The Lost Hour

By Karen White

Piper Mills returns to her grandparents home after a near death accident while chasing her dreams to become a Olympic equestrian.  Not only is she depressed from no longer being able to ride but now her depression deepens with the loss of her grandfather and not being able to reach her grandmother who is lost deep in her own mind due to Alzheimer’s.

Piper is given a beautiful but mysterious charm, a charm that once belong to her grandmother.  Curiosity gets the best of her and Piper begins running into many more unexplained objects, including a letter begging for forgiveness and a photo of three girls, her grandmother and two of her grandmother’s childhood friends.  And if that is not enough she finds a secret room in her grandparents house.

Piper decides to dig up a box that her and her grandfather buried 10 years before.  There she finds even more unexplained mysteries.

All these mysteries lead piper to Asphodel Farm and Lilian Harrington-Ross, the last of the three best friends that can actually answer Pipers questions.  There she opens doors to secrets and pain the three best friends buried deep in their hearts.  While Piper is solving mysteries, she also might just be reclaiming her life.

Deidre Knight

Eternity is Ajax Petrakos’s prison.  Centuries later after Ajax and his Spartan brothers made a bargain to become immortal, Ajax is struggling to keep himself disciplined.  He only has one true source of strength and that is that he will one day find is other half Shay Angel.

When Ajax finally finds his soul mate he realizes he is not the first to find her.  Ajax enemy finds her first and that begins the story of a bond that can’t be broken.

Shay is the youngest of a demon-hunting family and wonders if her angel hero is a angel or a demon.  As the story goes on Ajax continues to have to rescue Shay until the tables are turned and it is up to Shay to rescue her angel in disguise.

As Ajax and shay rush to solve the mysterious prophesy, a prophesy that will lead to Ajax’s death if they don’t succeed, they begin to fall deeper into love and Shay soon realizes that she can not live without her Ajax.

Deidre kept me turning the pages and I got to the point where I could not put the book down because I had to know what happened next.  There is adventure, passion and mystery in the book and that is just the type of books I love to read.  The best part is that this is the first book in the series A God of Midnight Novel.

Book two Red Kiss Came out June 2009

By Peggy Rathmann

This book is just plain cute. How many times have our children scurried around to get ready for bed? This young child has a lot of help that only he can see. As Dad counts the minutes down, while immersed in his paper and totally unaware of the frolics of his child and friends, the bed time rituals begin.

With adorable illustrations this book will grab any child’s attention. It’s colorful and full of crazy antics. The child’s pet hamster advertises in the paper a bedtime tour. Before the night is over there are numerous hamsters running around. They help him brush his teeth, have a snack, read a book and they even fill the bathtub. They hula, water ski, boat and lie in lawn chairs.

The whole time Dad is hollering from his chair 10 minutes until bedtime, 9 minutes until bedtime and so on. When Dad shouts “Bedtime!” they all scatter away.

This book leaves a little to the imagination also. Are these hamsters real or just the wild imagination of a young child?

Kids love this book because it’s so active. There is something exciting happening on every page. It brings the hamsters to life even in their arrival by buses, taxis and even golf carts. In addition, it helps children with their counting. From the minutes until bedtime to the numbered hamsters, they will be counting on their own before you know it.

If you’re looking for a great book to read to your children at bedtime, get a copy of this one. There is so much going on that every time you read it to your child they will find something new and entertaining. I even enjoy it myself.

A great children’s book featuring a small child and many of his hamster friends. It’s almost bedtime and as the father counts the minutes down the young child goes through his bedtime rituals with all his hamster tourists who have come to enjoy the fun. This book is geared toward ages 2 to 6.

The ABCs of Fruits and Vegetables and Beyond: Delicious Alphabet Poems Plus Food, Facts and Fun for Everyone
By Steve Charney

We all know that we and our kids need to eat more vegetables in order to be healthy, but what do we do when our kids turn up their noses?

And what to WE do when we see strange items in the produce section of our grocery store?

The author of this book believes that the way to overcome resistance to our kids eating fruits and veggies is familiarity. Maybe he’s on to something! This book aims to teach kids a “new attitude” towards produce by telling them stories, jokes, riddles and poems about good eats.

The first part of the book reads like an alphabet book, with one vegetable or fruit for each letter of the alphabet from A to Z. Did you know there is a fruit that begins with the letter X, for example?

The second part is full of fun activities for kids that revolve around produce. For instance, you can make art with potatoes, a card for Grandma with herbs, make invisible ink with lemons. There are even kid friendly recipes for kids to try.

David Goldbeck claims that Americans have a “strange” attitude towards vegetables that we’re unfamiliar with. His book tries to change that attitude so that we don’t pass it on to our kids.

Carrie Lauth is a mom of 4 who tries to feed her kids as healthy as she can. Visit her recipe site for free whole foods recipes: http://www.naturalmomsrecipes.com

How the Moon Regained Her Shape

by Janet Heller

How the Moon Regained Her Shape is a lovely picture book for children. Author Janet Heller tells the story in the style of a Native American folk tale. The story is about how the Moon loses her confidence. She has to endure taunts and bullying by the sun who tries to convince her that he is superior to her. In the end the moon comes to appreciate herself with the help of her friends, who remind her of her value in their lives.

This book would be great for a child who has experienced being teased at school or for any child really. It will help you discuss the topic of bullying and verbal abuse with your child and the importance of them appreciating themselves for their unique strengths and abilities, instead of in comparison with other kids.

In addition to the story, the book contains fun educational exercises to help your kids learn more about the moon. There are also downloadable and printable tools on the author’s website that can be used to teach the different phases of the moon and more fun facts about our friend, the moon.

Carrie Lauth is a homeschooling mom of 4 http://www.NaturalMomsTalkRadio.com/blog