Meghan Rose On Stage!
By Lori Z. Scott
ISBN: 9780784721032. 2007
Fiction: Juvenile, Humorous, Friendship, Christian life, Talent Show
Contact Reviewer: J. M. Sample jmsample@aol.com
Publisher: Standard Publishing; $4.99
Publisher site: www.standardpub.com
Reviewed by Jewel Sample for Amazon.com
I read "Meghan Rose on Stage" to my granddaughters who are five and seven years old. My granddaughter's were so enthralled with the story we had to read the whole book in one sitting. When we would come to the "really, really cool" (as my seven year old granddaughter phrased it) illustrations by Stacy Curtis, they would peer over the pages inspecting each character and chat about what was going on.
The book was definitely a hit and they could hardly wait to make a red volcano that Scott suggests along with other activities in the back of the book. I improvised by using a empty plastic 16 ounce pop bottle. We took the creative play experience outside and I was so glad we did because the volcano did erupt. The children squealed and howled as they watched their project in action.
Another thing that made this book so special was the "Chatter Matters" discussion questions in the back of the book. One granddaughter chatted about how cool it was to know Meghan prayed when she did not know what to do next. The other granddaughter discussed that it does not matter who you are anyone can share their talent! Sharing with others makes everyone happy.
Now they have a "really cool" memory about a girl named Meghan Rose, while on one of Grandma's play dates and a new phrase definition, "bouncy kangaroo," which they practiced all over my living room. A great adventure story with "bam" (as my five year phrased it) for elementary age children and of course, this Grandma enjoyed this fun read too.
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Reviewer Jewel Sample blogs at http://jewelsamples.blogspot.com
This blog, #TheNewBookReview, is "new" because it eschews #bookbigotry. It lets readers, reviewers, authors, and publishers expand the exposure of their favorite reviews, FREE. Info for submissions is in the "Send Me Your Fave Book Review" circle icon in the right column below. Find resources to help your career using the mini search engine below. #TheNewBookReview is a multi-award-winning blog including a MastersInEnglish.org recommendation.
Thursday, August 2, 2007
Monday, July 30, 2007
I Need To Be Safe--Practical and Kid-Friendly
I Need to be SAFE: I’m Worth It! How to Protect Your Child from Danger
By Janet Goliger
Publisher: Class Publications
ISBN: 978-0-9768273-2-0
144 pages
Cover Price: $19.95
Children Non-Fiction
Available at Amazon.com, barnesandnoble.com, and classpublications.com
Reviewed by Carolyn Howard-Johnson at Amazon.com
http://www.amazon.com/I-Need-SAFE-Im-Worth/dp/0976827328
Janet Goliger's I Need To Be Safe is full of information that fearful parents need to teach their kids, but it is likely this is information the parents themselves need. Almost all of us know someone who has been mugged. How much better each of them would have been had they read this book, even cursorily. I can't put it down. You'll learn about awareness and exactly what to do if you're being followed by a car or on foot. You'll learn about identifying suspicious strangers. But most of all, you'll love the fully illustrated (photos) of ways to fight off an attack.
Confidence? After only leafing through this book (well, OK, after thinking I would leaf through it and spending a much longer time studying the steps of self-defense!), I feel surer that I will not be a victim myself. And I intend to spread the word to young girls and boys, other women and, yes, men, too.
Workbooks and a teacher's manual are available.
-------
By Janet Goliger
Publisher: Class Publications
ISBN: 978-0-9768273-2-0
144 pages
Cover Price: $19.95
Children Non-Fiction
Available at Amazon.com, barnesandnoble.com, and classpublications.com
Reviewed by Carolyn Howard-Johnson at Amazon.com
http://www.amazon.com/I-Need-SAFE-Im-Worth/dp/0976827328
Janet Goliger's I Need To Be Safe is full of information that fearful parents need to teach their kids, but it is likely this is information the parents themselves need. Almost all of us know someone who has been mugged. How much better each of them would have been had they read this book, even cursorily. I can't put it down. You'll learn about awareness and exactly what to do if you're being followed by a car or on foot. You'll learn about identifying suspicious strangers. But most of all, you'll love the fully illustrated (photos) of ways to fight off an attack.
Confidence? After only leafing through this book (well, OK, after thinking I would leaf through it and spending a much longer time studying the steps of self-defense!), I feel surer that I will not be a victim myself. And I intend to spread the word to young girls and boys, other women and, yes, men, too.
Workbooks and a teacher's manual are available.
-------
Sunday, July 29, 2007
A Well Written Insight Into Human Suffering
Title: Sleep Before Evening
Author: Magdalena Ball
ISBN: 978-1-904492-96-2
Page count: 296
Format: paperback
Release Date: 24th July 2007
Available: http://www.amazon.com/Sleep-Before-Evening-Magdalena-Ball/dp/1904492967/
Review by Warren Thurston,
owner of Pentales
Sleep Before Evening is Magdalena Ball’s debut novel. It is a beautifully crafted piece dealing with rejection and betrayal. Those of us who have felt that someone we loved deeply betrayed us, will form an immediate bond with the main character.
Marianne is a vivacious nineteen year old, full of life and a brilliant scholar. She is at the peak of her powers when life decides it will test her character. Eric, her much loved grandfather and mentor, is suddenly struck down by a stroke. His death begins a series of events that takes Marianne into a world of darkness, filled with drugs and depression.
Hurting to the core about the loss of Eric, and the fact that she was denied the chance to say goodbye, Marianne hates the world. She also starts to hate herself and seeks solace in the arms of Miles. He is a struggling musician who for a time is the maestro who conducts her life.
Lily, Marianne’s mother, also has her own demons eating at her. She is so wrapped up in her struggle to find happiness and fulfillment, that she cannot see what is happening to her daughter. It is a flaw that many parents are guilty of, not through an act of selfishness, but one brought on by their own struggle to survive.
Confused and angry Marianne deteriorates to the stage where fantasy, reality and pain are so intermingled within her, that she loses contact with her real self. She was entering the stage of what the noted British psychiatrist Hall called, drifting back to the time before you are born. It is a stage along the path of mental recovery, where one’s mind is in an infantile state, as it retreats from the hurt it finds itself in. Then when it feels strong enough it comes forward again, out of the darkness and into the light. This usually brings with it a positive change in an individual, making them mentally stronger and enhancing their creativity.
This is a good story that makes the reader feel the highs and lows of Marianne as if they are their own. It reminds me of the style adopted by the Russian writer Dostoyevsky. He had the ability to get the reader to feel exactly what his characters felt; a gift Magdalena ball has too.
Sleep Before Evening is a well written insight into human suffering. The author shows an in-depth knowledge of how to hold readers attention, and make them eager to know more. This is a debut novel that shows the author has many more novels inside her, which will provoke strong emotions in readers of her work.
Author: Magdalena Ball
ISBN: 978-1-904492-96-2
Page count: 296
Format: paperback
Release Date: 24th July 2007
Available: http://www.amazon.com/Sleep-Before-Evening-Magdalena-Ball/dp/1904492967/
Review by Warren Thurston,
owner of Pentales
Sleep Before Evening is Magdalena Ball’s debut novel. It is a beautifully crafted piece dealing with rejection and betrayal. Those of us who have felt that someone we loved deeply betrayed us, will form an immediate bond with the main character.
Marianne is a vivacious nineteen year old, full of life and a brilliant scholar. She is at the peak of her powers when life decides it will test her character. Eric, her much loved grandfather and mentor, is suddenly struck down by a stroke. His death begins a series of events that takes Marianne into a world of darkness, filled with drugs and depression.
Hurting to the core about the loss of Eric, and the fact that she was denied the chance to say goodbye, Marianne hates the world. She also starts to hate herself and seeks solace in the arms of Miles. He is a struggling musician who for a time is the maestro who conducts her life.
Lily, Marianne’s mother, also has her own demons eating at her. She is so wrapped up in her struggle to find happiness and fulfillment, that she cannot see what is happening to her daughter. It is a flaw that many parents are guilty of, not through an act of selfishness, but one brought on by their own struggle to survive.
Confused and angry Marianne deteriorates to the stage where fantasy, reality and pain are so intermingled within her, that she loses contact with her real self. She was entering the stage of what the noted British psychiatrist Hall called, drifting back to the time before you are born. It is a stage along the path of mental recovery, where one’s mind is in an infantile state, as it retreats from the hurt it finds itself in. Then when it feels strong enough it comes forward again, out of the darkness and into the light. This usually brings with it a positive change in an individual, making them mentally stronger and enhancing their creativity.
This is a good story that makes the reader feel the highs and lows of Marianne as if they are their own. It reminds me of the style adopted by the Russian writer Dostoyevsky. He had the ability to get the reader to feel exactly what his characters felt; a gift Magdalena ball has too.
Sleep Before Evening is a well written insight into human suffering. The author shows an in-depth knowledge of how to hold readers attention, and make them eager to know more. This is a debut novel that shows the author has many more novels inside her, which will provoke strong emotions in readers of her work.
Saturday, July 28, 2007
A Personal Review--Heart to Heart
The Fallen by Gigi Miner
By Gigi Miner
Publisher: Lulu
Supernatural Mystery - Erotic Aesop's Fable
ISBN: 978-1-4303-0182-0
Reviewed by Yvonne Perry
The Fallen, has made such an impression upon me. My love for humanity has been rekindled and my awareness heightened by reading it.
It may seem like a fiction novel, but the spiritual impact it carries, caused me to see that it indeed contains a greater truth. We are the fallen angels; you, me, and so many others regardless of what course our lives take.
The characters in your book have come to life in the faces of those I love; even in those I do not understand or particularly enjoy being around, because now I know and recognize them as kindred spirits. Already, I feel less judgmental and more compassionate towards those who have forgotten who they are.
You’ve bravely delved into a place of pain where we abuse ourselves and others by the choices we make. Your book will help many realize that all of life is about choice and free will. Hopefully humanity will begin to make better choices that will bring peace to this planet rather than continuing to destroy it with hatred and retaliation.
Thank you so much for sharing your book, your love and your heart with me and all your readers.
Sincerely,
Yvonne Perry
Author of More than Meets the Eye and owner of Write On! Creative Writing Services
Discuss spiritual topics on our blog at http://weareoneinspirit.blogspot.com/
By Gigi Miner
Publisher: Lulu
Supernatural Mystery - Erotic Aesop's Fable
ISBN: 978-1-4303-0182-0
Reviewed by Yvonne Perry
The Fallen, has made such an impression upon me. My love for humanity has been rekindled and my awareness heightened by reading it.
It may seem like a fiction novel, but the spiritual impact it carries, caused me to see that it indeed contains a greater truth. We are the fallen angels; you, me, and so many others regardless of what course our lives take.
The characters in your book have come to life in the faces of those I love; even in those I do not understand or particularly enjoy being around, because now I know and recognize them as kindred spirits. Already, I feel less judgmental and more compassionate towards those who have forgotten who they are.
You’ve bravely delved into a place of pain where we abuse ourselves and others by the choices we make. Your book will help many realize that all of life is about choice and free will. Hopefully humanity will begin to make better choices that will bring peace to this planet rather than continuing to destroy it with hatred and retaliation.
Thank you so much for sharing your book, your love and your heart with me and all your readers.
Sincerely,
Yvonne Perry
Author of More than Meets the Eye and owner of Write On! Creative Writing Services
Discuss spiritual topics on our blog at http://weareoneinspirit.blogspot.com/
Tuesday, July 24, 2007
College Instructor Reviews Western Creative Nonfiction
Fly With The Mourning Dove
By Velda Brotherton
Creative non fiction
ISBN 1-4241-5904-0
Publish America
REVIEW by Dr. Loren GruberOriginally published on Publish America's website
Velda Brotherton delivers again. Gleaned from the diaries of Cassie Smith and her daughter Edna, Fly with the Mourning Dove captures the struggles of two women to civilize their portions of the West.
Quoting material from their diaries, Brotherton reconstructs their lives at the beginning of the twentieth century.
They "cowboy up" as tuberculosis ravages the lungs of Finas, their husband and father; as drought ravages their land; as the Great Depression ravages the economy. While butchering a turkey, overcoming frontier loneliness, and eating porcupine, Cassie and Edna each learn to be as tough and tenacious as the West itself.
Brotherton recreates especially endearing scenes when Edna discovers herself. She roars through the boarding house with her Indian-scalping playmates, prepares for her first Communion, lives the life of a cowpuncher, and teaches her first grade school class.
Young Edna asks permission to accompany her father on his trip to fetch water at Taos Junction, New Mexico.
"No," her mother replies, "I said no. You stay here and we'll make some clothes for the fairies. They have missed you terribly and are practically going naked."
Although Edna thought the notion of naked fairies silly, one can imagine that she grew up with Palmer Cox's Brownie Books, Andrew Lang's Fairy Books, and perhaps Art Nouveau semi-nude fairies.
In her later years, Edna writes, "All my life has been packed away in little boxes." Lucky for us, she did.
Still luckier for us, Brotherton carefully unpacks each to display memorable scenes of Edna's life.
Fly with the Mourning Dove is a welcome addition to turn-of-the-century "civilized" memoirs that include Virginia Cary Hudson's O Ye Jigs and Juleps, Dorothy Daniel's Circle 'round the Square, and Clarence Day's Life with Father.
The difference is that Velda Brotherton draws us into the lives of two women who helped shape the West, Edna and Cassie Smith. We are all the richer for it.
------
Loren Gruber is former Dean of the Arts and Humanities Division at Missouri Valley College, Marshall, Missouri. He continues to teach English there.
By Velda Brotherton
Creative non fiction
ISBN 1-4241-5904-0
Publish America
REVIEW by Dr. Loren GruberOriginally published on Publish America's website
Velda Brotherton delivers again. Gleaned from the diaries of Cassie Smith and her daughter Edna, Fly with the Mourning Dove captures the struggles of two women to civilize their portions of the West.
Quoting material from their diaries, Brotherton reconstructs their lives at the beginning of the twentieth century.
They "cowboy up" as tuberculosis ravages the lungs of Finas, their husband and father; as drought ravages their land; as the Great Depression ravages the economy. While butchering a turkey, overcoming frontier loneliness, and eating porcupine, Cassie and Edna each learn to be as tough and tenacious as the West itself.
Brotherton recreates especially endearing scenes when Edna discovers herself. She roars through the boarding house with her Indian-scalping playmates, prepares for her first Communion, lives the life of a cowpuncher, and teaches her first grade school class.
Young Edna asks permission to accompany her father on his trip to fetch water at Taos Junction, New Mexico.
"No," her mother replies, "I said no. You stay here and we'll make some clothes for the fairies. They have missed you terribly and are practically going naked."
Although Edna thought the notion of naked fairies silly, one can imagine that she grew up with Palmer Cox's Brownie Books, Andrew Lang's Fairy Books, and perhaps Art Nouveau semi-nude fairies.
In her later years, Edna writes, "All my life has been packed away in little boxes." Lucky for us, she did.
Still luckier for us, Brotherton carefully unpacks each to display memorable scenes of Edna's life.
Fly with the Mourning Dove is a welcome addition to turn-of-the-century "civilized" memoirs that include Virginia Cary Hudson's O Ye Jigs and Juleps, Dorothy Daniel's Circle 'round the Square, and Clarence Day's Life with Father.
The difference is that Velda Brotherton draws us into the lives of two women who helped shape the West, Edna and Cassie Smith. We are all the richer for it.
------
Loren Gruber is former Dean of the Arts and Humanities Division at Missouri Valley College, Marshall, Missouri. He continues to teach English there.
Monday, July 23, 2007
Courageous Souls, A Metaphysical Study
Courageous Souls: Do We Plan Our Life Challenges Before Birth?
Robert Schwartz
Pre-Birth Contracts | Spiritism
$14.95
ISBN: 9780977679454,
327 pages
Whispering Winds Press, 800/742-0148, www.courageoussouls.com
Reviewed by New Age Retailer magazine June, 2007
Anna Jedrziewski, Spirit Connection New York, New York, N.Y.
The serene cover of Courageous Souls belies the punch with which Robert Schwartz communicates the results of his research into pre-birth planning. Working with four experienced channelers, he asked 10 people, each facing different challenges (AIDS, blindness, addiction, or death of a loved one), to delve into the reasons why they agreed, before birth, to put themselves in such difficult situations. Each entry begins with an interview in which the person’s story is told from his or her point-of-view. Information via a medium is used to provide insight and sometimes actual pre-birth conversations about the goals or life lessons desired, contributing past-life factors, and the people who contracted to play major roles in the person’s present incarnation. Moving us away from the idea of karma as punishment, Schwartz introduces the idea of learning through contrast, for instance, a soul wishing to fully experience her or his compassionate side might choose to be born into a family that lacks compassion.
In addition to the considerable wisdom provided from the spirit side, Schwartz writes a summary at the end of each chapter in which he adds some of his own insight garnered during years of metaphysical study. Overall, it is one of the best books of this kind I have come across.
Courageous Souls will trigger interest in both past lives and spirit-guide contact. Display alongside books by best-selling authors such as Brian Weiss, M.D., and Doreen Virtue Ph.D., or with Ruth Montgomery’s works, A Search for the Truth, A World Beyond, and Companions Along the Way.
Robert Schwartz
Pre-Birth Contracts | Spiritism
$14.95
ISBN: 9780977679454,
327 pages
Whispering Winds Press, 800/742-0148, www.courageoussouls.com
Reviewed by New Age Retailer magazine June, 2007
Anna Jedrziewski, Spirit Connection New York, New York, N.Y.
The serene cover of Courageous Souls belies the punch with which Robert Schwartz communicates the results of his research into pre-birth planning. Working with four experienced channelers, he asked 10 people, each facing different challenges (AIDS, blindness, addiction, or death of a loved one), to delve into the reasons why they agreed, before birth, to put themselves in such difficult situations. Each entry begins with an interview in which the person’s story is told from his or her point-of-view. Information via a medium is used to provide insight and sometimes actual pre-birth conversations about the goals or life lessons desired, contributing past-life factors, and the people who contracted to play major roles in the person’s present incarnation. Moving us away from the idea of karma as punishment, Schwartz introduces the idea of learning through contrast, for instance, a soul wishing to fully experience her or his compassionate side might choose to be born into a family that lacks compassion.
In addition to the considerable wisdom provided from the spirit side, Schwartz writes a summary at the end of each chapter in which he adds some of his own insight garnered during years of metaphysical study. Overall, it is one of the best books of this kind I have come across.
Courageous Souls will trigger interest in both past lives and spirit-guide contact. Display alongside books by best-selling authors such as Brian Weiss, M.D., and Doreen Virtue Ph.D., or with Ruth Montgomery’s works, A Search for the Truth, A World Beyond, and Companions Along the Way.
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