Really Good Books For Kids

Locating worthwhile books for kids can be a challenge in our contemporary culture. How can a teacher, catechist, or parent find reading material these days that reflects moral values and/or teaches something about God? In Really Good Books For Kids, catechist and author Janaan Manternach meets that need head on by providing an invaluable reference that presents an outstanding selection of children's books, along with valuable reviews of their entertainment and educational value. She has organized this guide to help readers locate books by subject matter (e.g., Books That Raise Moral Consciousness, Bible Storybooks, and Poetry) or by religious theme (e.g., Resurrection Stories, Christmas Stories). This unique reference is an ideal resource for parents and for anyone else entrusted with the care and upbringing of kids--especially teachers and catechists looking for the right books to read to their pupils and add to their fibraries. And Really Good Books For Kids is a perfect Baptism or First Communion gift for parents.

Three hilarious and insightful books on getting through the challenges of modern motherhood—featuring interviews with moms around the country. This bundle gives you three books for the price of two and includes: I Was a Really Good Mom Before I Had Kids, I’d Trade My Husband for a Housekeeper, and Dirty Little Secrets from Otherwise Perfect Moms. Popular authors Trisha Ashworth and Amy Nobile tackle the tough issues of twenty-first century parenthood and marriage with a frank, yet encouraging tone. Interviewing hundreds of mothers (and fathers too), they extend a loving hand in the middle of the madness and help readers see their marriages and families in new lights.

I don't know how she does it! is an oft-heard refrain about mothers today. Funnily enough, most moms agree they have no idea how they get it done, or whether they even want the job. Trisha Ashworth and Amy Nobile spoke to mothers of every stripe--working, stay-at-home, part-time--and found a surprisingly similar trend in their interviews. After enthusing about her lucky life for twenty minutes, a mother would then break down and admit that her child's first word was "Shrek." As one mom put it, "Am I happy? The word that describes me best is challenged." Fresh from the front lines of modern motherhood comes a book that uncovers the guilty secrets of moms today . . . in their own words. I Was a Really Good Mom Before I Had Kids diagnoses the craziness and offers real solutions, so that mothers can step out of the madness and learn to love motherhood as much as they love their kids.

At the height of the Cold War, dozens of radical and progressive writers, illustrators, editors, librarians, booksellers, and teachers cooperated to create and disseminate children's books that challenged the status quo. Learning from the Left provides the first historic overview of their work. Spanning from the 1920s, when both children's book publishing and American Communism were becoming significant on the American scene, to the late 1960s, when youth who had been raised on many of the books in this study unequivocally rejected the values of the Cold War, Learning from the Left shows how "radical" values and ideas that have now become mainstream (including cooperation, interracial friendship, critical thinking, the dignity of labor, feminism, and the history of marginalized people), were communicated to children in repressive times. A range of popular and critically acclaimed children's books, many by former teachers and others who had been blacklisted because of their political beliefs, made commonplace the ideas that McCarthyism tended to call "subversive." These books, about history, science, and contemporary social conditions-as well as imaginative works, science fiction, and popular girls' mystery series-were readily available to children: most could be found in public and school libraries, and some could even be purchased in classrooms through book clubs that catered to educational audiences. Drawing upon extensive interviews, archival research, and hundreds of children's books published from the 1920s through the 1970s, Learning from the Left offers a history of the children's book in light of the history of the history of the Left, and a new perspective on the links between the Old Left of the 1930s and the New Left of the 1960s. Winner of the Grace Abbott Book Prize of the Society for the History of Children and Youth

Parnassus on Wheels is an incredible story of a woman in her late 30s who has never done anything but work as a governess and afterwards, a cook and caretaker for her bachelor brother, Andrew. Helen is satisfied with her existence until her brother decides to start writing books about the pleasures of country life and suddenly becomes a celebrity author. Unexpectedly he's a prominent "literary man," traveling around searching for inspiration for his next book. Andrew stops helping Helen around the farm and takes her for granted. One day Roger Mifflin, a short man with a red beard, stops at her farmhouse in a horse-drawn wagon loaded with books. After his arrival, Helen does something that changes her life entirely and leaves the readers emotionally satisfied with her decision. It's a beautifully written book with incredible descriptions and a strong main character. This heartwarming book follows a simple writing style and is a must-read for book-lovers.

Bookshop Tours of Britain is a slow-travel guide to Britain, navigating bookshop to bookshop. Across 18 bookshop tours, the reader journeys from the Jurassic Coast of southwest England, over the mountains of Wales, through England's industrial heartland, up to the Scottish Highlands, and back via Whitby, the Norfolk Broads, central London, the South Downs, and Hardy's Wessex. On their way, the tours visit beaches, castles, head down coal mines, go to whiskey distilleries, bird watching, hiking, canoeing, to stately homes, and the houses of some of Britain's best-loved historic writers—and, last but not least, a host of fantastic bookshops.