Grandparents Day Books

This book is short, which is great when you are running late for bedtime. More importantly, it's a lot of fun. The basic story is of the grandkids trying to scare Grandpa that all the animals have gone crazy on the farm. Grandpa, knowing that it's Aprill Fool's Day, makes the appropriate concerned noises, but his actions clearly show he is not fooled. That is, he is not fooled until a very smart Grandma tells him April Fool's Day is tomorrow. He runs out in a panic and she gets to enjoy the breakfast he made for himself before letting loose with a cheery, "April Fools." Needless to say, Grandpa looks very sheepish at the end while Grandma and the grandkids look quite pleased with themselves.

The text is simple and rhymes, which makes it enjoyable to read aloud. The illustrations are hysterical (sheep sunning themselves on beach chairs while listening to an iPod or goats wearing clothes from the laudry line are just a couple of examples) and I laugh right along with my 3 and 6 year old boys when I see them. I have read the book several times and it doesn't get tiresome. Definitely money well spent.

This is a fun and enjoyable book for young children. I teach k-3 art and was able to not only refer to the April 1 theme but to the marvelous art work as well. The pictures are very funny and the children were engaged the entire time I shared it with them.

The grandkids are visiting Grandma and Grandpa on their farm. Grandpa is fixing breakfast for everyone when suddenly his grandson bursts into the kitchen shouting "The cows have got loose! I think Big Brown Bessie just stepped on a goose!" But Grandpa doesn't respond to the news -- he just calmly pours himself a glass of milk. Grandpa is so relaxed because its April Fools' Day and the children are playing tricks! Then Grandma steps in with a trick of her own!! In creating her lyrical text for April Foolishness, author Teresa Bateman draws upon her own experiences growing up on a farm and creates a story to which Nadine Westcott's lively illustrations are a perfect complement.

Kids love to visit their grandparents, and grandparents love to have them (most of the time). A visit may hold many surprises when it begins on April Fool's Day, which is what happened when two rambunctious youngsters arrived at the farm.

Told in lilting rhyme and illustrated in bold full-page color "April Foolishness" is a merry look at that special day. Grandma begins the day as grandpa is cooking breakfast in the kitchen. She thinks, "Life on the farm keeps a gal on her toes. That's what grandma thought as she flung on her clothes."

Well grandpa needs to be on his toes, too because the first thing he hears from his young visitors is that the cows have gotten loose and one stepped on a goose. Next is the announcement that the chickens are out, and the pigs broke the gate.

Children will smile their way through this rollicking story until they learn who pulls off the best April Fool joke of all.

- Gail Cooke

This is a great gift idea for anyone who is feeling down about aging. The book will help them realize how growing older is a beautiful thing, with so many things to look forward to.

I received this as a gift for my birthday and the title is a bit of a misnomer as I think it is more a beautiful little book of quotes on living and experience and the love of life. This compliation lead me to Ms. Crowe's other complilations all of which are great gifts and nice to have around for a new viewpoint from time to time.

This book is full of inspirational wisdom, touching sentiment (NOT sentimentality) and beautiful illustrations. It would make a lovely book for anyone feeling the press of time. I keep mine on my desk, where I can turn to it often.

thsi book is a such a pleasure - I have given it as a gift and it was just perfect. Beatiful Art to compliment beautiful quotes all on why it is so wonderful to have birthdays.

I just read the LDS Grandparents' Idea Book by Fay Klingler. The many experiences that grandparents have with their grandchilden are very worthwhile. The activities were fun to try and do; some will be tried over and over. As I read this book, I felt that grandparents love their grandchildren. It is a book that can be read again and again and still get a new thought from reading it.

I had the greatest grandparents ever and my parents were wonderful grandparents to my children, but when I found out I was going to be a grandmother the same week I turned 50 I was at a loss! What should I do? How would I ever measure up to my own and my children's expectations? Would this be hard? Besides my married son, I still had children at home to finish raising and I was going to have a grandchild!
Fay A. Klingler's book, The LDS Grandparents' Idea Book, is a treasure trove of information and suggestions! It is a source of ideas that would take many years and many grandchildren to exhaust.
Ms. Klingler has compiled ideas from many sources and many people and come up with a "Grandparenting 101" manual. She uses graphics to illustrate many of the ideas that are so easy to copy or tailor and modify to individual needs.
One of my favorites is on page 80, "the paper sandwich," which illustrates and describes a charming, crafty, colored paper sandwich with Grandma and Grandpa as the bread and kisses, hugs, admiration, and smiles as the meat/cheese and fixin's. She suggests tucking a $5 bill inside, too. This is fun for a teen-ager or even college student as well as a young child.
On page 149 one of Ms. Klingler's contributors relates the story of geese flying in V-formation and how, "by flying in a "V" formation, the whole flock of geese adds at least 71% greater flying range than if each bird were to fly on its own." Then she relates that to families! It is a beautiful idea from a very caring grandparent.
Who knew there is a "I Want You to Be Happy Day" on March 3rd?
Ms. Klingler knows! In her section on Activities for a Specific Day or Month she lists a myriad of ideas for fun celebrations!
Even though the title suggests a limited audience of LDS or Mormon Church members, it is not a limiting list by any means.
Now 4 grandchildren later, I'm so glad I found Fay Klingler's Idea Book. It is 172 pages of ideas for being the best I can be during this absolutely wonderful stage of my life..."Grandma!"

When I read this book to my 6 year old boy and my 9 year old girl, they both sat absolutely still and quiet. This is amazing (especially for the 6 year old). When I was finished my son wanted more and even wanted some of the "magic rocks". They both wanted to go into the attic and explore all the stuff up there. Unfortunately we do not have neat stuff in our attic. I would recommend this book to everyone with an imagination. We look forward to more books on these characters?? :)

I have read this book over and over to my seven year old son. He has since started telling ME stories. What a wonderful way to help a childs imagination. The storyline was interesting and kept my son focused and waiting in anticipation for the next page to be turned. The pictures are extrodinary. They are so life like and fun. You can see them over and over and find something new each time you read the book. I recommend this book to any parent or educator that wants to spark that imagination that helps children build their future.

I love this book! The photos taken in San Francisco's Chinatown are absolutely adorable and precious. It captures that special relationship I had with my own Gung Gung (a.k.a. grandpa.)

My little daughter loves when my father reads her "Day Out with Gung Gung." I bought it for him three weeks ago and he loves to read it to her. Now she wants her own day out with her own "Gung Gung."

I just hope she doesn't say in San Francisco, since we live in North Dakota.

Kindergartener Jo-Jo and Fourth-Grader Nora are shocked the last week of summer when their parents tell them that Grandma and Grandpa are getting a divorce. They're worried about not seeing either of them again, and other changes that could happen. When the girls visit Grandma's on Sunday, Grandpa isn't there. But they talk to Grandpa on the phone and find out that he'll still be around on holidays, they'll visit him in his new apartment, and he's getting a pet. Read how the author, Eve Bunting, deals with a possibly upsetting family problem. This could be helpful to any children who have to deal with divorce. The colorful illustrations sensitively portray the seriousness of the situation and the whole families' struggle to come to grips with it.

This book has been one of my favorites for about eight years now. It has become a yearly tradition to read this book during Thanksgiving. It's very funny and children (and adults) of all ages will really enjoy it!

My grandson enjoys the Little Critter books very much so I'm pleased when a new one comes out. I love the illistrations and he has fun looking for the spider on each page

If, during a quiet moment, sometimes the memory of that love from long ago enters your thoughts and suddenly you begin once again to reflect on where you are and where you would like to be....if only...then you will enjoy and connect with this book.

Just finished A CRY OF STONE and feel compelled to comment on Michael O'Brien's never-failing word art. The story of Rose Wabos, while seldom pretty, is astoundingly beautiful. Readers who have difficulty comprehending the Catholic Christian belief in the redemptive value of suffering will understand perfectly as they accompany Rose Wabos on her faith journey.

Spiritual insights are rich, bringing the common struggle to life even in disparate characters and stations in life. So rich are the insights, that like with DeSales' Introduction to the Devout Life, I found myself looking back to certain pages to refresh my enlightenment.

The Catholic novel has always occupied a precarious position. Most pious novels are of mediocre quality, while the solidly literary works (those of Graham Greene and Francois Mauriac, for example) are often ambiguous in their views on doctrine and morals.
Even those few works that combine literary merit with doctrinal and moral orthodoxy are rarely regarded highly. Most critics ignore or despise any overt Catholicism, particularly in modern fiction, while educated Catholics tend to regard novels as less important than the great works of apologetics, history and social comment.
Nevertheless, the last century has produced many novels on the lives of saints, from the Christian soap operas of Taylor Caldwell to the great political-military-religious histories of Louis de Wohl. There have also been lives of fictional saints, notably Georges Bernanos' Under the Sun of Satan.
The best Catholic fiction attempts to portray the drama of sin and sanctity, damnation and salvation, fought out on the battlefield of the human soul. However, it is much easier to depict evil than sanctity. Portraying a saint is one of the most difficult of a writer's tasks, as holiness is almost always unconvincing. This is what makes Michael O'Brien's book so remarkable.
A Cry of Stone is the fifth book in O'Brien's series, "Children of the Last Days", though it can be read independently. It is a work of honesty, great insight and powerful originality. In my view it confirms O'Brien as not only the premier Catholic novelist of our time but one of the greatest writers now living, even if the literary establishment continues to ignore him.
He is also the only author I know who is more successful in depicting good than evil. His subject, Rose W?bos, is one of the most extraordinary and memorable characters in modern fiction. A native of the Anishinabe people of northern Canada, she is a young woman with a deformed spine, described as "a four-foot-high, brown-skinned, hunchbacked woman whose hair was completely gray but whose eyes and expression were those of a child." (p.629) She has an unshakeable and uncompromising faith, a powerful but unique mystical sense, an ability to read characters, and a heart on fire with love for Christ. She is, in every sense, a saint.
Rose experiences within herself the confrontation between the modern world and the Catholic Faith, a conflict in which the Faith ultimately wins, not in any triumphalistic or argumentative sense, but simply through humility and love. Yet her life is, to all outward appearances, a failure; she calls herself a "nothing-person".
She is a tremendously gifted artist, but artistic success eludes her because her paintings are too demonstrably Catholic - a situation familiar to many artists and writers in recent years.1 However, she uses her failure to develop a spirituality based on art:
She was only a little charcoal stick in the hands of the Beloved. If not her, then another twig would have been sufficient for his purposes. (p. 581)
A Cry of Stone bears up very well against other novels about artists, such as Patrick White's The Vivisector: O'Brien has much more to teach us, and his certainty is more compelling than White's blind striving for mystical experience. Despite her failures and her deformities, Rose is far more human and more inspiring than White's Hurtle Duffield.
Is this a great novel? Many would think not. It is a long book with a rambling plot. Major characters disappear, others are introduced late and then seem to go nowhere. Among much writing of great beauty, there are some tiresome passages.
But O'Brien has achieved something unique: he has not only created a completely original saint but he has shown her from the inside: her thoughts and prayers and her stumbling yet unremitting path toward sanctity. With consummate skill, he combines Rose's Christian and non-Christian traditions in a synthesis that completely avoids syncretism. He shows us how the pagan insight into spiritual realities is not extinguished by Faith but is utterly transformed by the loving hand of God. Along the way, he drags Rose through many painful realities - racism, child abuse, betrayal, untimely death - but always with great sensitivity and yet a minimum of sentimentality. Paradoxically, the result of the complexity of her experience is a character of wonderful simplicity.
Surely this constitutes greatness.

I was stunned by this book. As an artist, I've never read a book that so thoroughly and truthfully captured not only the process of creating original works of art, but also the foibles and pretense of the "official" art community. And yet the main character, despite being a "small person" with virtually no resources other than faith in God, is completely believable and a tremendous inspiration. There is no doubt in mind that this book was blessed by the saints whose intercession O'Brien prayed for during its creation.

Michael O'Brien's book _is_ long, but I breezed through it in just a few days and was riveted by the story. It is extremely rare in a world fixated on revenge and fighting for "my piece of the pie" to find a book that actually breathes life into a character that has chosen the small way...the way of Christ. Yet Rose Wabos remains very human and very accessible. And at every turn, just when I would expect her to react as _I_ would react, she does something lovely...she chooses to act as Christ would have acted. Over and over I had revealed to me how far I, personally, have to go before I could ever begin to consider myself a real, consistent follower of Christ.

This book is a fictional tale that deals with how to live as Thomas A. Kempis advises us to in "The Imitation of Christ". In that book, Kempis suggests what we need to do to truly follow in Christ's footsteps. In Michael O'Brien's book, we get to see someone do just that, and in seeing it, it makes it somehow more possible, and more within our grasp.

This is the best work of fiction I've read in many, many years.

This book delivers the inspirational, yet very realistic, example of a small saint. It is about a young Native girl's life, the very brevity of which, becomes an everlasting word, a word to go on being revealed, never to be destroyed.

The thread of her life, beautifully written out, is both consoling (there is beauty, and it is very real and very beautiful) and challenging (there is truth and it exists in cooperating fully with, in submission with love, to Jesus Christ).

The characters are numerous and very real. Two particular characters, one of whom has a very sharp personality and is married to the other, provide as believable outlets for a lot of social criticism and art criticism. At least those are the common names they go by. In this novel they are not mere criticisms, but deep reflection of truth.

In short, the young Native girl, Rose Wabos, has a particular gift of creation, of making pictures, "that you fall into". She also has a gift of clairvoyance, or that is, seeing into people's souls, also their pasts, when it is given her by God in order to help them. She possesses a very sensitive nature. The two gifts tend to blend into each other, or it seems one serves the other.

O Brien's use of language in this book I found could be heartbreaking. His ability to get the reader to look fully at the darkness of sin is really in proportion to his ability to get you to look fully at the beauty, the sheer gratuitous love, the unstoppable, infinite mercy, of the incarnation of Christ.

There is also a fair good deal of humour and some satire. There are some Waugh-like passages in style, but it is all still very Michael O Brien. It doesn't do the book justice to use these words, but nonetheless, the book is rich, full, varied, yet singular in its overall accomplishment. The ending leaves you with a silent shout.