I Loved the support of the book. I no longer felt alone after reading it. I used the sample letter in the book and found my birth mom and got to have a reunion this year with her and my sisters. Thank You, Jane Askin! This book is very detailed and very factual, but easy to understand and follow -If your affected by adoption this book is a must for your library-buy it today!!

This is a wonderful guide for searches. It takes you through your search step by step. "Search" also gives contact addresses for support groups, sample letters to send seeking information & the addresses to send those letters to during your search. I found it a very helpful book.

"Soon you will kill Seal not become one," says young Kyo's father, but Kyo had different ideas. Finally the moment Kyo had been waiting for, he was going to hunt his first Seal. Kyo found a seal and was going to kill it when he found how innocent looking he was. As Kyo began inspecting her he realized how sweet and kind she was. Kyo named this friendly creature Tooky. Kyo's Uncle George was coming down to hunt a seal for the Big City Zoo. George goes hunting with Kyo, and Kyo realizes his friend is in danger. Kyo tries to convince George that there is really no seal in Tooky's breathing hole, and leads George away from Tooky's usual breathing hole. They go on a wild goose chase, but don't find any seals. The next morning George went out to Tooky's usual breathing hole, because he had a feeling Kyo was lying. Uncle George finds Tooky, and tranquilizes her. Kyo has to stop his George from taking Tooky to the Big City Zoo, breaking their friendship, and revealing his secret.

I think this was a great book. Towards the end of the book it really grabs your attention because during the book you really fall in love with Tooky. Kyo was a very courageous boy to be able to hold on to his secret.

This book is about a young Eskimo boy named Kyo, who is going to shoot his first seal, but when the time comes, he looks into the seal's eyes and puts the harpoon down. Kyo becomes very good friends with the seal and decides to name him Tooky. One day, Kyo's uncle comes from the city to capture a seal and bring it back to the city. Every morning Kyo and his uncle go to look for a seal, so Kyo points him the opposite direction of her normal breathing hole, but one morning, his uncle gets up earlier than Kyo and finds the hole. Kyo tries to convince his uncle to let the seal go, but it was no use.

I think this was an extraordinary book! This is definitely Deborah Davis' best book. It leaves the reader in suspense. I highly recommend this book to anybody who likes books that are about relationships between animals and people, and about friends and how far they will go for each other. This book is for all ages. It made me feel like I was actually there through the happy and the sad times.

It covers the early 1800 settlement of Southern Louisiana and Southeast Texas by the O'Bryan, Berwick and allied families. One of the members - Capt James W. O'Bryan was the first mayor of Lake Charles, LA.

It covers the early 1800's settlement of southern Louisiana ans southeast Texas by the O'Bryan, Berwick and allied families. One of the members - Capt James W. O'Bryan was the first mayor of Lake Charles, LA.

I do not read much poetry, but for various reasons I wanted to read some of the British WWI poets because I knew they didn't mince words about the horror of infantry combat. Sassoon does not disappoint. His poems drip with bite, sarcasm, and some bitterness, but at the same time they are elegantly rhymed and the images are powerful. War is nasty business, not glorious, and it is also stupid. WWI was the end of innocence and the poets who wrote of their war experiences brought home the irony of that innocence in the face of the devastation that was wrought. A sample will help.

Stand-to: Good Friday Morning

I'd been on duty from two till four. I went and stared at the dug-out door. Down in the frowst I heard them snore. "Stand to!" Somebody grunted and swore. Dawn was misty; the skies were still' Larks were singing, discordant, shrill; They seemed happy; but I felt ill. Deep in water I splashed my way Up the trench to our bogged front line. Rain had fallen the whole damned night. O Jesus, send me a wound to-day, And I'll believe in Your bread and wine, And get my bloody old sins washed white!

This collection includes the notes that Sassoon added as commentary on some of his poems. On the above poem Sassoon notes: "I haven't shown this to any clergyman. But soldiers say they feel like that sometimes."

This is poetry that grabs you and moves you, but it is a particular genre, not for everyone's taste. If one purpose of poetry is to allow us to see through some of life's darker experiences, then this collection is well worth your reading and reflection.

Poetry is one of my literary loves: but in this slim volume it is put to the task of exposing the soul of a young man who fights his nation's war because his honor demands that he do so while he simultaneously deplores and decries both the necessity of doing so and the method forced on him of carrying out his honorable charge.

A good friend once asked me what to read to properly understand the history of World War I and while I recommended several critical histories (Churchill's, Keegan's and B.H. Liddell-Hart) I also emphasized the necessity of reading All Quiet on the Western Front, Goodbye to All That, and the combined war poetry of Graves, Owen and, of necessity, Sassoon.

The poetry of WWI brings to life the soul of the experience in a way no history, no matter how talented the historian, can do. It translates you into Sassoon's body and mind as he experiences the horror and shock of absolute and directionless (to his view-point, not necessarily in reality) war. These poems bring the sounds and smells of violent death and horrendous suffering - massive destruction and heroic effort - into your ears and nostrils. Indispensible.

Kelly Whiting

St. Francis is almost untouchable as a saint. His miracles, his link to the common person and his love of animals (all God's creatures) makes him a hugely popular and well-loved saint. This book allowed me to get beyond all the hype and other worldliness of St. Francis. It took me to his heart and let me feel what he felt as his spiritual journey evolved. His love for God and the world was huge.

I now know that St. Francis is most like us, the most human of all the saints. He lived beyond the average but he loved the simpleness and ugliness of life. This book does not ram religion down your throat and it does not put St. Francis on a pedestal that is unreachable. It puts his heart and mind in focus and attempts to give the reader a view of Francis as a friend might see him today.

Wonderfully rich and full of spirituality. You will feel closer to the saint no matter what other books you have read on his life.

The Simple Peace of St. Francis of Assisi is remarkable because it actually catches the heart of this incredible saint, his spiritual development, his formation from troubadour to holiness. I strongly suggest this book for anyone who enjoys books about spiritual transformation or St. Francis. You can actually feel St. Francis as his heart widens and grows into perfect joy!

Yes, yes, yes, yes. I know that the logos are missing from this book and that's why I lowered ratings on the other Treasuries, but since this was the first Treasury I bought, I don't really care. This book is just to funny! Garfield's Christmas, Garfield's New Years, a real great food joke, all sorts of great things are within the pages of this book, in beautiful living color, too.

We all know who Garfield is but some of us haven't really read him, yet. I used to not read him but when I discovered this gorgeous book, I couldn't get enough of him. Him, his owner, Jon, the idiot dog, Odie, all get into some very funny situations. I, like all have the other books, have read this one countless times. I love it. Garfield cracking some of his best jokes in his longer, more colorful, and more energetic Sunday strips. I'd recommend you buy this book now! It's a no regrets one, unless you regret laughing to hard.

Everyones favorite furball is back to annoy Jon and Odie. I laughed out loud reading this book.Any Garfield fans should read it.

Only Georges Bataille's Death and Sensuality is comparable to the depth and profundity of Davis's elucidation of the darker tensions, meaning and power in sexuality. His division of the three attitudes taken toward sexual energy--Gnostic, Jehovanist and Naturalist--should be common knowledge, everyday language. I've gathered many books on this subject, but have never been instructed to the extent Davis has taught me. And in such "light" prose--perhaps even too light if I'm to press for any objection to this excellent work. A shame that it isn't in print.

This is the most profound book, both philosophically and psychologically, that I have yet seen on the subject of human sexuality. Mr. Davis explores the division between "everyday reality" and "erotic reality" in our experience. He then analyzes the three primary approaches that we take toward this. In a nutshell: The "Naturalist" minimizes this cleavage, sees sexuality as simply a harmless release of tensions. The "Jehovanist" sees sexuality as a dangerous building up of tensions, as a threat to the social or cosmic order or "everyday reality", which must be suppressed or restricted as much as possible. The "Gnostic" also sees sexuality as a dangerous building up of tensions -- and revels in the danger, seeing "everyday reality" as essentially false and "erotic reality" as the essentially true, as "nobly evil". Mr. Davis explores the many ramifications of these three fundamental ways of looking at the sexual experience, and the complex relations between these. I strongly recommend this book to anyone interested in this complex and controversial subject and what it means to us.

Unlike most books related to the field of counseling, The Solution-Focused School Counselor addresses the biggest constraint of school counselors: TIME. While counselors have a vast assortment of theoretical approaches to incorporate into their practice, most theories assume an unlimited amount of time. Such is not the case within the fixed time that a counselor is given to handle an overwhelming number of students in each day.

Solution-focused counseling is not a compilation of techniques, but rather a philosophy of how to approach students' problems. At the heart of solution-focused counseling is the concept of exceptionality: looking for instances when the problem does not exist, and then using those instances to formulate solutions. Therefore, the counselor's goal is to turn the attention away from the negative and to focus on what is positive. By jumping right into the solution-finding process, time is not wasted on investigating all the reasons that the problem exists (particularly reasons that may be out of the student's control).

I would highly recommend The Solution-Focused School Counselor for both beginning and well-seasoned counselors. This book is direct, concise, and saturated with helpful suggestions to implement the Solution-Focused model into individual and group counseling, parent conferences, and teacher consultations.

Having surveyed the growing literature, Davis and Osborn have managed to provide a very succint, practical and up-to-date overview of Solution-focused counseling. Steve de Shazer and his wife, Insoo Kim Berg, first distilled the wisdom of Milton Erickson, psychiatrist and hypnotherapist, and developed a very influential school of interventions, without formal hypnosis, for the last 15-20 years. It is the change in perspective in developing new ways of thinking, believing and doing that is most valuable for any person. In contrast to traditional approaches, the focus is on the student's own competencies, strengths, possibilities and solutions. Counseling is structured and time limited. The goals are set jointly by the student and counselor, behavior-oriented, measureable, action-oriented... p. 44. Numerous specific strategies, such as highlighting exceptions, the classic "scaling question" of 1 to 10, that even surfaced in Woody Allen and other movies, the "miracle question", with the modified "dream question", the use of "instead", "coping questions", "relationship questions"... are all clearly summarised here. You also get a glimpse of applications of solution-focus to groups, parents, teacher-education and schools. This book is worth repeated study. The principles and strategies of the solution-focus perspective are not only useful for school counselors, but also for any person in daily life.

I brought this book to work one day and my coworkers asked me to bring back again and again! During coffee breaks and lunch hours that week I learned more about my coworkers than I had in years of working with them.

Then I had with me one day at the beauty parlor. We had a ball! Talking about each other and the loves of lives through astrology was too much fun.

Read it and share it with friends.

In the African American community it is difficult to find many people who believe in the power of astrology. It is almost a tabu topic due to religious beliefs that are passed from generations ago. Thank goodness these authors looked past the tabu nature of this topic and gave some of us something to think about. This book is filled with ancient wisdom about personalities under the stars, relationships, success and failure. Astrology for African Americans can help answer many of the questions plaguing the community, like, What men and women work well together, why are some women agressive and successful and others are not, why are some of us lucky and others have to work for everything? This book was passed throughout my circle of friends and was the building block of an extrodinary and exciting book club of professional women looking for success, love and friendship. I want to thank these authors for forging friendships based on honesty, love and respect...under the stars.

I felt like I was in my old neighborhood...I KNEW those people! Very likeable characters, heartwarming adventure...something for everyone!

I'm there! All those "cutesy" spellings on signs and advertisements drive me crazy too. When I get older, I might become a Spelling Superhero, too. Seriously, the way the plot and relationships are woven together makes this a very enjoyable read. A must-have for any English teacher, or anyone who's ever winced at "lite" beer.