The Party Books

This book is great for anyone who would like to have an avening with their girlfriends but unsure what they could do. This book has a chapter for each type of party. The book has a list of everything you need to buy for the party and how to delegate so everyong attending can contribute. You don't have to think all you need to do is fill in the blank page within the book! The author has thought of everything and wonderful recipe's within the book!

Girl's night is a great book if you want to throw a blow out party or just have a small girls get together. It is the most detailed party planning book I have ever read. The amount of information covered and explained leaves the reader without a thought or stress about what to do or what one has not done in throwing a party. I definatly suggest as a stocking stuffer or just a fun girls gift! go buy it

These 4 books are darling - so much fun, for 3rd graders and up. Same courageous strength as the Laura Ingalls books, but easy flowing, learning without getting bogged down. Lots of enjoyment!

Gold-Rush Phoebe was a humerous book about pioneers and the gold rush. It is about a pioneer girl who dresses as a boy so she can search for gold in California and have adventures. She and her friend end up running a restaurant, and become rich. I reccomend this book and the rest of the Petticoat Party series.

My mom is Nancy Fyke - one of the authors. I have had a lot of the parties in the book (as have my brothers and the kids of the other 2 authors). I was just talking to a friend about my birthday parties when I was little, and quite frankly, there were awesome. This book is full of good ideas. I'm 22 now and I can't imagine trying to plan a kid's party from scratch.

So, from personal experience - these parties rock! (I think my name is on the 'jail' under the cowboy party!)

I have used this book many times for each of my 3 kids' birthday parties. It is full of great games, clever invitations, and funny party ideas. Definitely a must-buy!

This is a great book. It's been spot-on perfect for all three of my very different kids, two boys and a girl, who now range from 12 to 5. Each of them would give it 5 stars.

This book explains how the ten kids in one class decide on costumes for Halloween, and it shows some of them preparing (making or buying their costumes). The reader has to figure out the inspiration for each costume from the pictures; the text is from the point of view of one little girl commenting (in a very kind way) on everyone's choice of costume. I think what my kids like so much is that the way the class celebrates Halloween is very much the way they always have in school, and they are able to discover new details (e.g. the teacher looking through the window and finding her own Halloween costume on one page) the more times they read the book.

It's still a go-to favorite for my 5 year old, so we've been reading this one for nine years and counting. Thanks, Anne Rockwell!

It's Halloween day and what a magical day it is for the students. It's that one day a year where they dress up in costume and go to school. It's the magic of figuring out who is who under that costume and seeing that child's current passion at this stage in their lives!

The book starts out with a little girl adjusting her black cat ears in her hair and thinks to herself how excited she is about wearing her halloween costume to school. What will her classmates have choosen to wear on this day? On the next page it shows her class lining up for their costume parade around the school and how some of us look beautiful and scary, but how everyone looks great. The book goes on to show how certain children in her class went about picking out their costume and even shows their teacher Mrs. Madoff spying her costume she will wear.. but you really have to look!

I remember the excitement of going to school dressed up in my mostly home made & purchased halloween costume. How we all loved to parade around the school showing each other our costumes and best of all the party that ended the day! I love that the author choose to have children of different nationalities in the class, so that your child might identify with one of them.... hey mom that looks like me or I love dressing up as......, what a wonderful book to share with your child.

My kids have asked me to read this book to them over and over again. It is exciting, mysterious, and fun! I even bought copies for all my nieces and nephews!

I read this book to my two young sons and they really enjoyed the suspense and humor. I was relieved to find a book on Halloween that didn't frighten them, but let them enjoy the holiday, instead.The author seemed to know just what buttons to push to keep a four and five year old on the edge of their seats.They've already requested me to read it three times since the first reading and I have a feeling it will stay on our 'favorite shelf'for a good long while.

The neighborhood children are excited. There's a Halloween party tonight on Shivermore Street, a haunted-looking house decorated with spider webs, candles and jack-o-lanterns. At six o'clock as directed, the children approach, ready for the party to begin. Every hour, before the clock strikes, there's something new to do: just before seven it's snack time, "sizzling spiders hot out of the pan... whipped cream-colored ants"; before eight it's musical chairs, six frantic witches scrambling for five seats when the music ends. And so it goes, hour after hour, each bringing a scarier game, werewolves bobbing for apples, vampires cutting out pumpkin faces, hide-and-seek in the dark of night.

Beware! When the clock strikes twelve, it's time to take off the masks, everyone exposed. As the final chimes begin, all the partygoers gather for the unveiling. The children look around them, their eyes suddenly as big as saucers; it seems these party people are really scary monsters! With a shriek, the neighborhood kids run from the house on Shivermore Street and a Halloween party they'll never forget. In vivid Halloween colors, a pea green moon, a navy blue sky, goblins and ghouls eerie faces lit my orange candlelight, the fanciful illustrations are scary without being frightening, creepy and strange, spine-tingling. Page by page, the party accelerates, until the final countdown. Part of the revelry, the children have no idea what is happening until everyone is unmasked. This entertaining tale delighted my granddaughter as we read, hour by hour, deliciously building up to the midnight surprise. Luan Gaines/ 2005.

While Rebeccasreads screamingly recommends HALLOWEEN NIGHT ON SHIVERMORE STREET for children ages 4 to 8, it can easily enchant any reader with a love for creatively creepy fun. This is one party kids & adults will want to read about over & over again, especially on those moonlit nights leading up to Halloween itself. Do try the whipped-cream-covered ants -- they were simply TO DIE FOR!

A fun, bouncy, hair-raising, rhyming tale, illuminated by Randy DuBurke's wild illustrations of all the usual suspects you'd ever hope to encounter at this time of year!

Told by rhyme; the reader watches a mother and child prepare and walk over to a party. They see spooky things (well not really); play games and have all sorts of fun.

Eventually, it ends with everybody screaming BOO and they turn on the lights and take off the masks.

There is one final surprise!

It's a fun book with a good rhythm for bed time. The artwork is ok as it did make my daughter want to look at it a couple times.

This is a wonderful Halloween book told in rhym.A family gets ready and goes to a Halloween party where they have a great time mingling with the guests. At midnight it is time to remove the masks and everyone is in for a surprise, even the reader.

My daughter loved it when I read this book to her. Dolores wakes up early on her birthday and is full of anticipation of the party that she will have later in the day. She is full of energy and does everything she needs to do to prepare. Of course, her mind is on the presents, so her parents need to remind her to mind her manners. The party goes well until the guests discover her cat and chase it around the house. They collide with Dolores' father and the cake falls on the floor. The parents then get a "cake pizza" and the day is saved.
There are many lessons in this book for young children. Being a good hostess at your party, helping your parents prepare for major events and recovering from disappointment are the three major ones. I highly recommend this book for very young children.

This book is the best for children and adults of all ages. It catches the real story of children and how they are at birthday parties. It is funny. My child says, "Read it again, Mom!" What more could you ask for?

This is a high-interest book for preschool girls. It's good for me for teaching reading (even though the font is rather small) because she wants to read it over and over again.

My mother-in-law bought my daughter more books from this Barbie series for Christmas. I think what is so attractive about these stories to little girls is that they role-play that they are Barbie, but they get to be Kelly, too. Kelly is about preschool age, so girls can imagine that they have this great imaginary older sister named Barbie, and what they would have Barbie say.

In these stories, Barbie is always patient and kind with Kelly. For example, one of my daughter's favorite parts of this story is when Kelly asks Barbie if she can eat one of the Halloween cookies. Barbie says, "You may take one. But just one." The cookies are supposed to be for the party guests, but Barbie loves her little sister so much, that she lets her eat one of the cookies before the guests arrive.

My four year old daughter LOVES this book! It shows Barbie and her little sister Kelly preparing for a Halloween party. It's sure to get your Barbie fan eager for Halloween!

Midterm elections are a lot more than just the ugly stepchild of American politics. They are an important feature that (with three exceptions since 1894)have consistently hurt the president and his agenda in one way or another. Why does the president's party almost always lose ground in Congress in midterm elections? And what are the short- and long-term effects of midterms?

In this book, Busch takes at look at every midterm election from 1894 to the present. He then divides each midterm election into one of four categories: the preparatories (1894, 1910, 1918, 1930, 1950, 1958, 1966, and 1978) in which the opposition party gained seats in Congress and set the stage for their winning the White House two years later, the calibrating elections, (1938, 1982, 1986) which forced the president to moderate his agenda, but didn't reverse it, the exceptions (1934, 1962, and 1998)in which the party holding the White House gained the advantages usually gained by their opponents, and the normal midterms (somewhat surprisingly, 1994 is in this category).

Midterm elections have many important effects besides just damaging the president, as Busch notes. For example, the 1946 elections and the subsequent GOP Congress established bipartisan support for an activist foreign policy that is still, for the most part, with us today.

Don't let my summary fool you. Busch goes into great depth (for example, he even shows that the president usually suffers damage within his own party i.e. many of the Democrats who survived the 1894 elections were silverities and thus Cleveland's enemies) about an important topic.

Professor Busch pens a superb book that deals with a topic that few other political scientists have written on: the results of midterm elections. Prof. Busch looks at each midterm election since 1894 (up to 1998) and classifies them, finally explaining their results. It is an excellent book, and is a must for anyone trying to understand what midterm elections mean to our republican government.