Senses Books

This is a great book for kids and I highly reccomend it for a gift for kids ages 1 - 6. Kids love the touch and feel and love the Halloween theme.

My daughter loves this! We took it to her school and they are all loving it.

We have several of the touch and feel books in our home and our two year old has always enjoyed them. Kids love touching different things and the touch and feel books give them several different textures to work on. My two year old just loves Halloween. He'll ask to read Halloween books all year round.

As with the other touch and feel books, this one has vivid and color photography to accompany the various textures your child gets to touch including a pumpkin, Pirates Beard, the fur of a black cat, and a wizards robe. One can, I suppose question the educational value of these books but why must all books be educational? Bottom line is that all of these books are fun for kids to read and touch.

My 16 mo. old daughter has at least 10 of these books, and this one is her favorite. The texture parts are large, unlike the nfl book, and she loves the kitty page! There are also pages of a wizard, a scarecrow, a pumpkin, and a pirate.

Our 10 month-old daughter just LOVES this book. She reads it every night & especially enjoys touching the pirate's ROUGH beard...(it probably reminds her of her daddy!) She has several others from this series and really takes notice of the crisp, clear, true-to-life pictures. It's a sure thing! We already got the Christmas one for her! Buy it. Today.

Great book. Little physical interactions on each page make it fun for the kids. The rhymes are typical Seuss rhymes. How can you go wrong with Seuss?

Great story. I love that the book is set up to have the children interact with it and feel parts of it.

This is a great beginner Dr. Seuss Book.

Author of "Hobo Finds A Home"

My 17 month old LOVES this book! Most of the classic Dr. Seuss books are too long & wordy for her (and she really loves reading), so this is a great introduction to the silliness. Plus, this book is very interactive (pets have hair, drink pink ink, play games, etc.) Would definitely recommend it!

I dont know who loves this book more, me or my son. He is so captivated by all of the exciting textures, flaps, fur, etc. We picked this book up on a whim, never imagining I would be looking for every other Dr. Seuss Nursery book to add to our collection. It captivates him nightly and I am so pleased that he truly enjoys reading it and hope his love for reading continues. Thank you Dr. Seuss Nursery!!

I was very moved by the accounts in this book. I also have family and friends battling cancer and it's nice to know that some humor can be found in all the sad times. I will also watch for more books from this author. And I am buying more copies today to share with others.

"Love this book, very inspiring and a joy to read."
Larry & Linda Buell

Truely an inspiring book it is well written and is humoruos yet touching. It is an eye opener it makes you think about what is really worth worrying about and keeping in life and what not to waste your time with cause it really doesn't matter anyway. It made me laugh and cry and it made me think. I don't even have cancer but it helped me open my eyes. You are a very inspiring young man with a bright future in writing I hope you stick with it I will watch for more book from this author.

I would recommend this book to anyone. I know Chuck Walton personally and am inspired by his kindness and humor.

I so wished I would have had this book 4 years ago. It would have helped me so much. Caregiving is such a responsibility & this books answers so many of the questions I needed answers for. It is still such a comfort to read & gives you the only foundation....GOD.... to keep you sane in this journey of unchartered waters....ALZHEIMER'S. I did some things wrong & a few right & only with the help of GOD. I can only pass onto others walking this road what I have learned first hand & be there for them. Thank you for your book.

I bought this book for a friend, whose husband has Alzheimers, and recently had to be placed in a care facility. I knew she was a religious person, and I felt that it would help her make sense of her family's situation. She wrote to me: "Thank you for sending the book. It addresses that void in separation and losses better than any I've read and I will keep it as a handy reminder."

The book offers insight on the ways you can deal and benefit from trials and tribulations. It also offers great inspiration through scripture readings and personal advise on living through an ordedeal of this type. The poems included gave me true joy! This book is wonderful! A must read!

The personal experiences of the author's family provide encouragement, insight and helpful suggestions for coping with the terrible problems faced by families of Alzheimer's victims. The spiritual comments can be of comfort to many whose loved one is devastated by the disease.

Luke has been writing, teaching and helping people touch deep within themselve for many years. A "James Taylor" look a like, his words are just as powerful as James Taylor songs.

In my cancer center setting I have used the concepts offered in The Art of Calm to help employees and patients step away for just a little and bring calm into their lives. This past year I was diagnosed with prostate cancer and my mediation practice has been strengthened by Lukes concept of finding calm in the things around us.

I now teach a workshop at M. D. Anderson called the Art of Calm, using this book as a guide. My recommendation - if you are looking for touching deeper.........you can't beat Luke Seawards work! This is a great book to start with.

William B. Baun, EPD, FAWHP

Need help to pause more often and savor the moment? Keep this idea book on your desk, breakfast table, or nightstand and open to any entry. You'll find 130 ways to begin.

Brian Luke Seward presents relaxation as a reclaimable art for people living warp-speed lives. Sure, the advice is often predictable, but it works. The book's five sections -- one for each sense -- feature upbeat observations, followed by a relevant, doable invitation. Imagine a pep talk from a good friend. Seward's goal is to redirect the body to homeostasis, physical calm, through adequate stimulation. Too much, he warns, and body and brain return to overdrive.

Personable and well-versed in mind/body/spirit wholeness, Seward projects friendly concern for his readers' welfare. His blueprint for inner peace calls for simplicity and beauty combined with moments of stillness. Or spontaneity.

Appendices list related books and music conducive to tranquility, thoughtfully categorized by instrument.

I keep a copy of The Art of Calm on a corner of my desk in clear view. I put it there for me but now find that my associates appreciate it too! During particularly hectic, stressful times someone will reach for the Art of Calm, flip open to any page and find something that is helpful for getting through that moment! It is usually shared.

Those words from my favorite Girl Scout song ran through my mind as the pages of this book flipped past. In words and actions that most would call "common sense", Dr. Seaward reminds us of countless ways to bring Peace and Calm back in our lives. A pretty little book on the outside ... And, on the inside it reveals to us simple magic ways to breathe "Calm" into our hectic lives. Give yourself a "gift" of "Calm"!

Ordered these books for my 11 mo. old granddaughter.
They are great and I think she will love them,
as her favorite game is Peek-A-Boo!

Although my two year old is not really into 'baby' books anymore, she still loves the occasional touch-and-feel book, and this has been one of her favorites.

My 18 month old son loves, loves, loves this book! We read it at least once during the day, if not more! He enjoys stroking and kissing the various textures on the animals, and the high-contrast illustrations really hold his attention. It just makes for a sweet story-time when we go through the book kissing all of the animals, and then at the end, we add a big kiss for Mama!

I bought this book for my daughter when she was just a few months old. Now that she is two she still periodically drags it out for me to read to her. Each page features a different adult animal and baby animal kissing with a touch and feel component to the page. After I read the simple text on each page I lavish my own kisses on my daughter which makes her laugh. This book gives you a great excuse (like you really need one) to kiss your own little one.

This was my daughter's first book. I bought it before she was born, and we started reading it together around 2-3 months. It was her #1 favorite until she discovered Spot "lift the flap" books at age 9 months. It is still one of her favorites: she loves lifting the flaps, loves the animals, and it is the right length for a baby's attention span. When my daughter has a babysitter, this is the book she picks for them to read to her (and she has tons of books). Since the message is so sweet and very heartwarming for a mom to read to her baby, it is rewarding that my baby loves this book as much as I do! It would make a great shower gift or gift for an adopted child. I am sure this book will grow with my daughter, and when she is older she will understand the animal puns and plays on words. Buy it!

I was also looking for a soft book that my baby (7 months) could look at all by himself or we could read together. This one is perfect. Very soft, brightly colored and has flaps to play peekaboo. Really keeps his attention.

My baby is almost 6 months old and in a desperate search for books that I can read to him and he can chew on, I came across this lovely cloth book at Borders. It wasn't that attractive sitting on the shelf but when I opened each page and lifted the cloth flap, the words were so cute and touching for a new mom like me that I decided to buy it right away. This book is simple, with bold colors and nice textures. I can't wait to show it to my baby and hear his giggles!

I bought 2 Messages from the Heart cloth baby books for a shower and they was a huge hit! people keep oohing and ahhing over the cute messages iside. They are very high-quality and feel so soft and snuggly, unlike a lot of other cloth books out there. There are different touch-and-feel fabrics inside. BABY LOVE book opens into a crib bumper that spells out "LOVE." MY BLANKET opens into a patchwork quilts with hearts. Overall, these are the greatest baby gifts, equally perfect for boys and girls.

My 15 month old daughter loves to look at books, and this one is her favorite. The parts to touch are big, and fluffy and easy to see. This is the second copy of this book we have bought. She has almost wore out the first one. Not because it has a bad binding, but because she has played with it so much, it's wearing out. We keep the old copy in her diaper bag, so she has it while she is in the nursery at church. We have some of the other touch and feel books from the same company, and this one is by far the best.

This and Zoo's Who? have been among my 1-yr old's favorites for a few months now. She loves to feel the various textures, she's learning the animals, and the large format is fun for her to manipulate. The graphics are simple and colorful and hold her attention, and there's not too much on the page for her to absorb. I like this a skosh better than Zoo's Who because it's easy to make all the farm animal noises to accompany the pictures, which makes her laugh, and which she tries to mimic. Much better than the DK touch-n-feel books.

We received this book as a shower gift. My girlfriends had everyone bring a book to start our twins book collection. And can I share with you how much they both love it! The book was such a BIG hit, I actually had to buy a new one already. Sarah & Zachary, now 13 1/2 months actually fight over the book. When it's quiet and we can't find them watching BABY EINSTEIN videos or playing, we can always find them pulling books from their bookshelf.

We also bought Who's Zoo too by the same author! Also a big hit with the duo. They still fight over books but they both have one now. These books are great for little hands to feel different textures. Each page has a short paragraph with bold pictures to touch. Books are one of the best gifts for a child!

When my mom got this book for my daughter, I did not think much of it. One day I read it to my 6 month old daughter and it is now her favorite book. We read it every night. It is really the only book that we have that she gets excited over. Now that she is a little older (8 Months), she now pets the animals in the book and always gets really excited when it comes out. It is her favorite one. The pictures are fun for her to look at and she loves to copy us petting the animals in the book.

One of the wonderful things about this book is its overwhelmingly optimistic perspective on the role a board and its members can play in a nonprofit organization. Hildy Gottlieb's positive attitude and enthusiasm for the role of nonprofits are evident throughout. Her charts and workbook pages are useful and open-ended, so that each organization can individualize the process. The book is a wonderful resource.

"Think of the worst board members you've ever known, and remember that someone actually recruited them." No tool better addresses this problem than Hildy Gottlieb's simple and powerful workbook, "Board Recruitment & Orientation: A Step-by-Step, Common Sense Guide." It is one of the very few publications that I recommend be on the bookshelf of every nonprofit as using it can and will transform your charity.

Research studies completed over the last several years have proven beyond a doubt that the strength and quality of a nonprofit's board bear a direct correlation to the effectiveness of the organization itself. Yet most charities still put less real effort into assessing and defining their leadership needs than they do into determining the type of copier or computer they should buy.

Unlike other manuals and texts on board development, Gottlieb's guide presents an extraordinarily simple-to-follow recipe for putting together a powerfully effective and dynamic governance team. Best of all, it is written and structured in such a way that even the busiest executive director or board trustee can quickly glean its message and take action steps to begin transforming their board today.

Recruiting the right people and preparing them well for the job ahead are the keys to building and empowering a dynamic leadership team. "Board Recruitment & Orientation" covers the fundamentals of establishing that team. The workbook is also full of sample documents and forms, including a model "Letter of Commitment" to be signed by directors, that make its instructions simple to implement. And, best of all, it is priced at a level that every charity and nonprofit consultant can afford.

I give this book my highest recommendation!

This is a quick-read, fun to implement and deeply effective workbook - one which busy board members (and at least one executive director I know) seem to love. This workbook will be useful for anyone putting together any group of people to accomplish a task (yes, it works for committees too).

I loved the section asking three questions about criteria on who you want to serve: must have's, wouldn't it be nice to have's and the never in a million years category.

The workbook is fun to use (great conversation starter) and wastes no time. It's built for the real world - practical, effective - and indispensible. I may have to order another because it's so difficult to get back my copy when I lend it to
someone (which I often do)!

What a joy to spend money on a product which has such a tremendous return-on-investment. I haven't implemented every
chapter as yet, but I plan to - and can't wait to see the results!

When a book aims to be a practical and immediately useful workbook, I am a particularly tough customer -- especially with books dealing with any aspect of the all-important nonprofit board.

A truly useful book is one that is willing to guide us along a straight, down-to-earth path, even if that means debunking such entrenched dogma as "recruit board members for their wealth" and "let the CEO recruit the board." Hildy Gottlieb has not only written such a book, she has tackled one of the most neglected areas in today's nonprofit world: board recruitment. Bravo!

Gottlieb starts with a simple premise -- that the recruitment process is the oft-neglected key to building a powerful and dynamic board. She challenges us to "[t]hink of the worst board member [we've] ever known, and remember that someone actually recruited him." Hmm.

Look. I'm busy. You're busy. This workbook wastes no time, thankfully. It establishes the five-step process and efficiently marches through each one:

Step 1: Establishing Qualifications
Step 2: Board Member Job Description
Step 3: Identifying Prospects
Step 4: Application Process
Step 5: Preparing the New Board Member to Govern

The book gets us to work with pencil and paper by providing a worksheet to brainstorm the characteristics that board members must have. I like that. It is, after all, a WORKbook. But we're not left without guidance; Gottlieb gets us started with examples such as "[w]illingness to commit time for board meetings, committee meetings, planning sessions, special events," and "[w]illingness AND ability to add their expertise, time, resources when the need arises -- not already committed."

Before you say "duh, why do I need a book to tell me that?" it's amazing how many boards are populated by individuals who don't show up, or, when they do, provide little or nothing of real value, or, worse, actually work against the interests of the organization. This workbook shows how to avoid such board members and, further, how to identify and recruit the kind of board members that really move the organization forward. When it comes to board member recruitment, even the most basic points are too often overlooked, with dire consequences for the organization.

The book is not, however, a surface treatment. Gottlieb uses her considerable 10+ years as a nonprofit consultant, and that of her consulting-practice partner Demitri Petropolis, to drill down into the details when necessary. She strikes just the right balance between too little and too much. To keep things interesting, Gottlieb uses stories, checklists, forms and charts throughout.

Nor is it timid. Gottlieb debunks plenty of entrenched dogma about the board-member recruitment process -- even the idea of recruiting a board member because of wealth. Her willingness to supplant dogma with what her experience has taught is one reason this book is an important contribution to the nonprofit sector. I intend to cite it repeatedly in CharityChannel.com discussions whenever I see tired old dogma being asserted when what we need are experienced practitioners to tell it like it is. Gottlieb tells it like it is, fearlessly.

Priced as it is, there is no reason why this workbook should not be in the hands of every board or staff member who is responsible for recruiting. In fact, I'm going to make a gift of several copies to some of my nonprofit clients.

This is a great book. It can easily go beyond the recommended age of 9 to 12. N.A. Nelson does a great job at describing what is happening with each of the characters' needs and emotions. The setting, while mostly fictional, is completely realistic and it invites curiosity to learn more about what other tribes and rites may exist that we know little or nothing about. Children AND their parents will both enjoy this book.

Take a unique premise combined with a fascinating setting, strong and likable characters, and wonderful writing and you have one of the best books of 2008 - BRINGING THE BOY HOME.

I can't recommend this book enough. My 13 YO son will be reading it next and I know he's going to love it!! I don't think you can get much closer to the perfect boy book!!! Great job N.A. Nelson!

In the Takunami tribe that lives hidden in the Amazon rainforest, boys are trained from a young age for their soche seche tente, a test all boys of thirteen must pass lest they be banishes from the tribe. Two young boys grow up in completely different worlds. Tirio was cast from the Takunami tribe because of a disability and now lives with his adoptive parent Sara in the United States. But as his thirteenth birthday approaches, he is beginning to feel a deeper connection to his first home in the Amazon. Luka's mother has extensively prepared him for the test he is to undergo when he turns thirteen and refuses to let anything get in the way. Luka is certain he will be able to pass the test, but his mother's plans go awry when his father dies, severing the connection that was supposed to help him during his test of manhood. And somehow, these two boys, Tirio and Luka, are connected in unexpected ways.

I know that Harper Collins classifies this novel as a children's book, but I most definitely think it should be part of the young adult genre. This coming-of-age story was extremely unique, and I loved how many cultural aspects of Amazonian tribes (even if they were partially made-up) were integrated into the story. I really loved how nature was such a big part of the story. Both Luka's and Tirio's struggles were very realistic, especially each boy's yearnings to know his father. And I was very shocked by Luka and Tirio's connection, but pleased with how the ending tied up all the loose ends.

I thoroughly enjoyed N.A. Nelson's debut novel and recommend it to all readers.

BRINGING THE BOY HOME introduces two unique boys as they approach their thirteenth birthdays. As tradition in their Amazon tribe, they must trek through the dangerous jungle as a test of their strength. If they survive after days alone in the Amazon, they will be united with their fathers for the very first time.

One boy, Tirio, now resides in America after being banned from his family and tribe for a birth defect that causes him to limp. As his birthday is approaching, however, his sixth sense picks up on signs that point him back to the Amazon and his tribe. He's going to take his test and prove himself a man - and prove his father wrong in the process.

The other boy, Luka, is going through rigorous training so that he'll make it out of the Amazon alive. All of his senses are working beyond perfect, and he seems to be on the direct path to success. That is, until tragedy strikes.

BRINGING THE BOY HOME is refreshing, well put-together, and completely original. The continuous suspense resulted in a fast, easy read, making it a book I'd recommend to reluctant readers as well as avid ones. The plot blended realism with fiction and fantasy, opening itself to all types of book lovers.

Reviewed by: Chelsea Swiggett