Literature Books

Hana's Suitcase, by Karen Levine, published in 2007, is the true story of a young girl named Hana Brady, who was taken away by the Nazis as a small child along with her older brother George, and her suitcase, which through a chain of events ended up in Japan. It is also the story of a Japanese woman's efforts to find out about Hana- who she was and what happened to her. The book is incredibly moving. Illustrated with photographs of Hana and her family as well as the Holocaust center in Japan where her suitcase is found, Levine tells Hana's story in parallel with the story of the efforts to learn about her. This structure sets up two crushing waves of emotion that left me in tears by the end. It's bittersweet tragedy, told with beauty and sensitivity.

I have read this book to my fourth grade class for the past two years. They are instantly drawn to Hana, Fumiko, and the story of the Holocaust. The minute they see the picture of Hana's Suitcase, they begin to ask all the questions that the children in Japan asked of Fumiko. They always want me to continue reading and they are so eager to find out about her story. This book has inspired so many deep and thoughtful discussions with my students. They really connect to Hana and her story and the book helps them understand what happened with the Jewish people in WW2 and why it got so out of control. The chapters switch between Hana's story and the story of the children in Japan who are learning about Hana, so it kind of breaks up some of the more difficult parts of the story with the more happier, hopeful parts. I highly recommend this book for anyone- kids and adults.

Has there ever been something you found that you wanted to learn more about? This happened to Fumiko Ishioka in Hana's Suitcase by Karen Levine. Hana's Suitcase is an informational book about the Holocaust and the sad story of what happened to over 6 million Jewish people.

Hana's Suitcase is about a young Jewish girl named Hana who lives in Czechoslovakia with her family in the 1930's and 1940's. It is also about Fumiko Ishioka in Japan and a group of kids called Small Wings who find a suitcase from Auschwitz (a German concentration camp) with the name Hana Brady on it. Fumiko and all the Small Wings are eager to learn about Hana and her life, death, and family.
Hana's story begins when she is a pampered girl who lives in Nove Mesto, Czechoslovakia. As Hitler's troops march into other parts of Czechoslovakia, Hana is barely affected. She still has all her rights and freedom. Soon after, Hitler and his troops marched into the rest of Czechoslovakia changing the Brady's life forever.
Hana's Suitcase is an amazing book that I think everyone should read. It teaches us all more about history, who these people were, and the pure evil that attacked them. The story might be sad, but it shows us just what happened to the 6 million Jews who suffered Hitler's wrath.

This children's book (age 10+)is an engaging story, almost a mystery/detective story about a Czech girl named Hana who dies in the Holocaust. It is an unusual story because it begins in Tokyo with the curator of a newly created Holocaust museum who is curious about the name on a suitcase from Auschwitz. She wants the people of Japan to understand the story of the Holocaust, especially children. The children wanted to know about Hana. The book has many photographs of Hana and her family. Each chapter answered questions in my mind but then created even more questions. Who was Hana? How did the author get the photographs? Did she survive the Holocaust? What was Hana like?

This is a very different account of the holocaust than I have ever read before. It is a living account of the holocaust and how it still affects our lives today. This book brings the holocaust into the present by telling the story of a Japanese woman searching for a girl who was lost nearly 60 years ago. I loved this story and wonder how many more stories of survival, hope and faith we can find if we just dig a little deeper to unbury a past that is not always pleasant but that we can always learn from.

Bible in great condition. Was delivered very fast. Wanted it for a Christmas gift and received it in plenty of time. The child that received it loved it so much and will be using it in Sunday school and Awanas. Thanks so much for this product:):):):)

Hands-On Bible (Bible Nlt)This is a great easy to read Bible for Children-The helps are great and go with our Group Literature.

Thanks! I got it when you said I would and it was in good condition.

This is a great bible for older elementary aged children. The captions and activities are very interesting. If you want your kids to READ the bible, you need to give them one that will hold their attention. The Hands On Bible will do that.

My 8.5 year old grandson took twenty minutes to review four children's Bibles. He finally chose this one as the best for reasons similar to those mentioned in other reviews, but suggested two improvements.

First, improve the print. It is harder to read than other children's Bibles that are printed in blue. One he really found easy to read had blue print and green section titles. Two, make the colored pages with special activities easier to find. The more high color pages he found in a Bible the more it moved up on his list. The Bibles he initially chose used a heavier paper.

Only after I pointed out the activity pages (and he found plenty of them) did this Bible become his first choice.

At last out in paperback, this unusual novel finally gets a foothold. It's not a "Western" at all. There are no blazing guns, sheriffs, or bad guys. There is just the beauty of the western high country bringing sustenance to a kid farmed out from a depression defeated Montana ranch to a find life packing mules and horses into the mountains. . . . We see the mountains grow into Ty Hardin as he grows into them, even when yanked from them to fight a war he is obliged to fight and which wounds him physically as his mentor, Fenton Pardee, knows it will, somehow. . . . Hardin returns to his high country to repair, and subsequently suffer the failure of a love that cannot be. He soon finds the deeper love of the woman he marries. But that too goes awry, his love dying with their child in a botched delivery. . . . That sadness takes him from the Montana mountains where he found life into the High Sierra, the west's highest range, where he knows life. He becomes a legend and dies there, trying to rescue a drug addled boy who should never have tested a country so high. . . . The book is a startling testament to something we have cherished but have never quite resolved in our literature -- the perennial allure and majesty of the American west.

I admire a spellbinding story where the characters are real, their choices and dilemmas have a grab that keeps you absorbed by their story. Then you add to this a complete understaning of the settings, the profession, the way people behave in the wilderness West, and it becomes an insight into a vanishing breed as an extra bonus beyond being a great story. The prose is as good as it gets - it often has a poetic quality. This book should be a best-seller: that is the bottom line, plain and simple.

Great book, hard read, must find a place that has no noise, then you will get through, you will enjoy it. Sound like a prop from a college wrote it.
Over all I enjoyed it.

Read this. It will stay with you. And it will probably lead you to check internet sites for pack trips into the mountains of western Montana and the Sierras of California so that you can experience what the novel describes and visit with the characters even more closely.

I loved this. One of my favorite reads of the last year. It communicates a life ethic that is 180 degrees from the culturally promoted one of contemporary American life. The persons you meet within its pages will awaken memories of folks from the margins of your life.

I can't say enough good things. It deserves to reach a wide audience. Make sure you've got plenty of time to give to this novel because you'll find you want to keep going and going till you've reached camp.

Great book if you love the mountains and enjoy escaping into a great story line with wonderful descriptions of the life of a packer in the mountains. I could not put the book down!

A Home For A Bunny was my son's all-time favorite book. We read it over and over again. Now my son is nearly 27, and I still have the same book and read it to his 5-year-old-daughter, whom I am raising. It was her very first book and she demanded it be read every single night. We had fun using different voices and she especially liked the happy ending. She decided that the bunnies were a "Mommy Bunny and a Daddy Bunny", and would kiss them goodnight each time.

I highly recommend this book! I buy one every chance I get, whenever I know someone is going to have a baby.

I purchased this book (my first "big" little golden book) and love the larger size and pictures. My two-year-old daughter loves this book and often picks it from her huge selection of books. A great sweet story to share. I'm now looking for more "big" little golden books to buy.

This book is such a sweet, cute book. I am 24 years old and still read it to my nieces every once in a while. I have grown up making my parents read me this book over and over again every night and day. My copy is worn out but it also shows how much I enjoyed it. I hope you decide to buy it and read it to your children they will love it!

I read this book 20+ years ago to my two children and it was their favorite and most requested Little Golden book. It is such a sweet and well illustrated book. My only regret is that I didn't keep it over the years because I now had to go on a search for another copy for my brand new grandchild. My new copy of "Home for a Bunny" will be extremely well used, I'm sure!

This is such a sweet little book! Probably not much past age 5, but the story has a bunny looking for a place to stay or a home of his own. He proceeds to ask everyone he meets if he can live with them and they all say no. However, when he meets a little white bunny, the bunny takes him in and they then live together. The last picture is just so sweet with the two bunnies snuggling together. The illustrations make you touch the page because the bunny looks so fuzzy! It is very much loved in our house and we highly recommend it!

The Mom's Choice Awards® honors excellence in family-friendly media, products and services. An esteemed panel of judges includes education, media and other experts as well as parents, children, librarians, performing artists, producers, medical and business professionals, authors, scientists and others. A sampling of the panel members includes: Dr. Twila C. Liggett, Ten-time Emmy-winner, professor and founder of Reading Rainbow; Julie Aigner-Clark, Creator of Baby Einstein and The Safe Side Project; Jodee Blanco, New York Times Best-Selling Author; LeAnn Thieman, Motivational speaker and coauthor of seven Chicken Soup For The Soul books; Florrie Binford-Kichler, Founder of Patria Press, Inc.- an award-winning independent publisher and Member of The Children's Book Council; Tara Paterson, Certified Parent Coach, and founder of The Just For Mom Foundation(tm) and the Mom's Choice Awards®. Parents and educators look for the Mom's Choice Awards® seal in selecting quality materials and products for children and families. This book has been honored by this distinguished award.

This series of books is absolutley wonderful and I recommend them to any parent or grandparent, especially this book!! It teaches children how to be positive, kind and loving to themselves at a very young age which is a key ingredient to creating loving, kind adults who make a huge difference in the world when they grow up.

I like to play this CD to help create a happy and healthy background environment in the car for my daughters. One thing I really liked about this CD is that it encouraged my daughters, who are 5 & 7 years-old, to talk about what was talked about in the CD.

We were first introduced to I AM a Lovable ME! shortly after our son was born. The messages are positive and uplifting, and our son really enjoys the vivid, colorful illustrations. We also recommend another book in this series...Take a deep breath...watching our little guy "take a deep breath and breathe out slowly" and seeing the calming effect on him (and us) is incredible! Thanks for this awesome series of books...we're looking forward to reading them to our next baby too!!!

I bought this book for my nephews and they absolutely love it. It is the first children's book I have seen that not only has a story, but an important message as well. It teaches children to love themselves and be happy with who they are. It really boosts self-esteem and is a valuable lesson to teach all children. I would highly recommend it. It makes a great present.

Quick, name the ten top novelists from Nicaragua. Give Up? Well extend it then to the top ten from anywhere in Latin America.

After reading this book you will almost certainly put Gioconca Belli on this list. The Inhabited Woman is Lavinia, a modern woman of our time, she becomes 'inhabited' by the spirit of an Indian woman warrior and she joins the revolution against a violent dictator.

At least semi-biographical, Ms. Belli joined the revolutionary Nicaraguan FSLN in 1970 until forced to leave the country in 1975. After Somoza was ousted and th Sandinistas came to power she entered Government service to 1986 when she resigned in to write full time.

Una escritora increible para una historia verdaderamente emocionante donde el presente con su guerra civil en Nicaragua y el pasado con su Conquista espan~ola tienen aspectos en comun, se unen, se cruzan, se mezclan, pero todo tiene siempre sentido. Es una de las novelas mas intensas que haya leido de toda la literatura hispano americana. Lo aconsejo a todos los latinos.

This is a book that is a must because it helps to understand (or at least to have another point of view) about latin american "guerrillas", but also about the subtle and not so subtle differences between men and women, that havent changed so much in hundred years. Going back to the past (to the spaniard invasion)and forward to our days, Belli knits a unique beautiful story of two eras distant in time, but very close in their needs. Not perfect in its "literary structure", but an original, passionate and enlighten story.

As a retired English teacher longing for a "good read". I was delighted from the first chapter of Inhabited Woman. The concept of one woman from one period/culture being a factor in another woman's life sent a tingle through me. As I read on, I was excited in the insights gained by the main character. As she struggled with choices, I found myself rethinking my life and values. The characters are well drawn and the plot complex enough to be interesting. Furthermore, the author's use of langauge and images is sometimes almost poetry. BRAVO!!

Gioconda Belli is one of Nicaragua's most highly regarded writers. Her poetry and fiction have been published in Spain, Mexico, Germany, Denmark, Holland, Finland, Greece and Turkey. She currently lives in Los Angeles. THE INHABITED WOMAN was awarded "Best Literary Work of the Year" by the Union of German Publishers and Editors.

"[It] is a passionate story of love, courage, solidarity and death, where reality and legend blend harmoniously. The lives of the characters are intertwined with the destiny of a country and the struggle of a people for dignity. There is so much truth in this book, that it is impossible for the reader to remain indifferent. This is a story that needed to be told and Belli does it with talent." --Isabel Allende

"THE INHABITED WOMAN is engrossing, reading like an action adventure...[it] opens on a stunning, magical note..." --The Daily News

"THE INHABITED WOMAN revitalizes two literary genres that in recent years seemed to have lost their grips on the imagination of new writers and, as a matter of course, readers-magic realism and social realism." --The Hartford Courant

John Gaudet is a man of considerable scientific training and experience (in Eastern Africa), which adds enormously to his novel, but in a way that is not at all overbearing. His knowledge and experience enrich the novel in a way that is subtle enough that few readers would ever regard it as "academic" (it's too fun for that), but you'll probably learn a few things along the way in any case.

this book is vert entertaining, was hard for me to put down it is filled with elaborate storylines and strong believable characters. the plot flows nicely from spot to spot giving it an easy to read quality that I really enjoyed. flow, story and characters all made this a great overall book filled with great images of africa. I will be looking out for more books by Gaudet!

Because the Colonial forms of African development have been well documented in fact, it is refreshing to discover this subject approached in fictional form. John Gaudet has made capital use of his life experiences while living in Africa. Extremely well researched, and elegantly presented, the book opens a door to the painful, and often mind boggling difficulties faced by those intrepid British, who brought, then modern day rapid train travel, to a country whose former mode of transportation was either by slow ardous river transportation, or the staggering physical demands of hacking their way through the bush. Mr. Gaudet does not shy away from presenting the harsh and brutal treatment used by the Colonials against the natives, although compared to the bestial atrocities of King Leopold, the British seem to have imposed far more lenient treatment to the native populations. Detailing the building a railway through the tropical terrain, with it's innumerable obsticals, is a fascinating picture of a world few if us could imagine being faced with.

John Gaudet knows Africa,he knows British colonial history and he knows how to spin a rousing adventure yarn.At one level,"the Iron Snake"is a fast paced story of the building of the Uganda Railroad and the fights and frolics of the British colonists and their German competitors in the Africa gerrymandered by the European powers at the end of the Victorian Age.

But there is much more to this book.Through the "Iron Snake",Gaudet is able to convey a clear notion of what Africa was like at the turn of the Twentieth Century in terms of its land and people,both those who had always been there and those who came to dominate and exploit them.

Normally, I'm not a reader of historical novels, but I am a fan of Africa, and railroad stories, and travel, and I love the Victorian period of history. This novel is about all three, which is why I picked it out, and I'm not sorry I made the choice. The story is about the building of a railway into the heart of Kenya in the late 19th century. I particularly like the opening section where the heroine, Alice, growing up in England tries to figure out what Africa is all about, "...She recalled from her atlas that starting from Kent one passed through England to Europe and the rest of the World, and since the World started with `A' for Africa, she reasoned that Angola must be at the very top of that Continent and perhaps not far from where she sat this sunny morning."

As the story progresses Alice turns into a strong-willed woman, tough enough to challenge the male-dominated society she finds in Colonial Africa. In fact, all of his characters are similar to the people whom I imagined would venture out to Africa around the turn of the century, colorful, eccentric people, the ones who didn't fit the mold in Europe.

Towards the end of the book I discovered that it is more than a historical novel, it's a description of how to build a rail line into unknown territory, and it's a travelogue, and a thriller, and a love story with a Jane Austen ending! There's something here for everybody. The best parts however are Gaudet's descriptions of the relationships of the white settlers with the Africans, especially the wily, illusive, Zulu woman working for the Germans, Jakoby, and the endearing village seer, Syonduku.

The Africans believed the railroad fulfilled an ancient prophesy and called it the Iron Snake, hence the title of the book, but the British media called it the Lunatic Express and after reading it I can see why.
Historically, The Iron Snake is important because as the novel unfolds we see a shadow of events that lead up to the outbreak of WWI fourteen years later, and the battles that will be fought between British and German colonial troops in East Africa. In summary, a fast, thoroughly enjoyable read, and great entertainment, no wonder Alexander McCall Smith enjoyed it.

This is an enjoyable flip-through for Jane Austen and Regency lovers, but because the format limits the length of any entry, it is a rather abbreviated overview without a lot of depth. Many of the entries had me yearning for more information, especially those items about social mores, society, relationships within the family, etc.

This is a really great book. I'm a fan of Jane Austen and have read all her novels but there were many things in them that I didn't understand because I didn't know the culture, customs and history of that time. Just one small example--Mr. Darcy hands his letter to Elizabeth Bennett instead of mailing it. Apparently unmarried men and women did not correspond with each other unless they were relatives or engaged to be married. Another example--balls and dances were a primary way for unmarried people to meet and socialize and one of the few ways they could talk alone to each other (while on the dance floor). So the balls/dances in Jane Austen's books are much more significant than I realized.

I would highly recommend this book for anyone who wants to understand Jane Austen's novels better.

These days many books come along that discuss specific influences on Jane's writing such as poets, other authors, politics and social customs. This book allows a return to the overview of her story. The hard cover book is 8 x 11 in. which makes it easy to be a coffee table presentation or to read in a comfortable upright chair or even in bed (Yes, I do it!) Six well written chapters choronical her life, who she was, what it was like to live in Regency England, the society and spirit of her times, what her country was like, and her influence through the ages especially via her six novels and in the recent movies and television productions. For the old timers who have followed Jane Austen for some time or for the new comers wanting to know more, this is the book for you.

This books is so informative! Easy to read, lots of information about the Georgian and Regency Eras, very informative. It goes into depth about Jane Austen's time and her life. It talks about everything from the Army, to everyday life, to the madness of King George, fashion, etc.. So much info! If you're into history or Jane Austen, you'll like this book.

This books is so informative! Easy to read, lots of information about the Georgian and Regency Eras, very informative. It goes into depth about Jane Austen's time and her life. It talks about everything from the Army, to everyday life, to the madness of King George, fashion, etc.. So much info! If you're into history or Jane Austen, you'll like this book.