This book is appropriate for new toddler brothers & sisters to understand how baby's communicate.

My 20 month old and I borrowed this book from the library probably b/c she liked the cover. We got this book home and we were not disappointed. Max wants to try and teach his new baby sister how to talk. Month by month we see each different thing and song/chant he tries. I know some of this is above my daughter's level but she loves it all the same. It is one of the books I'll be buying soon. This book is perfect for a child who has a new sibling on the way.

As a parent of a 29 month old and 9 month old, I have really enjoyed this sweet book. My son loves to recite the rhyming verses and loves the main character, Max. Fun book!

While this story is predictable it is a nice, short read.

Carrie's grandmother, Maude, tells of her own experience with love while in England at university in 1938. Story begins in the present and goes to a flashback. Lush and sweeping - this would be a good Hallmark movie!

This was my first Grayson read so I can't compare it to her others but it was a touch sappy.

Waterloo Staion is a wonderful story about Maude, a young girl of only 18, who goes off to Oxford University in 1938 just before the war with Germany. Once there she falls in love and has an affair with her married literary tutor Stephen Kendall but this relationship was not meant to last. Stephen joined the Royal Navy and Maude became a nurse and since they were not allowed to have any contact with each other a terrible twist in fate occurred that would change their lives forever.
Waterloo Station is a compelling love story set in an unforgettable time period.
I have read all of Emily Grayson books and this one is the best so far. Treat yourself to this little gem today.

In 1938, young American Maude Latham leaves her home in Longwood, New York to attend classes at prestigious Oxford University. As Maude adapts to life in England, she realizes that her tutors treat her as a second class citizen or worse because of her gender. That changes when twenty-seven year Stephen Kendall replaces an ailing professor as Maude's tutor on the romantic poets.

As they go over in depth the works of a lesser-known poet, A.L. Slayton, Maude and Stephen fall deeply in love. However, he is married so though they enjoy each other's company nothing in the long run will come of it. When the Battle of France ends and the Battle of Britain begins, Stephen joins the military while Maude becomes a nurse. Separated by the war, chances of this couple deeply in love with one another ever attaining a permanent relationship seems nil, but then again both are big fans of the Age of Romanticism.

WATERLOO STATION is an old fashion love story that uses WW II as a backdrop to a delightful romantic tale. The lead couple is a charming duo whom obviously belongs together, but chances seem remote that they will. The story line is character driven with limited action; although the war impedes on life, in this novel it serves to bring out the qualities of the cast. Fans of a fervent love story will cherish Emily Grayson's moving tale.

Harriet Klausner

Although Wuthering Heights is written in very old english and is not easy to read, the story itself is very touching, romantic and parts of it is tragic.

Heathcliff, an orphan, is raised by Mr Earnshaw as one of his own children. Hindley despises him, but wild Cathy becomes his constant companion, and he falls violently in love with her. When she will not marry him, Heathcliff's terrivle vengeance ruins them all - but still his and Cathy's love will not die.

This is a book which gets quite intense and the relationships between the characters get quite complicated but it is a good book to read.

Wuthering Heights is an incredibly hard to read book since it is written in old-English. The story is centered on the Earnshaw family and Heathcliff a vagabond who was taken in by the late Master Earnshaw. Heathcliff was treated as a member of the family. After the death of Master Earnshaw, Heathcliff is treated as a lowly stable boy. He doesn't care because the young and vivacious Catherine is always there to console him. The two are inseparable. When Catherine denounces his love and the shame it would cause her to marry him he flees from the Heights never to be seen again for 3 years.
Heathcliff is full of vengeance. He wants retribution for all the pain the Earnshaw family has given him. The only love in his heart is that for Catherine, who remains in his mind and heart till the end.

A wonderful example of how a book should be written!Enough tantalising family scandals and shocking behaviour,and this book was written in the 1850's!!! The turmoil surrounds the Earnshaw family from the day that young Heathcliff is brought into their home. He soon causes unrest and despair within the sibling ranks.With the demise of the owner of Wuthering Heights he is suddenly treated as an outcast.As neighbours of The Earnshaws the Linton family could never have foretold the upcoming events surrounding their children and those at Wuthering Heights.
After you finish this scandulous book ( definitely for the 1850's ) there still will remain many questions unanswered eg. who is Heathcliff really ???

I love the way this book is written--so simple and sweet with vivid, but not flowery or wordy, pictures and descriptions. It gives the reader a look into life on a Scottish estate, not focusing too much on any one character, but letting us have a close glimpse of each of the five children as they grow up. It is a "real" story--life happens naturally, not with too much melodrama. I recommend it for any audience.

My mother gave me her copies of "Amberwell" and "Summerhills", its sequel, and I enjoyed them emensely. While this book was labled on the cover "A Romance", it is a more a family story (and a dysfunctional family at that). Stevenson looks for the positve in everything and inspires the reader to do the same. The children in the Ayrton family are survivors. They are able to rise above it all despite what WW II does to the family and the family home of Amberwell which they all come to love and cherish.

While the books center around the Ayrton family of Lowland Scotland, it is actually more about all the people who live on the Amberwell estate ( and the surrounding district), servant as well as master. The war breaks down the class barrier and brings everyone together as a unit to preserve the home that they all love and to help build the school that they would eventually call Summerhills. It is a joy to read. I would also recommend "Celia's House" and "Listening Valley".

Long before Olympia Dukakis became well-known for her Academy-Award-winning supporting role as Rose Castorini in Moonstruck, I was a fan of hers based on the outstanding performances she often gave at the Charles Playhouse in Boston in the 1960s. One of the misperceptions that I had about her was that her remarkable control on stage was a reflection of a rock-solid personality. Ask Me Again Tomorrow helped me to see how acting has helped her to get control over her life. It was an unexpected twist for me.

The book opens with the experience of becoming an "overnight" success after thirty years when she won the Academy Award. The event doesn't seem worth dwelling on, except that Ms. Dukakis clearly showed her values were in the right place by using her success to help the Whole Theater, which she had been involved with for 18 years in New Jersey.

For me, the book became interesting when she recounted the story of her family's life before she was born. Several friends of mine who are Greek-Americans say that non-Greek-Americans can never understand what it is like in their families. As I read about Ms. Dukakis's family, I began to get a sense of what they mean. A dominant story from her childhood was about a teenage girl in Greece who had lost her virtue to an overseer. To avenge the dishonor, her brother shot and killed her. The pressure on her to be a "good" Greek-American daughter was unrelenting. Her relationship with her mother was very difficult as a result. Ms. Dukakis was a free spirit as a child, teen and a young adult which set her up for lots of family problems.

Having several family members who would like to act for a living, I also wondered what had drawn her to the profession and what had made her so good at it. The story is very much one of a late bloomer, but a determined one. I was surprised to learn that she had become a physical therapist helping polio patients as a way to pay for her education. During those terrible days, she even contracted a mild case of polio herself. Her story about this work is gripping, and added much to my understanding of that period in time before vaccines more or less eliminated polio.

Lastly, I was curious how a hard-working actress balanced home and family over the years. With difficulty . . . is the answer.

Ms. Dukakis also reveals a lot about how her self-discovery has occurred, especially through her reactions to roles she has been asked to play, therapy and seeking out the origins of Goddess-based spiritual beliefs.

I came away from this book having even more respect for Ms. Dukakis, both as a person and as an actress. I think you will, too.

My main reservation about the book is that Ms. Dukakis is a bit overly circumspect about how much she chooses to reveal about herself in many places. You just get a sense that something might be going on, and . . . you are pushed off into another subject. For instance, after first being married, Ms. Dukakis and her husband Louis Zorich had an "open" marriage. After becoming pregnant, the open marriage was closed for all time. I was left wondering why it was ever open in the first place.

After you finish reading this fine story, think about where your conflicts with family and friends can inspire you to take on larger challenges in areas that are meaningful to you. Have the passion to act!

If you are a struggling actress, actor or anyone pursuing their dreams to do what they love against all odds, this book is for you! I would recommend it for required reading in any theatre class. A Star's light needs to brighten up the path of others to see too.

The book is not what I expected, a series of memories about the entertainment business mixed in with life's loved one. Instead you get the real deal from a real person from a perspective that can enhance your own reflections and without pity of confessions, concessions or the conceit of 'look what I have done!' More like this is how it happens to me with thoughtful self-doubts and all!

Olympia's life is not just one of just pursuing her dreams but backing up her doubts and decisions while clashing with her sense of worth, fears of family and friends second guessing her, lecturing her and offering advice that often makes one stumble rather than risk it all.

She had to deal with her not just her cultural and femininity preconceptions and others during the Age of Social Self-Reliance that made many women often cry in quiet anguish. As if something is wrong with them but ignoring the restrictions in society for you and your dreams, until you find out on your own it is up to you change it for yourself.

The book talks about how one often responds sometimes in measured half steps trying to please more people she could like choosing to take advantage of earning an education as a Physical Therapists during the 'Age of Polio' in the hearts, limbs and often brains of others. Just in case she fails at acting!

How and whom you marry often dictates new changes you never expected despite the best and worse of high expectations. Or how you seek out the truth in yourself with the help of a teacher or guide like in Olympia's 'Gayatri Devi.' And finally, discovering a new concept in history that there existed Goddesses before Gods, for a Greek Woman that is a humbling but revealing experience. And one can often feign the art of fainting that started it all!

In the end, each setback added to her wisdom, each personal victory added to her confidence and she never forgot who she was, what she needed to do, and it all added up with a grand success to set the stage for her 1988 Academy Award. Her peers in the entertainment industry could bestow one of the highest awards an artist.

Today, Olympia molds others as she did herself since her Stage Debut in 1956. She has had 48 yearly principal stage appearances, 14 of them in Directing, 29 Films, and 26 TV Movies and became a founding member of 5 Theatre Companies and a Master Teacher at NYU. All the while conflicting with her mother, having belated judgments of her father, raising a family, mixed in with self-denials, self-determinations and self-improvement often taught by the lessons of the life we learn with and the other we live with in the end.

Many think Olympia's role as 'Rose Castorini' in " Moonstruck," changed her life. But from what I read from the book and what she left off in her modesty is that Olympia changed many lives in her own way. By following her own will and making conciliation necessary to work along and love many others she now inspires others to do the same.

Olympia's story proves, one can do it her way too, without changing names, goals and achievements for society, or what her family wanted but how friends and family change with you like they did with her.

I think you will find this book a delight to read and over time will come to know why and how Olympia Dukanis's became a favorite of the Goddesses and the Gods without apology or recriminations; in any event she was named right from the start.

Olympia is Greek meaning "Of Olympus Heavenly One, Named After The Beautiful Canopy Of Stars That Lights The Earth At Night." You will have to read how this Stage and Movie Star's radiance contributes to the world to find out why, and as you enjoy enlightening yourself!

When morning radio show co-host Tabitha Talbot informs her boyfriend of two years Bob that she is pregnant, he immediately ends the relationship. She is shocked as she thought they would just marry. Her station boss Marty decides that finding a boyfriend for the heart broken Tabitha would be the perfect publicity stunt. Tabitha, even with the help of her on the air partner Sam Stevens, fails to persuade Marty to leave well enough alone.

Though Sam is a confirmed bachelor, he felt protective towards Tabitha, but now his need to keep her safe has gone into the stratosphere. Tabitha blames her desire for Sam on the raging hormones of her pregnancy. When they make passionate love, Sam realizes that he wants his Tabby by his side afternoon and night not just in the AM, but she was already dumped once and cannot believe commitment phobic Sam is talking family affair.

BABY, BE MINE is an amusing relationship drama that will surprise readers to learn that this is author Emily McKay's debut. The story line is fun due to the seesaw romance between the lead couple and the antics of the support cast, especially at the station. Though Bob's fleeing his responsibility is never adequately explained, the audience will take great delight with this "He Said She Said" style romance.

Harriet Klausner

Tabitha Talbot and her partner, Sam Stevens, were morning radio celebrities. When Tabitha found out she was pregnant she told her boyfriend and ended up dumped. Sam was around when Tabitha's test stick showed positive, but no one else at the station knew of the baby. Still, word of being dumped traveled. The station manager decided to use it as a promo. The listening audience was invited to mail in love letters for Tabitha. She would choose the best and go out on a date with the winner.

Sam was a confirmed bachelor and was in no way daddy material. At least that was what he thought. However, since the boyfriend was out of the picture, he (as a concerned friend) made sure Tabitha saw her doctor, took her vitamins, and ate right. The attraction he had always felt for her exploded into much more. Now he had only to somehow convince her.

***** Oh, this story is pure delight! I began reading on a Saturday, intending to read an hour before heading out for lunch, only to continue reading until the last page had been read. (Who needs lunch anyway? There is always dinner!) I urge you to buy this novel! It is full of humor and romance and is very addicting! *****

Reviewed by Detra Fitch.

The hip-hop rhythem just jumps off the page, making it as funto read as it is to listen to. My 2 1/2 year old daughter is, to myamazement, getting the hang of counting the tigers, bunnies, and ostriches on each page. Our paperback version is getting tattered and a hardback version will find a home in her Christmas stocking, as well as in the stockings of two of her playmates.

My 5 year old Pre-K"er" brought this book home from the school library. He and his 2 year old brother loved it so much (I read it 5 times that afternoon) I ordered it from Amazon that day. I also sent it to a 4th grade teacher friend for her 2 year old daughter. She ended up reading it to her students who also loved it! My boys love to "hippy hippy shake" and "slide to the side" while I'm reading!

If you love the Bronte's novels, you'll love their poetry. You learn so much about their lives and relationships with each other by reading it. After reading a biograhpy of the famous family, I can more fully appreciate the poetry that got them started.

I enjoyed the selected poems. I saw a lot of the same passion in the poems that I have seen also in many of their novels. If you enjoyed the poems you should be sure to get a hold of the Tenant of Wildfell Hall written by Anne Bronte and my utmost favorite Wuthering Heights by Emily Bronte is definitely a book I would recommend.

These are fun puzzles, challenging enough to be amusing, but not so difficult you want to give up on them. New Englanders may find these particularly enjoyable since many clues and sometimes entire puzzles are Boston-related. The spiralbound books are easy to handle and write in, and all puzzles are "one pagers" so there's no turning back and forth.

When I was in the Peace Corps in Africa, my friend's mom used to clip and send the crossword puzzles from the Boston Globe. I was hooked! They're the best--interesting, just the right level of difficulty to do with the morning coffee. I end up looking up a word or two each and time and learn something, but they're not so hard I can't finish them. I was delighted to find collections of them.

This is rather a weird book, but pretty good. I think the three stories kind of go in descending order from best to worst. The first is highly entertaining, even if it is rather pointless, but, as often happens, there's some irritating moral ambiguity here. In this case, the protagonist meets a lesbian schoolmistress who helps him out, but the last time we see her consists of him discovering her sexual orientation and being pissed off at her--and then she's never heard from again. That annoyed me, because it was the most interesting aspect of the story. The second tale is still more problematic. The protagonist is an incredibly egocentric, white-supremist, Swiss professor, and while his points of view are certainly not ENDORSED, you don't really get the impression that they're being condemned, either. Very odd. I did like the touch of comparing things to plants and animals and then parenthetically providing their Latin names. That was cool. The story was fairly entertaining, but, as with all of these, there's rather a pointless aura around it--you don't get the impression that anything's really happening. The third story was the weakest, I think. The portrayal of Whitman was quite good, Dickinson less memorable. And, although the back cover informs us that they meet Alen Ginsburg, don't expect any sort of meeting-of-the-minds. Yes they meet Ginsburg, as well as a number of other twentieth-century poets, but they're not really detailed in any way--they're all fairly anonymous children. And the way they meet them is really unspeakably bizarre. I have to admit, it made absolutely no sense, and it was never explained. Also, the ending was less than happy. You really have to get used to Philipo's idiosyncrasies, but if you can, you'll find a quirky and though-provoking, if somewhat flawed, work of fiction.

I had read Ribofunk 5 years or so ago and enjoyed it and reread it this summer and enjoyed it even more. When it was finished I wanted more so I sought out The Steampunk Trilogy. The book was engaging and funny from the very start. Very, very clever language and style and very funny. I was particularly impressed with the life the author bestowed upon the many historical people who were incorporated into the story. After reading the books I even discovered that the Hottentots Venus' pickled "friend" is indeed at the Musee de l'Homme in Paris. As a New Englander I also loved the fact that two of the stories take place in Massachusetts. When will you be in Snipe Harbour again, Paul Di Filippo?

and you've got to approach this book with an open mind. Moralistic he is not. Wildly imaginative, outrageous, he is. STEAMPUNK took me to the most bizarre places I've ever been, literarily speaking. And Di Filippo details his worlds to an amazing degree. Loosen your collar and enjoy the ride. Clearly this is a book the author had a blast writing. It's hard to believe anyone would pick this up and not enjoy him/her/itself.