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What an exceptional blend of empathy, creativity, and good old-fashioned common sense for the contemporary parent. The author obviously had children of her own--chapters are written in short, conversational passages that can be read 5 minutes at a time--a near necessity for today's time-starved parent.

One of the experts who reviewed this book said that she "wished she had had it when raising their children." I can't do better than that, but I can second the statement.

I used this text in an Advertising Course in SE Oklahoma. The material contained within is an excellent tool for real world sales experiences.

If you find only one new idea from this book it will repay its cost many times over. The book has lots and lots of suggestions, mostly just codified good common sense. As an experienced adventure traveller, I was pleasantly surprised to find several novel ideas plus a few fresh twists. The focus on the solo woman traveller is interesting, but most of the material is not gender specific.

The fresh idea? I had never thought to make a photo copy of my passport to carry in a different place in case of loss. Although I have never lost a passport, I have heard plenty of horror stories. Not pretty! Great idea, thanks. To extend that idea, I now carry a photo copy of my air tickets too.

This book is a terrific source for learning how to deal with your kid'd teacher. The explainations are terrific and the advice first rate. I highly recommend this to anyone with a child in school!!!

This book has small notes that can be removed easily. You can use the notes for your own reminders, but even better give them to others. They have sayings on them that make almost everyone smile. Even guys get the joke. For example I gave a male friend one about how when you ask a date what they're thinking and they reply nothing, they are unfortunately speaking the truth. It makes a great gift also.

Before I read this book I considered myself to lack knowledge about getting into racing. Since then I have become a successful driver and have driven in four NASCAR Busch Series events.

I found this book at my local library, and now I'm buying one copy for home and one copy for my kid's school. Perfect for art lovers - especially ages 3 and up. The book takes you through a kid friendly version of well known artworks catagorized by topic (portraits, music, fantasy...) The real names and artists conveniently and pictorially indexed in the back. Throughout the book, the cat artist picks one part of one picture per page and creates her own masterpiece. My kids loved seeing which picture she liked best, and how she incorporated it into her final painting. The text can be long, but it's great for reading color words and teaching creative seeing, and for the younger kids you can always ad lib and just look at the pictures. I highly recommend this book. -- Bsharp2597@aol.com

We are up and running with this brand new book in Miami. This book is the first in a series outlining the 'Purpose-Driven' model's five purposes. While the first lesson highlights the 'Great Commandment' (Love God/Love People) as our overarching purpose, the remaining five lessons introduce the specific purposes of Connecting (Fellowship), Growing (Discipleship), Serving (Ministry), Sharing (Evangelism), and Surrendering (Worship). The remaining five books flesh out each of those purposes. Each lesson also has elements of all five purposes. For instance 'discipleship' will be the Bible Study portion, whereas 'sharing' will stimulate thought in how to reach out to the 'unconvinced' with what you have learned. If you don't believe in purpose, you're going to hate this material!

Each book can be used as a tool for other group and individual growth experiences. The group can read and reread articles on 'keeping your group from becoming a clique,' how to do small group prayer, what their group covenant is (which has places for all to sign each others book) as well as have a handy reference to member's contact info. Individually they can memorize printed scripture, Keep a prayer log, journal, and much more. It almost negates the need for Fields' HABITS pack, which I ordered concurrently with this series. HABITS does offer a few extras, like the 'Bank O Blessings' and allows for more flexibility and variety on the individual disciplines. But in my opinion, except for the tithing option, you would be doing overkill by using both materials at the same time.

There is more material in each lesson than you could possible do in an hour or hour and a half. While we are encouraged to 'pick out the best' and allow the repetition that is built into the whole series to do its work, our ministry has decided to try splitting each lesson into two weeks. We effectively meet for 50 minutes at church (because we operate on 'Spanish time' here in Miami!) and have found a way to split the material without overkill. Helping us are 5 surveys (on . . . what else . . . the five purposes) in the the back that we will have the youth complete and use as the basis of the discussion during the second part of each lesson. (the second week of each). Since this series is hot off the press, it remains to be seen if this will be an effective application of the series. We are hoping so, and find it helps out our small ym budget a bit too.

You can also get the DVD set that covers each lesson with both teaching time (done by the pros) and training time. If you or your leaders weren't comfortable teaching to set the stage for each lesson in a large group setting (before your break into small groups, as is the method some use) then you could use the DVD to do it for you. I have only seen Doug's first lesson. Other speakers, like Efrem Smith, also teach. Doug did to a fine informational job, but the setting of the video shoot is, in my opinion, not the best to show to teens. He never looks into the camera, and he is sitting down speaking to 2 individuals that, while not cheesily over enthusiastic, are too far the other way: mildly interested. Maybe other sessions are different. The other minor weak point is that Doug mentions you can go to www.youthspecialties.com/lifetogether for more tips, etc. It doesn't exist, and YS doesn't know what is up (they are checking into it) either. Maybe it got canned post production of the DVD.

In all, I highly recommend this series.

30 pages. Brilliant illustrations (as is usual from Arthur Robins, the illustrator for Peter Mayle's books).

An extremely fun book for younger children discussing dreams and nightmares, and talking about when/why dreams happen, how sometimes dreams are remembered/forgotten/partially remembered; and the great variety of dreams. A book that provides great reassurance, an incredible amount of humor, and develops understanding and acceptance.

McGowan's idiot-prof instructions proved themselves when me and some friends built this dinosaur in 7th grade. Although I am an avid model builder this was the first time I hade built a model made of things other than plastic. Surprizingly the chicken bones were easy to work with. We finished the model in about two months(working only one day a week). So if your looking to build an unusual model but this book!