Lifestyle Books

We have children at different ages and reading skill levels, yet this one satisfies the crowd. The pictures are excellent, the text large and clear, and the animal descriptions are accurate and fun, and easy to memorize (your children will soon "read along" with you). A top pick and a crowd pleaser when our oldest dughter gets to pick a book for her siblings.

I remember reading this book when I was a little girl, and loving the beautiful illustrations. Now my little girl is reading the book and loving it as much as I did. Garth Williams did a great job with the artwork. It's a great book for introducing infants and toddlers to the world of farm animals.

Twenty years ago, I used this book to teach my two younger siblings the names and sounds of the farm animals. We read it until it fell apart! I recently purchased a new copy for my two children...and they love it, too! The illustrations are magnificent! Children will love to read this book again and again. A timeless classic!

My 3 year old daughter has the whole series and absolultely loves them. She's read them so many times that she's memorized many of them. The Belle book is a great Christmas story and also great to help any child through the transition of moving, especially if they're leaving a pet behind.

My 6 year old is going through a "horse" phase at the moment, so DH and I decided to purchase this book along with 2 other titles in this series. She LOVES this one particularly because it's a winter story....and it's winter now. Guess she'll move on to the spring one being her favorite as the season changes. Overall a good book for young readers and I would recommend this product to others. Great price too.

My 4yr old loves this book, all she wants for Christmas is a "horse called Belle".(suitable for older children too!) A story about a little girl who has to sell her horse, and move from the country to the city. The book deals with adapting, getting lost, and trust.

When I first saw this book, I just knew I would love it. I am a HUGE reader, and there's no way I hate to read. But I liked this book anyway. You will find 125 books in here, which will appeal to reluctant readers. I've read several of the books featured in this book, and I've thoroughly enjoyed every single one of them. There are several parts to the book: books for 5-8 years old, books for 7-10 years old, books for 8-12 years old, and books for ages 10 and up. Each book featured has a picture, an exerpt from the book, a summery of the book, reasons why the book would appeal to reluctant readers, who might like it, types of illustrations, and so much more. There are even more reccomended books in the back. This is truly a fantastic resource, whethere you hate to read or not.

I want to let readers know this is a truly must read for all ages. Pre-teens, teens, young adults and adults alike will gain truth and insight into themselves; reminding them that freedom is not free. Having not heard of this author before, I can honestly say this writer has heart and wants to reach his readers on many levels. I cannot say enough good things and what a wonderful feeling I walked away with after reading it. My hope is this is not a one-hit wonder. If you like the work of Nicholas Sparks or Nicholas Evans, you'll enjoy the likes of David Dudley even more!

An excellent read from start to finish. It is wonderful to see an author who takes the time to develop characters and drive the plot without offering two-bit explanations and inch-deep resolutions to conflict. Dudley does not try to solve all of Carissa's problems, and presents good lessons on life's hardships and the need to know what is worth fighting for. A solid work for all ages, especially for young people developing their sense of moral character and integrity. Highly reccommended.

Having moved to a small rural community when I was young from a larger city, I was really able to identify with Carissa and her difficulties fitting in and making friends. A wonderful example of when to stand up for yourself and also when to move on and not let people drag you down to their level. I enjoyed the interactions of the characters and the glimpse into hardships of the time period. I'm looking forward to other books by the author!

Wonderful book for Children. Great Photography. A must for the Christmas Stocking from Santa Claus

Living in Boston, you are constantly affected by Big Dig-related twists, turns, and upsets. One day the one-way street heads east; the next it has been re-routed west. Few of us venture into the heart of this truly amazing engineering feat, but this book shows us why we should pay more attention. Vanderwarker's spectacular photographs are thrilling to see and they give a glimpse of just why so much money has been poured into this project. We get to see things only the workers would normally see. But perhaps best of all is the glimpse it gives of cutting-edge engineering and technology. Seldom have I seen so clearly how yesterday's sci-fi has become today's "sci" and tomorrow's business as usual.

This book is so much fun to read. The photography is wonderful. Vanderwalker has such a good "eye" for beauty, even in construction.

A must buy for the kids at Christmas

This novel is told from the point of view of Mary Clayborne, the teenage daughter of a small-town Arkansas doctor during the Depression. When tragedy strikes the family, Mary must choose between her dream of attending the music conservatory, marrying her father's young resident, or staying and becoming head of the household for her younger siblings. A deft portrayal of life in rural Arkansas, a fine translation of the back-country mores, and a convincing dose of teenage angst and ennui.

Big Doc's Girl is a classic of its genre. Mary Medearis is an Arkansas native currently living in New York. You can purchase paperback copies of her book at WordsWorth Bookstore in Little Rock, AR., 1-800-880-0122.

I accidentally happened upon this book and will be forever grateful that I did. Although the novel is unique in having strictly one point of view throughout, the heroine is engaging enough to hold the readers interest. I loved how the author painted the picture of what was going on. The writing style is reminiscent of the old "classics" with a lot of attention to detail. The setting, the story, the characters, and the writing are all excellent. I loved the book, have recommended it to many, and am looking to purchase. A rare treat that I will read time and again. Absolutely beautiful.

I bought this book because I had read another book illustrated by Ted Lewin and found him to be a remarkable artist.

This book captures the sights and sounds of New York City; the reader will feel he or she is right in the kitchen with the steaming woks.

Most importantly, both the adult reader and the child listening (or reading on the second to third grade level) will be interested. And if your child likes books reread many times, this book will hold up. Among other things, there are so many details and subtleties in the artwork that the adult will be looking at every nook and cranny of the pictures.

I think Ted Lewin as as good an artist as Normal Rockwell.

I think this a wonderful book and a up close view of what it's like in the kitchen of a Chinese take out restaurant! The book starts out on a very early Saturday morning as the owner's son comes downstairs into the back room of the restaurant as the vegetables are arriving for the day. The cooks he calls his "Uncles" are getting the woks ready and begin chopping up the chicken, pork butt, spareribs, flank steak, vegetables, and getting the noodles and rice ready for the day. Then there is folding menus until the metal shutters open at 11 am. The boys whole family works in the restaurant even his Mother & Aunt who work the counter and the phones really fast and sometime at the same time!

The author also illustrates this beautiful book! The pictures seem s real, just like the photos he took and then drew the photos from these photos. The restaurants menu is on the inside and back page of the book and also shows the author with his take out bag!

This is a fantastic book, and even more so since it's based on a real Chinese restaurant Kum kau pronounced "Gum Kow" which in Chinese means golden globe in New York and I hope one day when our family visits New York that we can visit and get some food there! All the while knowing how much work went into our food! It's a wonderful look inside a restaurant kitchen, especially since we order it ... and it magically appears! The only thing that would make this book better would be if this family was actually real and not fictional!

The award winning children's book illustrator loves to eat Buddha's Delight at the Kum Kau take out chinese restaurant in Brooklyn's Fort Greene/Myrtle Street neighborhood. Based on photos he took and sketches, he has created extremely realistic watercolors (worthy of a gallery show) that capture a day in the life of the take out restaurant through the eyes of the fictional son of the restaurant's owners. The inside front and back covers, alone, are worth buying the book for. They consist of the recreated takeout menus from the restaurant (with reasonable prices). The book opens with a young boy waking up on a Saturday to help out at the restaurant. As the shutters are still closed on the take out shop, the cooks receive deliveries, chop and dice, and chop some more. Menus get folded, water gets boiled, woks get washed. Customers arrive, and the whole family, cousins and uncles included, all help out. Interesting neighbors pop in, including a fire truck and its engine company crew, all ordering various favorite dishes. Who knew so much work went into the preparation of your child's take out Moo Goo Gai Pan? Later, it is evening, the neon lights comes on, and it's time for the family to order their own dinner for takeout and delivery... What will it be?? Read and find out. This is a must read for parents and their kids as they wait for their dinner to be delivered

I read this book when it was originaaly published in 1976. Although Michele Wallace was a relatively young black woman (still in her twenties as I remember)I was most impressed by the maturity of her insights regarding both black men and black women. Her intent seemed to be to point out areas that both genders needed to look at if the race as a whole was to make any progress.

In both sections of her book, Wallace focused our attention on "male privilege" and how it translated into black "macho-ness", with the resultant effect that black men are as guilty of taking for themselves unearned advantages over black women as white people are guilty of taking for themselves unearned advantages over black people. She pointed out that black women continued to nurture the race physically, emotionally, and spiritually, and that the convenience of the self-sacrificing "superwoman image" (which black women willingly accept) allowed the predominatly male leaders of the civil rights movement to discount the interests and issues of black women, much like white slaveholders did; the typical black superwoman served only as an ancillary utility for black men. Wallace revealed to the world that black women, more often than not, were still "sleeping with the enemy."

Wallace was virulently attacked by almost every black "leader" who could get herself (yes, even women) and himself heard. However, if you re-read the book today, you cannot deny the fact that she was prescient in her observations and conclusions. The problems which she identified then still exist today.

I would recommend this book as a basic text for every black women's college. It should be discussed whereever concerned black people convene.

This book is the most honest book I have ever read about the modern black woman's experience. My mother read it because it was given to her by a friend in her Master's program, some years ago

Then when I was a sophmore in college she gave it to me and I read it.

I would encourage women who have sons especially to read it, I have a daughter, a toddler, and she will read it too,probably in high school.

If we are to end the cycle of abuse and torment and empower black women in America we must start with all the issues she addresses.

This is an account of Michele Wallace's experiences with the civil rights movement and growing up in the late 60's. Judith Wilson, who reviewed this for Ebony Magazine, has since said, "it was a pioneer work. Angela Davis's book 'Women, Race and Class' wasn't published until 2 years later. Ntozake Shange's play 'For Colored Girls Who Have Considered Suicide' had moved to Broadway but it's approach was poetic rather than analytical".

Wallace mentions of the ladies in her family, "It was understood, you were either going to be a bright success or a desperate failure, and it was your job to proclaim which you were going to be at as early an age as possible".

She recalls how she was taken out of private Catholic school when her mom found posters of Richard Nixon in the bedroom she shared with her sister, "can you believe it? we were that brainwashed". Things would be entirely different at the NY school where she transferred. . .

This book, about Black women being shortchanged, is probably most relevant for women who came of age during the period of time from the 1960s to the 1990s. It has some relevance today, though, as it probably would have before the 1960s as well. It was way ahead of it's time, well, ahead of the 'PC', politically correct, beliefs of it's time.

Black Macho is an odd read and yet a modernly familiar one. At times, one is struck with a feeling Wallace is trying to say something completely opposite from what is literally on the page. This is both a sensationalist book and a subtle book at the same time. For the most part Wallace implies black women are oppressed and almost never tells us they are. It wasn't until later, reading about this book and reading other Wallace, that I understood more what it was about. This work could be subtitled, 'Why I became a feminist'.

Wallace is either a master propagandist or she knows her audience and wants to keep them reading: she begins each chapter repeating a true-ism, for instance, this genuine one, "white men were always the ones making pronouncements about everything" and ends up at the end of the chapter quoting a figure proclaiming, "Kill Whitey". This is almost an expose' of the civil rights movement.

Some of the assertions Wallace does make are that black men and women have a sometime dislike for each other stemming in part from black men/white women relationships, and she asserts a lack of confidence he'd, "come home".

For Wallace, the civil rights movement meant, literally, "A white woman in every bed and a black woman under every heel".

Wallace was presenting unique ideas. She must have felt pressure to go along with the ideas people did believe in at the time (or perhaps felt a desire to be understood), and I think what is going on here with this work is that it is an example of the 'Wilson Rule' (If you have one un-PC idea {here the idea being that black women are the ones being taken advantage of}, you have to smother this offence in 6 politically correct ideas). Countless books have been written in this manner (tho only a minority of those at the library), each examining one un-PC idea the author believes in, and, so the author can sound reasonable, accepting every other popular convention of the day. The problem with this, is that at the end of the day, best case scenario, a young reader's learned 6 lies and 1 thing that's true.

Michele Wallace was criticized for what she does say here (and perhaps for what she implies), and one has to wonder: is this criticism (of a work claiming black women are treated unfairly) simply proof of her thesis?

Wallace doesn't ignore the media in her book. She asks, was there a conscious effort to keep young minds focused on sports, guns and violence, and off business, education and the stock market?

She begins her treaties on 'Black Macho' (the 2nd half of the book) with, "imagine for a moment that there was a part of your body, an organ, that by the very nature of the society in which you lived, existed under immense pressure. Imagine that this organ, placed in a conspicuously vulnerable position on your body, was to expand, rise, and remain erect at will. Imagine that your status in society depended upon your ability to control this organ. Imagine that if you couldn't get the dam thing to work, the very importance of your existence would be in question".

This is a sensationalist, titillating book filled with the 'F' word, 'Redneck', the 'N' word, and lots of people saying, kill the bigots. I imagine Wallace secretly enjoyed writing this, even as she's mentioned she secretly enjoyed listening to Norman Mailers rants about the civil rights movement (Wallace was a journalist for the Village Voice a paper Mailer founded). I don't think she enjoyed writing this as much as I enjoyed reading.

Wallace was criticized for Black Macho perhaps because she strays just too far from blaming all problems on white men. In a sense, in saying, black men, too, are oppressing black women, she made black men, too equal. 20 years later she says, "In some ways I'm still being punished today". Feminist Tammy Bruce in California was fired for coming out against OJ Simpson, who in her mind was an abuser at the very least. To be honest, 'Sexism', was, a huge issue. Well, if you were the wrong person it was. It's been said President Bill Clinton being accused of sexism did a lot to reduce some of the perception of it.

Wallace was in one of my college textbooks, quoted for her reaction to gangster rap. For her, the solution for women everywhere will be found, when, "...women rap back." Not long after I noticed Queen Latifah with a big video out. Eminem followed.

To be fair and give my own views, my background is in reading old -old- school conservatism. In fact, I'm somewhat of an 'anti-feminist'. Perhaps I'm just a chauvinist. I'm not wedded to any particular ideology tho - I do find them all interesting. Guess I'm a sympathizer too.

Michele Wallace is paid to be a feminist. After Black Macho, Wallace would edit a work titled, "All the women are white. All the blacks are men, but some of us are brave". She teaches a great number of courses at CUNY, and a seminar in film studies, 'Performance and Race in Cinema 1890-1930's' where she says, "Despite the many objectionable features, this is a body of work which is collectively unforgettable and irreplaceable".

I would trade all these films for 'Black Macho and the Myth of the Superwoman'. I couldn't help but like the voice of woman who wrote this book. I was in awe of Wallace. No. I was in love with the woman who wrote these words.

I only read this because my mother gave it to me because my name is Susan. I was surprised at how much I wanted to know how Susie was going to cheer up her mother. I was surprised at how much I liked it's tone and style. It is warm and thoughtful. But very simple and straightforward.

Black-Eyed Susan is a book adults and children will enjoy equally. The seeming simplicity of the tale belies rich poetic images that took my breath away. The tenderness and love with which the characters interact with one another will make you feel warm all over, and maybe a renewed hope for humankind. The theme is also unusual for a children's book - Susan's mother is suffering from depression, although no one at that time knew what it was. How her daughter rouses her out of it, with the help of a chance encounter with strangers, is extremely powerful and moving.

Armstrong has thoroughly researched the time period this story takes place in, and it flows naturally so the reader feels she is right there in the story. Lovely illustrations add to the mood.

This book is so cool !!! It is very educational yet very good also, I would recommend this book to anyone out there.This book is a real page-turner.I also think this author has a lot of potential

This book was named the Golden Kite Award Honor Book for picture text for 2001 by the Society of Children's Book Writers and Illustrators. It was also named a Notable Book in the Language Arts by the National Council of Teachers of English.

This is a beautifully illustrated and touching story to share with kids - and other adults, too. I'm a teacher and I really appreciated the information about bluebirds that is included.

My mother loved to garden and this book makes me think of her. It's a beautiful story for children, but also a special book to give to adults who have recently lost someone. The illustrations are just beautiful.