Boyd Books

All of the Chester books are excellent ways to make History interesting and engaging for kids (or anyone!). The drawing and content is easy to understand and a great aid in teaching. I would recommend the Chester series of books to any parent or teaching working to engage students with history. Highly Recommended!

What a fantastic way to experience new writing! William Boyd is one of my favourite authors, and to read a collection that has been edited by him is great. Some of the authors were not to my liking, but then this is the advantage of reading a compilation..you can skip the excerpts that don't engage you and read on.
This purchase was one of my better ones and as a result of reading this, I went to my local book store and bought several back issues. In fact, this book is so good that I have bought myself a subscription.

This is a book about baseball cards, primarily ones issued during the 1950s and 1960s, and the players on the cards. However, it is not to be confused with a serious baseball card book. Most of the cards/players profiled are rather obscure, yet the book is quite funny and enjoyable.

On each page of the book there is an image, or images, of a baseball card, and the authors' commentary about the card and/or player in question. Oftentimes the comments have as much to do with the authors' childhood impressions as the actual player. Other times the comments are strictly related to the player or card, but are almost always comical.

If you grew up as a baseball fan, if you love the lighter side of baseball, or if you have nostalgia for the long-lost days of youthful summers spent flipping cards and riding your bike, then this book will appeal to you.

Over 15 years I have read this book to four kids, each of whom wants to hear it every night. They love the simple narration and the great illustrations. Mostly they love the story of the kids who were so bad, they almost turn into animals, almost have to live in the kennel. They are astonished at how bad the kids are. They had wondered what would happen if they were super bad and here is a story about it. They know it's just a story, but it's kid cathartic. We gave away most of the kids books, but not this one. I am buying a copy for my sister's kids.

Not your usual cute animal story, Ham the Astrochimp would make a great read-aloud introduction to biography, astronauts, or even exploration in an early elementary classroom. This well-written book presents the life and achievements of the U.S.'s first intelligent being to travel in space. While the central, large font text doesn't go into detail about why or how Ham was chosen and trained for the Mercury flights, there are smaller font sidebards that ellucidate this and give the reader many facts about our early space program. The illustrations are meticulous and engaging, as might be expected from a professor of graphic design and illustration. The only thing missing is a bibliography/source notes.

From back cover:

"In the 19th C, hundreds of Christian missionaries were dispatched to Japan to convert the 'heathen,' a task that many felt could be accomplished within a few decades. That expectation proved to be wildly optimistic, since today fewer than one percent of Japanese are Christian. The efforts and even the names of those early missionaries are now largely forgotten, but the work of one woman, Hannah Riddell, proved to be vital and lasting.

While visiting the Honmyoji temple in Kumamoto, Hannah encountered a group of lepers - 'in every degree of loathsomeness' and her life suddenly changed. Though she continued her efforts to save the souls of ordinary Japanese, Hannah became determined to improve the wretched lives of lepers. Against great odds, she founded one of the first modern leprosariums in Japan, but Hannah's iron will and splendid lifestyle soon put her at odds with her English colleagues and their small missionary community was torn apart.

Undaunted, Hannah continued her work independently and came to know many of the great figures of Meiji Japan. Hannah's story and that of her niece, Ada, who ran the hospital after her aunt's death until its dramatic closure in 1941, poignantly described the valiant battle against a terrible disease. At the same time the narrative vividly brings to life early encounters between the Japanese and the English and their very different cultures."

This book received the 1997 Ohio Farm Bureau Women's Award for Children's Literature for books with an agricultural theme. It is a wonderful resource for teachers to include when they teach georgraphy, science, math and the language arts.

We have this book in our Christmas collection for our coffee table. Children and adults alike enjoy it. It is quite secular except for the bears dressed as angels but compliments our other books that address the real meaning of Christmas. It is a light read and fun to look at.

What an excellent easy enjoyable reading that expands the lifetime of the author and her family growing up in the south and moving north. If you were born in the south, you'll enjoy remembering some of the things in your childhood that you may have forgotten and others that will jog your memory. This is a must read for anyone and especially people that value the meaning of "family".

I have read a great deal of the books in the heartsong presents series, but I think Veda is my favorite. This book was fun to read. I would definitiely recommend other saps like me to read this.