My ten year old son is a rapidly developing avid reader who has fallen absolutely in love with this excellent series. Erickson creates rapid narratives filled with honest (and yes, corny) humor and pleasently comic action and an occasional moral or two.

This series provides young readers with a simple, yet appropriately challenging vocabulary. It also provides fine entertainment as it can hold a young man, who favors outdoor activities and sports, and his attention span for countless hours. A most highly reccomended series of books designed to encourage and develop young readers.

This is my all time favorite Hank the Cowdog book! I love Madam Moonshine and Wallace and Junior. It's witty and humorous throughout the book. I'm impatiently waiting for #34 to come out. I recomend any of these books to children and adult alike.

Poor Hank! This makes a great sequel to number one! This is one of the best, and the cure for this terrible disease is hilarious! I would recommend this book to any Hank the Cowdog fan! - MG

This book is THE resource if one is looking to plan a ranch vacation. The pictures are absolutely breathtaking! Well-written and chock full of info.

My wife and I purchased this book to search for a ranch vacation. It has been on our coffee table ever since. There are about 200 pages worth of color pictures. Some of these resorts are just beautiful. We can't wait to actually go on our vacation. This book has been great in helping us plan our trip.

I own two editions of this book and love them! This book helped me locate the environment I was looking for on three occasions. So far the descriptions have been accurate and fair. I have not been disappointed. The pictures are beneficial in the decision process as well. Give it a try!

Adapted deftly from the Little House series made famous by Laura Ingalls Wilder, this gorgeous picture book tells of Laura's first day trip with her family from the Big Woods to the nearby town of Pepin Wisconsin. The writing is charming and warm, the typeface perfect for reading aloud or independently. The illustrations, inspired by Garth Williams' originals, are extraordinary...absolutely beautiful! I would not consider this adaptation to be a "dumbed down" version of the originals, nor it is too juvenile for older readers. Rather it is a perfect transition piece which lends itself to wonderful cuddling and conversation, both of which are important for developing strong readers no matter how old they may be.

I would also recommend the hardcover editions. They last longer through many readings and make reading aloud feel like a real treat.

Enjoy.

When I was a kid my dad got me the whole Little House series of books. I loved them and read them for years. Now I have 2 daughters of my own and I'm thrilled to be able to introduce them to the Little House books at a younger age. The illustrations are great and the stories are well written. As I'm reading them to my daughters I remember the stories when I read them as a kid. Fun for all of us!

THIS INTRODUCTION TO THE LAURA INGALLS' BOOKS IS EASY TO READ, DELIGHTFUL TO LOOK AT AND AN ENCHANTMENT, IN MY OPINION, FOR YOUNGSTERS OF ALL AGES. EVEN OLDER CHILDREN WILL APPRECIATE ITS GENTLE HONESTY AND GORGEOUS ILLUSTRATIONS.

I really enjoyed this book. It has the makings of a great western movie. I am beginning to read the other stories of the Baron's, stories of Matt's ancestors and i really enjoy them so far.

Wes Lukowsky could stand a lesson in good literary fiction and watch less TV. GRASS KINGDOM is a work of art and a literary masterpiece. If you understand the talent behind novels such as LONESOME DOVE or CALL OF THE WILD, then you'll see what makes Jory Sherman rank with the best. Read GRASS KINGDOM, you won't be disappointed.

Jory Sherman brings to this book a love of early Texas and the larger-than-life people who founded it. This is a novel of empire building, and written with such poetry and beauty that it will inspire delight in any reader. It is as if Sherman had borrowed from the history of the great King Ranch in Texas.

A reader cannot help but enjoy this book.

Book was put together very nicely. I know Gwen and team put alot of hard work and time into creating this. The descriptions of the ranches, food, etc. GREAT JOB! Unfortunatly I have not been at the King Mountain Ranch in Granby, Colorado for about a year now. Memories of guests are fond. The Guest Ranch expierience is wonderful as are all guest ranches. The book is definatly an authority on letting the reader get a feel for what it is like. "Enjoy the recipes, on the open ranges where cowboys roam, or just in your kitchen at home". Thanks Gwen for having me in your book. Chef Mark M. De Nittis

Gee, our daughter-in-law is fast becoming a culinary superstar. We have shared this book with so many people they are becoming suspicious of our objectivity.

I love being able to search for a guest ranch vacation and know the quality of the food in advance. And, the recipes are awesome!

For me young at heart and keeper of a small flock of sheep with some llamas and alpacas is this book a very great book in a small size. The story is true and I know the situations by own. Except that with the coyotes, they don't live here in the middle of Germany. But the little camels notice everyone who is passing their and the sheep's meadow. When unfamiliar dogs will come in they will bring them out. And the llamas are very friendly to the lambs. They allow them nearly all, they play with them and the lambs might climb them as mountains and they might have a sleep on the back of a resting llama.
Molly Bank thanks for these wonderful illustrations. You make that my pictures in my head become true. So they are: the sheep with different faces and lookings and naturally with different characters. And so they move -the llamas.
I got the German edition but the publisher for this edition stopped it. I hope and I wish that the English edition will live longer and better sell as the German one.

I was immediately captured by this recalcitrant llama, and I'm not a child (well hardley). Children will love it; those on our lists will get it next birthday up.

The nicest thing is that the animals, the sheep, the ram, the coyotes, and Harley the llama, are animals, not animals pretending to be people (or worse people pretending to be animals). They are animals, with no apologies. Livingstone serves up a good story, stories which the fly leaf says are true despite its fiction label. But its not a 'nature story' either. It is in a class by its self, a style that Livingstone defines.

Excellent interaction between the stories and the illustrations as well. Bang's style, but integrated into the words and the story.

America's roads will be ridden this summer with the traditional "Harley" of two wheels, but Star Livingstone's HARLEY - on four hooves is a llama who is going leave his tracks on the hearts of America's kids! A sweet, reader friendly story for the young reader and the young at heart. Harley is not the conventional llama that comes to mind. He has style, he has purpose, he has attitude and yes - he spits! The story is delightfully woven throughout the everyday chores and challenges of being a shepherd. Harley develops from "bad boy llama" to a fine upstanding, Blue Ribbon winning llama with purpose. He is repsected by the other four legged cratures and feared by the ememies of those he is called upon to protect. Children will strongly identify with Harley's mischievous side while they find strength from his bravery in face of the bullies he has to deal with. The ram and the coyotes soon learn Harley is a llama of distinction and not to be taken lightly. I applaud Mrs. Livingstone for venturing into children's books with a non-conventional animal and bringing him right into the reader's heart. The illustrations of Molly Bang add wonderful, vivid visualization to Mrs. Livingstone's story. I look forward to reading of Harley's next escapade with my grandson's. Thank you Harley and Ladies, Bravo!

Believe it or not, I use this book as a read-aloud for my 8th grade (13 year olds!) science class. I read it to them before beginning a unit on weather. Even this age finds it humorous. Add this to your collection!

Again terrific illustrations in a children's book. The colors are dynamic and the silliness will grab your attention on every page. The author takes the impossible (only skips a few steps in each process)to make things happen! The ending is a surprise and could only come from Kansas!

My four-year-old has requested this for one of his bedtime stories for over one week running. The story itself is a humourous tall tale about a farm in Kansas. The illustrations are hilarious, and the expressions on the characters (including the farm animals) are expressive and funny. A great children's book, but wacky enough to make adults laugh, too.

This book brings back memories of my own childhood. I love to read it to children. It is full of imagination and fun. I also recommend 10,000 White Horses by Betsy Lee which you can get at Amazon.com.

As our young narrator tells us in no uncertain terms, she's not interested in being a good girl, or a girly girl, sitting around with friends chatting, having tea parties, and playing with dolls. That's not her idea of fun. She definitely doesn't want to have her head in a book, or cook, clean, and sew. And as for high-rise living in the big city, well this young lady yearns to live on the prairie, breaking broncos, driving cattle, twirling her lasso, and sleeping under the stars. And that's just what she plans to do. "I've got my shiny spurs and boots,/I've got my cowgirl hat-/I'm leaving for the Wild, Wild West./Now what's so wrong with that?" Jeanne Willis and Tony Ross have authored an imaginative and humorous ode to the wild, wild west, with a very satisfying, feel-good ending, that's sure to become a read aloud favorite at your house. Ms Willis' rhyming text is entertaining and engaging, and begs to be read with a lilting western drawl. Mr Ross' charming and creative, cartoon-like artwork is rich in expressive, wild west images, and sharp eyed readers will enjoy poring over the illustrations and finding all the special and amusing details in each picture. Perfect for youngsters 3-7, I Want To Be A Cowgirl is a rootin' tootin' good time for little cowpokes with big dreams of their own.

Under a city sky scuttled with cactus shaped clouds a dissatisfied little miss stoutly declares that she doesn't want to be a good girl, but a cowgirl instead. Surrounded by books and needlework in her 20th floor apartment she observes that good girls have absolutely no fun, and she does this in lilting rhyme: "I don't want to be a girly girl, Who likes to sit and chat. I just want to be a cowgirl, Daddy, What's so wrong with that?"

Vested and hatted Daddy thinks this is a really absurd ambition. Nonetheless, off his little daughter goes to Texas, to the wild, wild west. As it turns out, she doesn't go alone.

Tony Ross's inimitable boldly colored illustrations add another dimension of fun to this lively tale of a little girl's dream.

- Gail Cooke

In Search Of Kinship is an achingly luminous epiphany to read. A series of essays by an award winning Western author who honors her sacred connections to the earth through life and literature, In Search of Kinship draws on Native American sacred writings and traditions as well as others. It becomes a rich rainbow fusion seen through a filtering prism of light.

Unself-conscious in form and style, vivid in natural, daily detail, it is a series of testaments to a deeply felt faith in the land and creatures, human and non-human, who people the land set in Wyoming on the visionary back doorstep of the Black Hills near Sundance Mountain, Lambert draws upon numerous rich traditional literary sources, including Black Elk Speaks by John Niehardt, Buffalo Woman Comes Singing, by Brooke Medicine Eagle, and Lame Deer: Seeker of Visions by John Lame Deer and Richard Erdoes, to name a few. She weaves a rich blanket of hope, addressed to the land itself. In the epilogue,'Song of Songs Which is Wyoming's,' she writes of her aging horse, Romie: "Memories cloak and comfort. Time has, for each of us, a different measure. Your decline in many ways frees me to become a new woman whose past is just beginning to catch up with the future.

Actually, it is you , Wyoming, and not Redy, who has taken over Romie's role in my life. Our affair began despite my grudging nature, despite my loyalty to Colorado - land of my youth. At first, these gentle black hills hid their power from me. I compared your eastern edges to the Rockies of my childhood and thought them not worthy of my devotion.

I recoiled from your red-slashed buttes, scoffed at those who called them mountains; these mere places where your face wrinkled with age. I was, at first, deaf to the ancient whispers of those who had found shelter within your arms. I trod the ancient paths but saw only my own footsteps(pp.239-240)."

She goes on to describe the land as an ancestor, even a jealous lover.

"It was not fair of you to tease me with your elusive antelope, to flaunt your whitetail deer before my modern human eyes. You seduced me with the perfume of your summer sage, kindled memories of other women, dark-skinned and light.

But then, when I dreamt of home, of innocent days unburdened by painful truths, of running like the wind upon Romie's back in pursuit of the mythical buffalo, you pulled tight your sovereign rein and let loose the fury of your winter. You taught me that the true mythology of the buffalo, like the words of the Bible, must not be taken lightly. 'Ask the beasts,' it is written in Job. 'Speak to the earth, and let it teach you.'

Your storm raged around me, the vibration of your anger reaching deep chords. When I dared to open my eyes, you offered me a crystalline world, frosted brilliance glittering from every branch, a chance to start anew.

Like a reprimanded child, I pushed thoughts of former places from my consciousness and let you stake your claim on my no-longer-innocent soul.

It would have been easier had I not sifted your red earth through my fingers - had I not breathed in the musky odor of your mountain asters. I should have turned away from your hideless tipi rings, from your bouquets of dried weeds turned to silver sage, and from the shadows of your buffalo bones before it was too late. But I did not.

And now you will not let me go. You demand an enlightened future - whose very hope lies in the lessons of the past - a past that all our ancestors bequeath to all of us (.pp.240-41)."

It is a rare privilege to read such writing. In Search Of Kinship is to be kept, treasured, and returned to, for the glints and patina reflected in it are soul-enlightening.

Nancy Lorraine, Reviewer

This beautiful book of reflections about rural life, family values, and Wyoming, is a gem. Page Lambert brings grace and wisdom to her pages, as well as an understanding of what it means to live in the rural West. This is a book about love and courage. Both men and women will treasure this book and this author.

This book is wonderful! Mrs. Lambert artfully weaves the fabrications of her willful imagination and vivid life into a stunning masterpiece. I would reccomend it to any reader who likes to feel the emotional pulling of heartstrings. Read it!

I think this book was the greates book i have ever read. You can not put down the book.
it is about a boy named tree (because he does not know his own name) lives at the orphange for the first 12 years of his life. He went to live with mr., mrs., and jake gunderson. mr gunderson does not like tree because he is not like his own son gus. mr gunderson acts like tree is not a good boy. so he thinks tree is the worst "son" that a preson could ever have.
When tree was about to go back to the orphange, his little brother acron comes along.
I can not tell you the rest of the story because it might ruin the ending but i really recomend that you should read this book.
DO you think Tree and his little brother will find a home with the gonderson, ro not. If you want to find out what happenes read the book

Jake's Orphan was a excellent book! I'm 15 years old and idon't read every book that comes across like my sister. But this bookwas a great book i was HOOKED to it! I couldn't put it down! I couldread this book over and over and never get tired of it!

Peggy Brooke has created a story for children and young adultsthat people of all ages will enjoy for its true to life emotions andrelationships. The book is true to the time, true to the circumstances, and unlike so many literary efforts, concludes with a sense of closure that is at once poignant, but also very believable. The story is set in 1926, but the historical setting shouldn't throw readers disinterested in period fiction. Its themes are timeless and could speak very well to today's youth about the power of peer pressure, the value of hard work and family, and the beauty of selfless acts of love. I was most impressed by Peggy Brooke's ability to realistically portray the gut-wrenching struggles of conscience within her main character, Tree, and his sheer terror at the possibility of his brother destroying everything he has worked so hard to attain. Just as young people today might feel trapped by circumstance and worry there is no way out of a predicament, Tree's struggle illustrates there are always alternatives, always a chance for redemption.