A fascinating true story of how A 3 1/2 year old child was brutally abused and ultimatly murdered by his adopted mother, Lois Jurgens. You Will learn how her husband, family and friends were very aware of the abuse and did absolutly nothing to help this poor child. You will also read how the justice system and adoption agency failed to save Dennis. And the painful events for the natural mother, Jerry Sherwood and her family to get justice for her dead son. Very well written book that goes into the background of Lois and Harold Jurgens and how this evil women was able to adopt a total of 6 children (all which ran away and was removed from her home due to abuse). The book also gives a compelling account of the trial and finally the conviction of murder for Lois Jurgens, who almost for 22 years got away with it.

As a parent myself, I will never forget what happened to little Dennis Jurgens.

Karen, OHIO

I have lived in White Bear all of my life. My parents grew up there. We all attended classes in the "new" high school that is talked about. My aunt was in that school's first graduating class in 1965. I say this because, horrifying as the Dennis Jurgens case may be, it is not hard to see how it happened. Even today, it is a small community where most everybody knows everybody else. My family often attended holidays at the Zerwas home, and even today they find it hard to speak ill of Lois. This book does a wonderful job of telling what so many people have been trying to keep quiet for so many years. This is a story that needs to be told in order to make sure that it never happens to another child. Siegel does an excellent job of projecting the difficulty of following up a 20 year old crime that nobody would admit was committed. This is a powerful story that will make you look at child abuse in a whole new way.

A stellar performance on the part of Barry Siegel and Peter Borland. The detail, history, and character development are exquisitely attended and because of that the writer's talent has created a smooth and clear and compelling flow of the story, when it could have been quite muddled. I am a voracious reader and prefer nonfiction to fiction. This is one of the best. Thanks, Mr. Siegel. More. More. Do it again!

Betsy is back in the USA after a long time in Europe-and Joe is there to greet her. After being in love for years, the couple agree to get married, within the week no less! After Betsy convinces her family to agree to this, we watch as Betsy and Joe are married, and embark on a new life together.

Set near the turn of the century, around WW1, this is a view of every young woman's dream of marriage-a fun, intelligent, strong husband who adores you. Betsy and Joe are friends first, lovers second, something which is always important. At one point, Joe states that he can talk to Betsy, and that he fantasizes about their home life. A lot of guys could take a page from Joe's book!

This book is in no way dated, bringing Betsy to the close of her girlhood and teenage years. If you liked "Anne of Green Gables" or other books by Montgomery, check out Lovelace, for both your little girls and not-so-little girls.

What a great story! I keep it on my window seat to flip through often--it's one of my very favorite stories!Betsy and Joe finally meet in New York after Betsy's year-long trip to Europe! They are finally together and determined never to be seperated again. Afetr many years of loving each other, they will be married. Joe convinces Betsy to marry him in a week. The scene in the restaurant in New York where Joe tells Betsy how much he loves her, how they belong together, and how she must always love him is so touching! Through this part(and the moment when they saw each other when Betsy came off the ship) I was oblivious to everything as I read. Of course, that was the case through the rest of the book as well. Joe's job hunt is hilarious. The day before they are married, he and Betsy go from one newspaper place to the other, Joe determined to find a job so Betsy's father will consent to the match. Well, of course, he succeeds. They are married. Joe and Betsy have a wonderful relationship. It is truly the best I ever read about. They both treat each other with such consideration. Joe is so gracious as Betsy learns to cook(which is a big undertaking for her.) He is so considerate of Betsy, reading to her at night, helping her with the dishes when her cooking endeavors fail, and many other things. Betsy tries so hard to be a good wife to Joe, considering that the most important thing in her life. She even refuses a job in newspaper writing, feeling that she has another job already as keeper of the house and companion to Joe. I liked the way that Betsy handled Aunt Ruth's coming. She did not mask her feelings and was honest, but still,unselfishly, let her come. It ended up working out too! Well, I just loved the story. Their relationship taught me a lot about marriage. I loved the way they treated each other. I don't see the like much these days. It was great! I cried and cried when Joe left for war. But, my fellow readers, I have learned that the books about Betsy were largely based on the author's life. In a biography about her I learned that her husband (who was much like Joe) returned from war--so take heart--Joe returned too and he and Betsy, no doubt, continued their "golden world."

The whole Betsy Tacy series is a triumph---some of the best reading there is. Like few others series (the Little House books are the other that comes to mind) we truly can read and watch Betsy grow from a little 5 year old to a married woman, and grow along with her. As a little girl, I read the early books in this series, and didn't know there were more. You can imagine my delight when I discovered the high school years and beyond were also part of the continuing story! In this book (as you can guess) Betsy gets married, but so does Tib! I like it that Betsy's wedding is not the end of the book--we also get to see her get started on married life during the diffecult WWI period. I remember the minute I finished this book. I had a feeling of happiness but also sadness that never again would I read something new for the first time about Betsy, Tacy, Tib, Joe, Julia, Margaret and all the rest! But the last lines were done so well--they looked to the past and into the future and made me feel that although this was all that was written about them, they continued to exist somewhere out there in the land that wonderful characters in wonderful books live on in! If you have never read this series, I envy you! Get all the books, read them, and you will remember and make them part of your life forever.

To the list of exciting 'first books' to be released in 2002 add this 'alledged collection of short stories' (really a novel) by Jean Harfenist to the upper portion of that list. Though I'm not entirely sure of why Harfenist (or her editor) decided to categorize this amazingly fine tale of coming of age in Minnesota in the 1960s as a short story collection when the stories are so finely woven together, interrelated and ultimately climactic, that decision is unimportant if you get your hands and mind into this book.

Jean Harfenist is a gifted writer who can paint characters as brilliantly as many of the finest authors today. Her lead character, Lillian, is the penulitmate odd child who simply doesn't fit into this tiny Minnesota family in Acorn Lake. Her hilarious rebellion against what her family and town hold dear propels this book thru her Junior High and Highschool years, eventually resulting in a new adult who ultimately seems the only one of her crazy family to grasp the entirety of the bizarre nature of her maturation; she becomes and even in retrostpect has been the rescuer. Harfenist writes from the heart, with a keen eye for details that define language, costume, atmosphere and impending doom. Her creation of the mother figure is one of the most unique, hilarious, pitiful and well constructed silly-yet-sad ladies of American fiction. This is a book that deserves wide attention from the critics and from readers: you can't help but feel assured that there is MUCH more where this treasure of stories came from. HIGHLY RECOMMENDED!

If you are going to read one book this year, read, A Brief History Of The Flood, by Jean Harfenist. The voise of this author captures you from the very first sentence and resonates well after you have finished the last page.
The book, which is a series of linked stories, reads like a novel and follows the life story of Lillian Anderson from the age of eight until twenty when she decides to leave her family and home in Acorn Lake Minnesota. Set during the 60's and early 70's Ms. Harfenist shows an extremely deft eye for character and relationships and how the parents of this first person narrator, Lillian, effect each of their children as they prepare or rather fail to prepare them for the world. It is written with humor and pathos and a hard cold eye for truth, while never sacrificing its sense of compassion and understanding for the people the narrator seems, despite everything, to truly love. As Michiko Kakutani in the New York Times reveiw of books said; Ms. Harfenist "has made an auspicious and stirring debut."

I concur with the opinions expressed by the other reviewers. I casually picked this book up at the library as part of a stack of summer reading. It's such a joy to start a book with no expectations whatsoever and be so tremendously satisfied. I am a bit puzzled, however, at the author's choice of the short story format. Why write a series of short stories and then package them together chronologically this way, so that the result is an "almost" novel? Because each story is meant to stand alone, there is some repetitiousness in certain descriptions of people and places--yet we are obviously intended to read them as a whole. I'd be interested to know whether the stories were written and/or published individually, and, if so, in what order they appeared. Are you out they Ms. Harfenist? Please enlighten us!

I had a football coach my senior year in high school who set our priorities for us at the beginning of the season. They are listed here in decending order:
1. God
2. Family
3. School
4. Football
This book explores all these priorities and does it with a hilarious but insightful twist. Reading the stories, learning about the people and being privy to what make St. Johns so "Sweet", makes me believe my high school football coach had it right all along. Murphy must be exceptionally well paid to go back to what he describes takes place in the big leagues on a consistent basis. This book restores my faith in the game. The negative sports news we hear so much about, the throat slashing antics, the war dances are all performed by a very small percentage of bafoons who drag sports down to their level. I would like to believe the majority of people who play this game are like the folks at St. Johns. It is fantastic that Murphy spoke out for those who have been seeing the game deteriorate over the years. This book props up the sport of college football, puts God and family at the top of the heap and is a great advertisement for what sounds like a neat place to go to school.

This book is a joy to read. It reminds those of us sports junkies that there are still places where the "student" in "student-athlete" truly comes first. Murphy has written a jewel of a book, the kind that any fan will devour and at the same time savor. Stories about the legendary Coach Gagliardi are recounted with the same reverance that one might give, say, Vince Lombardi. And Gagliardi deserves it.
This is an amazing book, written in the style of John Feinstein and told with the emotion one might hear when listening to Bob Costas. Read it now . . . once you stop, you'll want to get yourself to Minnesota and experience the magic that is St. John's for yourself.

Gentle Readers, Austin Murphy tells us a little about St. John's University football in "The Sweet Season" and a lot about his marriage, his faith, his family, his work as a Sports Illustrated writer, the state of professional football, Catholics, and himself. He is funny. The subjects are big and serious. Murphy moves you through these subjects and the book with detailed descriptions especially with an eye for the humor in all of it. You need not be a sports fan to enjoy this story. Is it literature? Maybe...

Laura was a nine year old girl who had dark brown hair and eyes. She lived in the prairie of Minnesota with Ma, Pa, Mary, Carrie and her pet bulldog,Jack. Laura's family worked very hard in their everyday life. Pa would tend the garden,Ma would do the house work,and Mary and Laura would help after they came from school. Sometimes storms struck the prairie and it was devastating. The author,Laura Ingalls Wilder, wanted to let people know about pioneer times. On the Banks of Plum Creek is a very well written book,it made me feel as if I was part of the story.

Laura and her family have moved to a small farm near Walnut Grove in Minnesota. They will have to adapt to Minnesota, the sod house, and a lot more. Laura Ingalls is a seven year old girl who loves to explore the creek, and is daddies little angel. Laura lives with her Ma, Pa , her two sisters Marry and Carrie, and their loyal companion and bulldog Jack. Pa goes out to get lumber and builds a beautiful new house with windows and he farms wheat to earn money. One day Pa said that in a couple weeks the wheat would soon be ready to pick. Then they see this peculiar sparkling cloud that filled the sky. Shortly after countless numbers of grasshoppers cover the field, the creek, and the rest of the farm, including Laura and her family. The grasshoppers consumed every plant including the wheat that Pa worked so hard to grow.
Mary and Laura start to go to school and on their first day they met many friends and some foes. one of their rivals was named Nellie who had a party and invited all the girls from school. Nellie was very rude and very cruel to Mary and Laura. Laura decided to have a party as well, and invited all the girls from school. Laura invites Nellie particulary to get back at her, and boy did she do a clever and a funny prank on Nellie. Then the Ingalls experienced blizzards, storms, and prairie fires which were very devastating. After all the work the family put into the farm and the wheat, their work finally payed off.
This book had lots of surprising, unpredictable, and very exciting events. If I could rate this book on a scale of one through ten, I would give this book a ten. Once I started to read this book I couldn't put it down, because I was so hooked on it. This book is fantastic and is great for every age, and great for every age, and should be enjoyed by everyone. If your looking for a great book that will excite, delight, suprise, and grasp your attention, On the Banks of Plum Creek is just the book your looking for.

A very exciting book
Everything is going great at Plum Creek. Pa makes a new house out of wood and it has glass windows. a will pay for the wood with the money from their first wheat crop. One day a huge cloud covers the praire and grasshoppers fall from it. Laura is very exciting and daring while Mary is more ladylike than Laura is. Pa and Ma are very loving parents. Read this book to find out what happens next. This is a very catching book. Once you turn the page you'll never want to stop reading it. I liked this book because after every chapter you just want to keep going. I also liked thes book because it told what real people had to go through. The characters do amazing things. I would rate this book from one to five a six. The age group for this book I think is 8 and up. I hope you read this book!

Summer with the bears is by far the best book I've ever read. If you don't have it or haven't read it do so now. It will change your life in some way I'm sure. I first read about it in the Reader's Digest and put my copy on order for the moment it came out. Little bit and all of the other bears touched my heart so much it's hard ot describe. I felt like I was there with them as events were happening. Jack and Patti you are so lucky to have had this special time in your lives and I thank you from the bottom of my heart for your sharing it with us. Just goes to show that all animals are not as we always imagine them to be, yet we know at the same time they are not all created equal. There are those that possess a special trait and willingness to be different, that was little bit. Your book was written from your heart, and the pictures helped us to be there too. I laughed and I cried along with you. so few of us will experience what you did interacting with the bears on the level that you did. I attribute your book to helping me find a hidden talent I did not know existed in me. I started sketching, and yes mostly bears. I did one of you and Patti with little bit, if you'd ever like them all you need to do is ask and they are yours. You touched my life in such a special way that in turn I'd like to touch your lives too. Hope there will be more books and I wish you all the best in your lives. Thank You for sharing your special lives with the world.

I just loved this book. Hated to come to the end. A marvelous and touching story about animals, love and trust and nature. Almost too amazing to be true but with wonderful photos to prove it! I will lie awake at night and dream of Jack and Patti and their bears. Thank you, Becklunds!

If you love animals, nature, the great outdoors, and reading about people who love all those things too, please get this book, sit down with a box of tissues, and enjoy! You'll laugh, you'll cry, you'll shake your head in wonderment. The author Jack Becklund and his wife Patti, move deep into the Minnesota forests. Their property is home to deer gamboling on the lawn, chipmunks and hand-fed squirrels munching seeds on the porch,wild mallard ducks swimming and splashing in the creek below, and a colorful array of native birds. But the real heart of the story is Little Bit, the black bear cub who toddles onto the back deck one day, and stays for the next six summers as a welcome, loving, and deeply loved guest of the couple. She is a magical spirit, a living, breathing gift from God, sent to bring great joy to their lives. We are honored to meet Little Bit's cubs, her mates, and numerous other black bears who live in the area, and come to trust the Becklunds. The story itself is incredible, but between the lines, we watch the couple come to love and appreciate the power of this sacred trust they've been given...the joy of the relationship they share with these magnificent animals.This is a book for all time...a classic in every sense of the word. The photos are magnificent, and bring the personalities of the animals into beautiful focus.

This book tells the story of the First Minnesota in such a way that makes you fell like you are with the soldiers. It was nice to read a book actually made up a lot of the soldiers own writing through letters and diaries. The First was a large part of the Union winning the battle of Gettysburg and it was nice to read the soldiers account of what happened. The author also put in other accounts of the First from the Generals that were involved as they praised the First. Great Book.

Richard Moe draws heavily from the letters and diaries (many of them unpublished) of the men of the First and weaves them into a complelling story. This is one of the few books on any topic that I have read twice and I am sure I will read it again. You will never forget Lyman and Issac Taylor and many of the other soldiers of the First after you have read this book. Their very personal writings cover a three year period and give the reader an insight into a soldier's life not often found in any book. I found myself not wanting to finish the book. These men had become friends and I knew full well their fate. They also knew their duty and did not hesitate. 262 of them charged 1,200. Gen. Hancock asked them to give him 5 min. to bring up reinforcements, they gave him 15. Of the 262 only 47 walked away. Many of the voices I had come to know fell silent. History does not allow you to change the ending as much as you might wish you could. By the way, I bought this book in Freeport ME at the 20th Maine Bookstore (it was their last copy). It can be argued that these two units, a mile apart, saved the Union line on July 2nd 1863.

The men of the First Minnesota could swing an axe, and did so, building bridges and making roads. They could shoot -- straight and fast, and did so on some of the most famous battlefields of the Civil War. They were a "cool" Regiment, men who stood fast. And they died, as a Regiment, on the battlefield of Gettysburg.

This book should be read by every high school senior in Minnesota, and most elsewhere. Moe captures the simple competence of these frontiersmen, their ability to walk for long distances (Antietam), work with tools (Peninsula Campaign) and to stand fast and fight hard -- in each battle.

The First Minnesota was raised in the West, in the new state of Minnesota, but fought with the Army of the Potomac. This gives their story a sense of an American Odyssey -- Moe captures the changing nation as a backdrop to the war. The First Minnesota struggles to learn how to cook crabs... and how to fight the Secesh. The diaries and newspaper articles of the time illuminate the nation through the stories these men tell.

Finally, the Civil War buff will love this book. The book tells one entire arc of the Civil War through the life and death of this Regiment. And Moe's writing is so simple and clear, the story unfolds and makes the early eastern battles understandable.

I picked up this book, because I saw it had something to do with an eating disorder. While suffering with anorexia and bulimia, I decided to read the book out of interest. Actually, the book was not just about an eating disorder. It was so much more than that! The author writes about her life, starting from her early teen years, to where she is now. She lived through years of depression, alcohol, and more. The writing is excellent. I could relate to what she wrote so much, it felt like she was me. She wrote about how her relationship with her parents changed drasticaly, and how she would go out with just about any guy just to remain 'popular'. The book has different sub titles, and its great. Towards the end of the book, after she is raped, Shannon decides to change her life around and love her self, her family, and life a lot more. She really inspired me, she says that no one should have to live up to anything anyone else tells them to. That there is no 'perfect body', and there is a partner out there for everyone. She has triggered me to try my best at recovery, and find my true self, as corny or cliche as it sounds. I highly reccomend this powerful novel!

This book was an amazing help to me. I feel like it related to every girl no matter where they are in life. I was going to through a simlular situation, and this made me realize I wasn't alone. I couldn't put the book down because it was so amazing, I read the entire thing in one day at school. Every girl in the world should have a copy of this womans book.

I just bought this book today and I'm so glad I did. As soon as I had gotten through the first chapter I was thinking how much I could relate even if it wasn't with the big things. It's nice to read a story about a girl that's been through so much and has chosen to share with us how she made it. It helps to put a lot of things into persepective and can really open your eyes. I recommend this book to everyone.

This was a very, very good book for children, and, I believe, adults. With Betsy and her new friend Tacy, you'll be feel like you are right along with them. It's a good book to read when you're lonley. Even when my friend Kristin, who is usually inseperable from me, and I are in a fight, these books always seem to... erm... calm me down. It's better than listening to Grease music or doing yoga in your brothers room or dancing in the rain, really , it is. I reccomend this book to readers of all ages.

This book begins with a little girl's fifth-birthday party; in my family it has become a tradition to give it to any little girl for her fifth birthday, and it's always wonderful to do so, because you feel you're sharing something really special.

Betsy and Tacy are imaginative and adventuresome and wholly appealing. Though the setting is far removed in time (far, at least for a small child), the characters and situations remain appealing and true, particularly the relationships between younger and older sisters.

This is just an ideal book to read to a child too young to read it -- the series grows with the person, so that after a few years the child can read on her own, and Betsy and Tacy can keep her company all the way through high school.

For my 8th birthday my Mom and Dad gave me the Betsy-Tacy Treasury which contained this book and Betsy-Tacy and Tib, Betsy and Tacy Go Over Big Hill, and Betsy and Tacy Go Downtown. I have just finished the whole thing and now I am 11. I have read it many others times and I find it amazing that I still appciate it at age 11. Whenever we go to the libary I look for smaller printed books but even though this has fairly large print I think it is a wonderful book. I found it when I was in organizing my family's books and started to read it and couldn't put it down. I loved this book and if you do you should read the rest of the Betsy-Tacy book series.