All About "family life"

Outdoor Games for Toddlers

Start your toddler on a path to physical fitness with these five imaginative outdoor activities.

Review: Skellig

Michael's family has just moved to an old fixer-upper. But his baby sister is in the hospital with a heart problem, and Michael feels devastated and helpless.

When he sneaks into the crumbling garage, Michael finds a stranger named Skellig living (or apparently dying) there, a man immobilized by arthritis, subsisting on insects and spiders, and surrounded by owl pellets. While helping him, Michael discovers that the man is oddly light and has strange growths on his back that may be wings.

As Skellig begins to inhabit Michael's dreams, he and his new friend, Mina, help Skellig into an abandoned house. There Skellig seems to have an odd relationship with the owls, who bring him food. And as Michael's mother keeps vigil by the baby's hospital bed, Michael begins to feel his sister's heart beating within his own, and Skellig appears in his mother's dreams as well.

Book Review: All Together Now

The story tells how a family of two rabbits, a duck, and a mouse is created. The group refers to themselves as the Honeys and shares a special song.

Together, they play games, and each is the best at a different activity including running, swimming, and acrobatics.

Book Review: Millions

Damian's mother has recently died, and he has become obsessed with the lives of the Saints, learning about them, emulating them, even seeing them in visions. He builds himself a little hermitage out of cardboard boxes down at the railway line, "the whole pint being to live a simpler life. Not full-time, obviously, because of school." But instead his life gets a whole lot more complicated, when a sack of money comes flying out of the sky and lands in his hermitage.

Damian thinks it is a gift from God, and wants to help the poor with it. But his brother Anthony has other ideas. And among the many problems presented to a young boy with a sack full of money (including the thieves who want it back) is an unusual one: the money is in pounds sterling, and England is converting to the Euro in seventeen days, after which the money will be worthless. How do two boys get rid of 229,370 pounds in cash in seventeen days? It's a lot harder than you'd think.

Review: The Voice on the Radio

Janie's boyfriend, Reeve, now living at college, wants to be a radio DJ. Given his chance and desperate for something to say, he begins to tell Janie's story to all of Boston. Reeve becomes a huge hit until Janie visits Boston and tunes in. This third book in the series continues suspense and page-turning excitement.

Book Review: Madeline

Twelve girls live in an old house covered with vines, and they walk in two straight lines wherever they go. Madeline, the smallest, is not afraid of lions or mice. Then their routine is interrupted by a late-night rush to the hospital--Madeline has to have her appendix out! After the operation, Miss Clavel brings the girls to visit. Madeline has many gifts and flowers--but likes her scar best of all. The story ends with the other girls crying, "Boohoo, we want to have our appendix out, too!"

Book Review: Clifford the Big Red Dog

Emily Elizabeth has the biggest, reddest dog in the neighborhood. She has extra fun with such a big dog, but extra problems too. Silly solutions shown in the cartoonlike illustrations delight young children. The good-natured Clifford has not lost his appeal since he first appeared more than thirty-five years ago.