I love the Small Miracles Books. I keep buying and rebuying this book because I am constantly giving my copy away as a gift and therefore need to replace it. This book is especially meaningful to me because I was reading it at a time that I was giving up on miracles and optimism. However, this book has been uplifting. I know can realize that small miracles exsist in everyday life and there is always a reason to keepsmiling. I recommend this series to everyone. I have been inspired by Yitta Halberstam and Judith Leventhal. There work seeps out inspiration and devotion to believe. Each time I read a story a warm feeling of love engulfs me. I know believe in small miracles again. I feel as if this line of books took me from being in a negative slump to being optimistic again. I highly recemmend this book:) The personal message I have recieved is "Keepsmiling and Love Life!"

Flipping through this book, lingering over the
pictures... what a wonderful way to spend
some moments of your life. It's like looking
through an old family album; tender,
endearing-- elicits lots of happy memories.
Helps the wait 'til the next tour! :)

I have just read the reviews and actually started crying. My intention with this little book was to share with those who loved Bruce what it was like to be on the Darkness Tour. I did not do this for money. I never made a dime on this book. I did it so that there could be a manifestation of a time that will never come again except in our memories. I hope it is a time that you can share more closely with a younger generation who did not have the opportunity to witness what was truthfully the spirit of rock and roll. Thank you to all who shared your appreciation of my work.

Lynn Goldsmith's Springsteen Access All Areas is a photodiary of his 1978 Darkness On The Edge Of Town tour. The photos are all in black and white and they perfectly capture the spirit of Bruce Springsteen. Ms. Goldsmith was Mr. Springsteen's girlfriend at the time and she uses that cache to give us glimpses of the man and his band that other photographers may never have been able to get. For those of you old enough to remember or even attend a show at the tour, this book will bring you back to that time and for those of us who were too young to know, it provides us with a look at an artist establishing himself as an icon.

Awesome - if you've ever been confused as to the reason that Springsteen fans are so...um..commited to their hero, this book will answer all your questions. Quite simply, the greatest portfolio of Concert and backstage photos I've ever seen.

Look in the faces of the people in the crowd - you'll see the connections between performer and audience that remains right up to this day. Fabulous. Buy this book.

This is a beautiful little book which captures perfectly a moment of music history.

Springsteen's 78 tour is widely regarded as one of the seminal moments of his career. Coming of the back of Born to Run, the settled courtcase with his ex-managers and the Darkness album, Springsteen undertook a triumphant tour accross America, playing 1,000 to 5,000 seater concert halls.

This tour was a pure celebration of rock n'roll and Lynn Goldsmith's unrivalled access (she was Bruce's girlfriend at the time) allowed her to record it for posterity.

The concert shots capture the excitement of the shows perfectly, the sweat pouring off the performers, Bruce's mock collapse, the interaction with the audience. I've seen bootleg videos and heard many tapes from the tour but I have to say that Lynn Goldsmith's book captures the excitment of being in the crowd at one of those concerts better than any medium I have seen.

But this is more than a collection of superb concert photos, it also captures the quieter moments backstage both pre and post show (including the infamous Bruce shower shot!) Shots of the band eating breakfast, Bruce writing etc.

This book is pricey but will definately appeal to all Bruce fans and admirers of outstanding photojournalism.

Practice what the book says on a regular basis and you will get to be less stressful. It has helped me and I like the realistic approach of the book.

This is an easy-to-read book that offers research-based stress-reduction strategies. All of the strategies are very basic, and you've probably heard them all before (no big eye-openers). However, research has proven that these strategies work, and the challenge lies with us to use and integrate them into our lives. Each chapter discusses strategies such deep breathing, stop doing what doesn't work, saying no, etc.

But I most say that there are three suggestions that I found to be helpful- not a cure all but these three offered me a bit of peace of mind so I would say its worth the cash. Book is a quick read.

Here are the ten ways to manage your stress in this book:

1). Calm down by concentrating on your breath.
2). Appreciate what you have in your life.
3). Tense and then relax different parts of your body.
4). Visualize success.
5). Slow down
6). Appreciate yourself
7). Practice smiling
8). Stop doing what does not work
9). Say no to people that try to over burden you.
10). Accept what you can not change
and live mentally in the present do not stress yourself out with the past or future.

Buy this book for more in depth discussion of the above if you find this to be common sense, move on to another book.

I liked this book so much, I read a chapter a week to my mom, dad, and sister after our Sunday night dinner together. I've posted the principles and read them when I brush my teeth in the morning. Once you've read the chapters, the titles alone can help you remember the techniques you practices. I continue to recommend the book to friends. I've had stressful moments at work and have used the skills to bring me back to center.

I know the book says for TEENS, but why wait????
My granddaughter's birthday is in July. Facing 10 and the next grade and struggling somewhat through the end of the last semester, I wanted her to have a view of the 'big picture' that she would be ready to take on the challenge of the critical years to come.

This book is about empowerment. Helping a child form their own opinions and allowing them to mature without encumbering them with mixed messages during a difficult time.
I have only been working with her a month, but she now understands WHY she WANTS a clean room. She has already developed some of her OWN goals and is even forming ideas about what she would like to be when she grows up.

Since the book is written by peers, it gives kids tools and examples in their own language.
She has come to understand that class projects are not something to be done casually, but with consideration and forethought.

Even MORE important is the sense of SELF she is discovering and, as an amazing side benefit, HAPPINESS.

Maybe they should have called this Stop the Mope, Learn to Cope.... I DID read the book WITH her to help her feel more empowered and teamed up with an ally.
I also figured this would be the best way to PREPARE ME for the changes she would get from this book.

Ready for a re-birth? Make this book a family event and grow together.

This book was perfect for my daughter who is struggling to figure out what life is all about. Once she started reading this book, she couldn't stop talking to me about what the book said. The book really helped her understand things that I couldn't help her with. I am very happy that I purchased this book for my daughter. I highly recommend it for anyone who has a teenage that is struggling to figure out life.

Wow, I devoured the book "The Success Principles for teens" in 3 days and I am absolutely amazed how you are able to attack EVERY SINGLE negativity a teenager could possibly have. That fear, excuse, or problem - all answered. I have to admit, besides completely revamping my whole outlook on life, this IS the best book I've read in all of school.

Read about those who did what they wanted to do despite their realistic external conditions or situations. The Authors have studied those people who did what they wanted to do, even those who did something that no one had done previously. The Success Principles are a result of those studies.
Is there something you want to do? Is the next step reading, learning and applying The Success Principles to your own life? You've got the potential, just the same as those examples in the book who succeeded in doing what they wanted.
It's up to you......!

The Success Principles for Teens is a phenomenal book! I wish I would have had a copy as a pre-teen or teenager. It would have saved me a lot of needless pain & suffering. This book teaches teens how to take responsibility for their lives, set goals, and establish healthy self-esteems and healthy self-perceptions. It encourages the reader to be persistent and to give their best no matter what. Each chapter is sprinkled with inspiring stories that back up the 20 principles. It is extremely fun and entertaining to read while teaching important life skills. I am 27-years old and was motivated to take the suggestions in the book. Implementing these suggestions has absolutely changed my life for the better. I am now goal oriented and have a much more positive outlook on life. This book made me feel that I finally have the tools necessary to deal with the real world.

I really enjoyed the first 4 and thought the last was the least , but overall one of E.L. DOCTOROW'S best writings .

Bought this as an amazon remainder. Doctorow is one of the most underrated of America's authors. His language is brilliant, and he manages to entertain without pulling out every post-modern trick in the book. Always a good read.

the 5 short 'Sweet Land' stories keep you in their grip and make you think about how much of it could happen or has happened in real life, they are that intense and down-to-earch, another proof why E. L. Doctorow is an author essential to any Reader's Must List.

JohPWilbrand

I read and enjoyed Doctorow's current historical novel of Sherman's march, "The March," and wanted to read more. Doctorow's "Sweet Land Stories" (2004) lacks the sweep of his Civil War novel. But it excells in its picture of American down-and-outers, loners, losers, grifters, and wanderers. It includes short but unforgettable scenes of a varied and almost timeless American, in rural Illinois, Chicago, Alaska, a religious commune, Las Vegas, and elsewhere.

The book consists of five short stories, four of which appeared initially in the New Yorker while the fifth story, "Child, Dead in the Rose Garden" appeared first in the Virginia Quarterly Review. Each of the stories is faced-paced, draws the reader into the action, and can be read easily in a single sitting. The stories reminded me of Hubert Selby's "Last Exit to Brooklyn" and of the novels of Charles Bukowski without their rawness. Doctorow's is the voice of a polished literary artist.

Three of the stories are told in the first person by male narrators. The first story "A House on the Plains" is recounted by Earle and tells of his conniving and murderous mother on a small farm in Illinois. For all the brutality and irony of the story, the characters come alive sympathetically. "Baby Wilson" is told in the voice of a young man with nowhere particular to go whose girlfriend has kidnapped a baby claiming it is the couple's. We are treated to a picturesque ride through dusty roads and small towns as the two loners truly become a couple and parents as well as they struggle to resolve the situation.

"Walter John Harmon" tells the story of its namesake, a former garage mechanic and thief, and current alcoholic and philanderer, who becomes the leader of a religious commune. But the narrator is an attorney who has given up a staid if successful law practice and, with his wife Betty has joined the commune. The tone of the story is set by its first sentence: "When Betty told me she would go that night to Walter John Harmon, I didn't think I reacted." Doctorow shows the credulous, unresolved needs of many people, including highly educated individuals, for belief and spiritual support, as the narrator is cuckolded by Walter John Harmon who runs off with Betty and abandons the commune to its fate.

The story "Jolene:A Life" tells of a young woman with three bad marriages and other affairs who works through a life of trouble and attains a degree of peace at the end. This is a tawdry story with tawdry scenes, tattoo parlors, topless bars, sexual abuse, gangster-style killings,convincingly portrayed. Jolene struggles throughout all this to develop her talent as an artist.

The final story, "Child Dead, in the Rose Garden" seems to me weaker than the others in that it is too overtly political. I had the same problem with Doctorow's "The Book of Daniel" which is a fictionalized account of the Rosenbergs. This story also differs from its companions in that the protagonist is not a down-and-outer but a respectable person in a responsible job. The story is about the adventures of a retired special agent named B.W. Molloy who, over official resistance, solves a mystery about how the body of a dead child was found in the White House Rose Garden and in the process learns a good deal about himself.

Doctorow has made his reputation, and deservedly so, as a writer of American historical fiction. This book is smaller in scope than novels such as "The March" but perhaps digs deeper into the hearts of its characters. This book together with Doctorow's difficult modern novel "City of God" which to me shows the promise of a secular, open America, are thoughtful, spiritual works which I have greatly enjoyed.

Robin Friedman

I've said I don't know how many times that I really don't like short stories. But every now and then I'll pick up a short story book, and I'm usually always disappointed. Well, not this time. These 5 stories grab your attention from start to finish.

The first...A House On The Plains, is the tale of a mother and son and their murderous means of living, and how they continue to get away with it. The second...Baby Wilson, is the story of two lovers. A shady man, and a delusional woman who kidnaps a newborn child and tries to pass it off as their own, while the man finds a way to get them out of the mess she created.

The third...Jolene: A Life, was my favorite. We meet Jolene at the age of fifteen. An orphan who over the span of 10 yrs. goes through three husbands, a stint in a psychiatric hospital, a mobster boyfriend, living the high life, being homeless, and countless jobs, some pretty gritty. The fourth...Walter John Harmon, is an inside look at life in a cult. Members give all their wealth and possessions to 'prophet' Walter John Harmon in exchange for a peaceful and clean community. But they are so disillusioned, they cannot comprehend when he betrays them.

And finally...Child, Dead, In The Rose Garden. This was my least favorite. A dead child is found in the White House Rose Garden after an event. Special Agent Molloy sets out trying to find the answers as to who, why, and how this act was carried out. I definitely recommend this book. The stories are short and very intense. I will most certainly be giving more of Mr. Doctorow's books a chance.

it covers every aspect of swimming in great depth, such as hydrodynamics, stroke techniques, nutrition, weight training, starts and turns and much more.

high recommended for all fitness and competitive swimmers.

I've readed a lot of books about swimming and I must declare that this one is probably the best.
It analise every aspect of this sport and supported by an impressionant bibliography it can separate facts from suppositions and errors.
This book has helped me to understand the deepest aspect of training and swim propulsion in the four strokes, and it can be well used in addiction with other manuals.
I'm emotionally waiting for Maglischo next work.

This is the best swimming book I have ever read. Everything a swimmer or coach needs: training principles, swimming technique, and mental aspects of the sport. It covers everything even how you should split your race. Lots of drills for every stroke.

This book has served me well as a coach for many years, and I have given it as a gift to several coaches and top swimmers. Whether or not you care to get lost in the endless debate over Bernoulli versus Newton, this book has much more to offer. I trained under Ernie Maglischo and this book has served as the marvelous manifestation of his patient and persistent work on deck. I recommend it without reservation.

I'm primarily a rower, so I can't speak about the swimming-specific sections of this book. But I can rave about the more generally applicable sections. I've used this book for several years to design training programs for various rowing events, from 500 meters (about 1.5-2 minutes) to 2,000 meters (about 7-8 minutes) to head races (20 minutes and longer). Maglischo's explanations of how to balance the levels of effort in a training program for sprint or endurance events is tremendously helpful, as are the explanations of how to periodize training programs and create daily, weekly, monthly, and yearly programs.

The only tiny criticism I have of this book is that I would find it slightly more useful if the swimming distances included approximate times for the events. That way, it would make transferring the principles to comparable events in different sports more straightforward.

I recommend this book to any coach or athlete of any racing sport. You'll find not only physiological issues addressed, but also issues concerning pacing and race strategy -- a must for anyone desiring an internal focus during racing.

Frederick Buechner has a wonderful way of showing how the stories of our individual lives evoke and elucidate our common story of human experience. As for the darkest "secrets" of our individual and family histories - in Buechner's case, the suicide of his father - he holds out the hope of God's healing. In perhaps the most poignant passage of the book, Buechner is able to write down an imaginary conversation with his father (decades after the fact) that exemplifies the redemptive possibilities available for even our deepest wounds.

While fully cognizant of the challenges involved in making meaningful connection with fellow humans, Buechner provides instances in his life that encourage us to continue the difficult, upward path of love. He is astonished to find, for example, in the midst of a meeting of Adult Children of Alcoholics, people "speaking something extraordinarily like truth in something extraordinarily like love."

Spending time with some authors feels like making a friend. Along with Henri Nouwen, C. S. Lewis, and many others, I now count Frederick Buechner among my author-friends.

This book was shipped to me very quickly, and was in very good condition, with a small amount of highlighting.

Frederick Buechner is one of my favorite autbors. I have almost all of his books. His latest, Telling Secrets, arrived last week and I have not opened it yet. I was almost through reading another book and didn't want to peek until I could sit down and read and read. I am so glad to have Amazon.com to remind me of books by him and other favorites.

"I not only have my secrets, I am my secrets. And you are your secrets. Our secrets are human secrets, and our trusting each other enough to share them with each other has much to do with the secret of what it is to be human."

In Telling Secrets, Buechner does just that. He tells the details of his most intimate life. He tells of his struggles and his tortuous search for answers to life. And Buechner finds some answers. He finds that so much of the secret of live is to love and to love means being able to lay bare that core of our being, that soul with the "print of God's thumb still intact." And this book is just that. In an tremendous act of love, Buechner is baring his most essential soul and allowing the reader to connect and learn.

It's difficult for me to express how much I love this book. It is short, but each page holds enough wisdom to fill volumes. Telling Secrets is a book that has earned a prestigious spot on my bedstand where I can reach it easily the times I need it most.

In this book, Buechner places great stress on the influential nature of the secrets we tend to keep. He also places great importance on the power of memory to recall and grapple with the events in our past that impact our lives. I found much of what Buechner had to say to be searching, honest and incisive, if not altogether theologically tight.

Buechner describes 3 sore spots in his past that have greatly shaped his present outlook - his father's suicide, his mother's narcissism, and his daughter's battle with anorexia. He suggests that his over-controlling and over-fretting response to his daughter's illness was shaped by the loss of his father and even the potential loss of the memory of his father. This, he believes, fed a great fear of losing things close to him. He further intimates that his mother's tendency to wall off certain topics and events from discussion left a relational hole that he tried to fill by over-pursuing and over-analyzing his daughter both before and during her illness. He suggests that this suffocation actually contributed to his daughter's crisis.

The best portion of the book is the final chapter in which Buechner delves into spiritual realities. Here, Buechner tells a poignant story of his time at Wheaton, where he discovers that evangelicals are not the close-minded apocalyptics that the culture describes. Instead, Buechner found a principled tolerance that is anchored in a faith that sets a principled direction for all other endeavors. He contrasts this with his time at Harvard, where he observed how brute pluralism often degenerates into all-out factionalism. Buechner is very insightful here. Few are willing to flush out this 'dark side' of pluralism, but of course, the factionalism that Buechner laments is increasingly the norm in American culture today. Tolerance, pluralism, and acceptance tend to be popular buzzwords that in the end, rarely endure the trials and complexities of life unscathed by those who exalt them in theory. Buechner's honest grappling with this dilemma is very refreshing.

Buechner has other insightful points to make as well. He provides helpful balance in analyzing the great love commandment, believing that in addition to loving our neighbors, we need to reclaim some love for ourselves as images of God. Self-loathing defames the image of God as much as loathing others, and loving ourselves biblically doesn't mean being self-absorbed or wanting to bring glory to ourselves. There is a balance that needs to be struck, and Buechner is helpful on this. In addition, Buechner also applies his 'secrets' hypothesis to the church. He notes that the church often bears the marks of a dysfunctional family, where outward community abounds but inner connectedness is in short supply. Like people, the church tends to prefer keeping things unsaid (keeping secrets, of a sort) and unvoiced by chossing to put on a good show rather than acknowledge individual and shared struggle and dealing honestly with it. While Buechner perhaps goes too far in seeing the church more as therapy and group catharsis instead of a place of worship and union with Christ, it is hard to argue with his basic point that both the church and us are often defined by the secrets we keep.

I'm giving the book 4 stars because in the midst of penetrating observation, Buechner seems to not penetrate far enough in some ways. In particular, it appeared to me that the death of his father helped shape some of his views about God that he does not really flush out or hold up to examination. It's not enough to say that experiencing a loss in life makes me afraid of going through that experience again, so that I try to fight it through over-protection and over-meddling. This might be true for as far as it goes, but it also involves something deeper. It involves, at root, a distrust in the goodness of God, and a fear of pain and loneliness; even when we may know intellectually that there is a redemptive character to such pain. In some ways, Buechner seems to see God in everything, but struggles with trusting him in everything. He hints at this toward the end of the book, where 'letting go' is very difficult for him. So ironically, in a book that purports to tell secrets as a result of believing that people are their secrets, I'm not sure Buechner goes far enough in contemplating just how comprehensively his secrets have shaped his view of God.

In the end, Buechner offers us a very penetrating, vulnerable, and often insightful glimpse into his life. The reader will likely be impressed not only by the vulnerability they find, but also in how Buechner's core struggles and secrets might be ours as well. His rather strong statement that we have a right to be happy, as if such a right is owed to us, is no doubt a popular sentiment, though one will struggle mightily to build a biblical case for it. However, robbing ourselves of happiness by obsessing about our fears isn't right either, and this is where Buechner is helpful. Recommended for the discerning reader.

This is by far the best book I have come across pertaining to snakes - specifically Texas snakes. Great bk. for any herp. enthusiast or just a regular person wanting to know what's what. This bk. has plenty to offer. There is detailed scientific info. including range, habitat, reproduction, behavior, etc. of species. The pictures are amazing & thorough for easy identification. I particularly like the range maps.

I highly recommend this bk. to anyone who wants a great reference bk. on snakes. This book will not disappoint you.

Terrific photos and scientifically up-to-date. Easy to use guide for herpetology student or the causually interested.

This is easily the most complete and best book on Texas Snakes available. There is an ample amount of photographs with numerous pictures of some species and also rare to see pictures such as Western Diamondback's fighting and a couple pages of leusistic/albino snakes. Each snakes description tells just about everything you'd want to know and then some, enough to satisfy both amateurs and experts. This is an excellent book to keep at home for reference and to study up on Texas Snakes. This book also has more species of snakes in it than other books on Texas Snakes I have read which is a bonus since the others may be excluding something you could run into in the field.

I've encountered numerous books about herps, and this one is one of the best of them all--it is certainly the best book pertaining to the snakes of Texas specifically.
The species descriptions are accurate; detailed species information is given with each species. Behaviour, range, habitat, diet, reproduction, are all covered in a fair degree of depth for each species.
Despite on reviewers comments, I have no complaint with either the common or scientific names; it uses common names I've heard frequently. In most cases, it will write them in a grammatically corret fashion; Yellow bellied water snake as opposed to yellowbelly water snake, say, but that merely makes the work appear more professional and read much better. The latin names...well taxonomy is always under debate anyway, and I would personally agree with most of thier decisions (although I'm a mere hobbyist).
The photos are incredibly well done; I particularly like that the authors saw fit to provide mulitiple photos with locality information for highly variable species (i.e. western coachwhip, bullsnakes, etc.).

This is a wonderful book on Texas snakes. As one who recently had a (noninjurious) run-in with a western diamondback rattler, I can attest that the photography is stunning. This is almost an artwork. This book provides a wealth of information that is easily accessible to the nonspecialist on each species--range, specific habitats within that range, generalized behavior traits, likely reactions upon encountering humans, diet, mating habits, etc. The only real criticisms I have of the book are minor. It would have been nice if the color plates had been interspersed with each species covered, rather being placed all together. As it is now, one reads up on the snake and has to thumb through the book to find the picture. Also, as many of us buy this book to be able to identify snakes we are likely to encounter in normal activities, more information pertaining to where one is likely to encounter each species (e.g. in leaf litter, under rocks, inside ranch buildings) would have been helpful. This is a book that every Texan who wanders outside should have, as well as those interested in herpetology or snakes. As a librarian I have encountered numerous books on Texas snakes. This one is far and away the best.

I loved this book, and so did everyone know who has read it. The three sisters are hilarious, and their experiences/conflicts are unique and enticing. I'd recommend this book to anyone!!!

I discovered Liane Moriarty only by chance, but once I read THE LAST ANNIVERSARY, I had to find THREE WISHES as quickly as possible. My only regret is that there aren't a dozen more of her novels already on the shelf, waiting for me to devour them. Seldom does one find a modern women's fiction writer who tells a story with such humor, perception and literate grace. Liane Moriarty's appeal spans continents and generations of readers; my 28-year-old daughter loves them as much as I do. I am anxiously awaiting her next novel!

Loved this book! I eagerly await another title by this author!

This book starts with a scene where 3 triplets are eating birthday cake in a restaurant. One of the women is pregnant and the other throws a fork at her stomach. The scene is told from a bystander's point of view so we don't know the sisters by name yet. The novel then works backward so we can see how they got to this point.

For me, the middle of the book was best, because it focused on Gemma's story. Gemma is the flaky, endearing, yet smart sister who is scarred by a past relationship. Her fiance died, but no one in her family knew that he was abusive. Because of his behavior, she finds herself bowing out of relationships if the new boyfriend reminds her of the fiance even slightly. For example, one of them asks her to wash the sand from her feet at the beach before getting in the car, and this reminds her of her fiance's wrath when she got sand in his car, so she breaks up with the boyfriend. Gemma is a charming, troubled person and you root for her to conquer her troubles.

One of the other sisters, Cat, is harder to care about. Cat is one of the glass-half-empty people with an enormous sense of entitlement and an equally marked lack of empathy. She feels like she deserves everything in life and takes it out on others when things go wrong. Unfortunately, the last part of the book focuses on Cat.

The third sister, Lyn, is not as well-drawn as the other two. She's a workaholic who has trouble delegating, and her husband presses her to get an assistant to help her with her on-the-go breakfast business (Brekkie Bus).

I also had trouble with something that happened to the girls' grandmother near the end. It seemed completely unnecessary and irrelevant to the plot, on top of being disturbing.

Overall, Moriarty's breezy and clever style, as well as her way with dialogue, makes this book worth reading. But I do wish she had chosen to keep the focus on Gemma and given the grandmother a break.

The Kettle family is quite a trip. There's Nana Kettle, mother of Frank Kettle, ex-husband of Maxine (Max) Kettle, mother of the wackiest triplets on the planet, Lynnette (Lyn), Catriona (Cat), and Gemma Kettle. The girls are long-legged and beautiful, but that's where the similarity ends. Author Moriarty grew up in a family with six children, she being the eldest, so she probably has an excellent concept of what chaos in a family means.

The scene is Sydney, Australia, and the story is about the triplets as they approach their thirty-fourth birthday. There are snippets of their lives from birth, including the divorce of their parents when they were six, the death of the fiancé of one of the girls; marriages, childbirth, miscarriage, unfaithful husbands, etc. There's a good mix of happy/sad/mundane events, but mostly these three girls and their family members try, like most of us, to survive one another. It's quite a hoot. However, there is one aspect of this story I found very disturbing. Since art imitates life, we all know of situations like the one portrayed in the book. All I can say is "Get out!"

Ms. Moriarty not only used prose to tell her story, she included emails between these very modern sisters, which I thought was very clever. In addition, she included vignettes by people who had been "exposed" to the sisters over the course of their lives. These vignettes were presented in italicized text. I liked the feature as it gave the unusual view of the story's characters from people outside the story line.

Carolyn Rowe Hill

This book may not be the best choice for very young children, as it is rather long (it takes about 25 minutes to read aloud), and they might lose interest. I loved this book as a child, and was not disappointed to re-read it as an adult. This tale of mutual understanding and shared compassion and friendship is very satisfying. While bits of it may be a bit tense for some children, the ending is thoroughly uplifting. I highly recommend this book for children who like stories about animals, as well as for anyone who just wants to read a pleasant, well-illustrated story.

I read this book to my inner city 4th graders--the quiet and stillness in the room was magical. As soon as I finished they asked me to read it again. This is absolutely the best read aloud book I have shared with students in my 30+ years as an educator. Why oh why is it out of print?

I enjoyed this book, but I hate to do the homework.

I'm on a mission to collect all of the Warton & Morton books. When I was growing up, I had all of them, first on tape, and later in print. I wore out the whole series listening to and reading them so much. They're very entertaining and wholesome stories that are captivating to young minds. I can't wait to read them to my daughter when she gets a little older.

This is such a sweet, gentle, loving little book.

It's about two brother toads, Morton and Warton, one very stodgy, and the other more of an adventurer. Warton, the braver brother, decides to go out into the snow (toads are supposed to hibernate in winter) to visit his aunt. Almost instantly he is plucked up by an owl who wants to eat him, but decides to save him for a week, to have as a special treat on his birthday. It turns out the owl is lonely and friendless and little by little he is won over by Warton's conversation and small acts of kindness.

On television and in movies, and even in many books, children are constantly exposed to the idea that violence is the solution to almost every problem. I love the fact that in this work, intelligence, kindness, and compassion solve Warton's dilemma.

If you have a child who is just developing enough of an attention span to sit through a chapter book, it's hard to beat this little gem. It's very short, for one thing -- under seventy pages -- which makes it great for restless five or six year olds. And it has just enough danger in it to have small children on the edge of their seats without being too scary. It's cute and funny, and it's message is a great blessing.

It also has lots of sequels, which is a big plus when you're trying to get kids interested in reading more. Unfortunately most of the other Warton and Morton books are out of print, but any reasonable library should have them.