A Star for Jesus ~ Book Review

Let me start off by saying that not only is this an ADORABLE book but we really loved it. How refreshing it is to find children's stories about Jesus. Especially books with such a powerful message! How simple of a reminder that all we need to do is look at the stars and think of Jesus. Another reason why I love books such as this for my kids, especially as we are now in the Christmas season, is because it's a great reminder at what the season is all about. Not gifts and such, but the birth of Jesus and celebrating Him.

This book is excellent for children in many ways. The words rhyme often and are very easy to understand. The illustrations are vivid and very well done. It will capture your small child's attention. Especially for the really small ones. This is a board book and easy for them to hold with no worries on ripping pages! I would highly recommend it to any of you parents out there with young readers. It's a good lesson to be reminded of how the three wise men followed the star to where Jesus was, and how we can remember to worship Him today. My children loved it. Especially my toddler he has had me read to it to him almost every night since we got it. So parent and kid approved in our house I am glad to say. We hope you will check it out! :)



::From the back of the book::
"God made the stars and put them up high to shine down on earth from up in the sky." But long ago God made a special star. He put it in the sky to send a message: "Jesus our Savior has come …" We can look at the stars at night. And we can remember that a long time ago, Jesus' star shone among them.


Would you like to purchase this book for your little reader?
Board Book      Nook

::Product Details::

• Age Range: 2 - 5 years
• Board book: 14 pages
• Publisher: Zondervan (August 29, 2006)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0310712165
• ISBN-13: 978-0310712169

Disclaimer: I received a complimentary copy of this book from BookLookBloggers in exchange for my unbiased review. All opinions expressed are solely my own.

Prayers for the Stolen ~ A Book Review

This book definitely grabs your attention from the first page. When Ladydi's mother is trying to make her ugly and make her look like a boy I knew this book was going to have me hooked. I wasn't wrong in my prediction as it was an extremely hard book to put down, and it was riveting. Just when I thought there was going to be a part that would drag or be something I would predict I was wrong.
Ladydi lives alone with her mother in a two room house with dirt floors. There are deadly scorpions, tarantulas, giant red and black ants, poisonous snakes, etc that are a part of their everyday lives. They eat very little and have very little. What they have has either come stolen or as gifts. Work is hard to find, and being out in the public eye is even harder. Ladydi lives on a mountain in Mexico where girls are to be hidden or else they will be taken. From birth until they can't hide it anymore these girls are made as ugly as possible and made to look like boys. Mothers dig holes in the ground and cover them with leaves so when the drug traffickers come to steal a girl to sell the girls can hide in a hole in the ground and perhaps have more of a chance to be saved.
This is a world where prostitution, kidnapping, murder, and drugs is a part of their everyday lives. Nobody blinks an eye to find a dead man in the desert, nobody asks questions when they stumble upon a drug field, and everyone knows better than to call the police when a drug trafficker comes knocking on their door armed with guns searching for a pretty girl to take and sell.
It is extremely heartbreaking to read such stories, but it's a reality in this world all over that such things do exist. If you do your research it's a serious issue that has gone on for years.
This book puts these issues in a story from a perspective of a young girl growing up in such a lifestyle. In Ladydi's world you will experience all of these and more. But this book is also heartbreaking and I wish I could have learned more about what happened to the characters later on to see how some of them ended up. I also wish some more information on big events would have been given in the book to understand some things a little better.
I still think this is a powerful, brutally honest, eye-opening read and I definitely recommend it.



::This book is available in::
Paperback   Hardcover   Kindle   Nook

::Product Details::

• Paperback: 240 pages
• Publisher: Hogarth (November 4, 2014)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 080413880X
• ISBN-13: 978-0804138802
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::About the author::

Jennifer Clement studied English Literature and Anthropology at New York University and also studied French literature in Paris, France. She has an MFA from the University of Southern Maine.

Clement is the author of the cult classic memoir Widow Basquiat (on the painter Jean Michel Basquiat) and two novels: A True Story Based on Lies, which was a finalist in the Orange Prize for Fiction, and The Poison That Fascinates.

She is also the author of several books of poetry: The Next Stranger (with an introduction by W.S. Merwin); Newton's Sailor; Lady of the Broom and Jennifer Clement: New and Selected Poems. Her prize-winning story A Salamander-Child is published as an art book with work by the Mexican painter Gustavo Monroy.

Jennifer Clement was awarded the National Endowment of the Arts (NEA) Fellowship for Literature 2012. She is also the recipient of the UK's Canongate Prize. In 2007, she received a MacDowell Fellowship and the MacDowell Colony named her the Robert and Stephanie Olmsted Fellow for 2007-08. Clement is a member of Mexico's prestigious "Sistema Nacional de Creadores."

Jennifer Clement was President of PEN Mexico from 2009 to 2012. She lives in Mexico City, Mexico and, along with her sister Barbara Sibley, is the founder and director The San Miguel Poetry Week.

Disclaimer: I received a complimentary copy of this book, as a Blogging for Books member, in exchange for my unbiased review. All opinions expressed are solely my own.

Noah: A Wordless Picture Book

Noah is an excellent children's book. It's a great new way to bring Bible stories to life that children can really get into. Especially ones who love pictures, considering this is a picture book. Usually I don't find a lot of picture books around targeted at older children so it's nice to find one with colorful vivid illustrations that help spark that imagination and vision, but this one does a good job of that.
If you are reading this to younger children there are a couple of dark photographs, and you have to be able to tell them the story since this is a wordless picture book.
For older children that are familiar with the story of Noah then they shouldn't have a problem getting through it. It will actually give them more time to look in depth at the pictures as they go and be able to visualize more.
I think all in all it's a great book. I hope the author will continue to make more children's wordless bible stories like this as we all enjoyed them very much.


::Product Details::

• Age Range: 2 - 18 years
• Hardcover: 64 pages
• Publisher: Plough Publishing House; SEW edition (October 24, 2014)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0874866391
• ISBN-13: 978-0874866391

Disclaimer: I received a complimentary copy of this book from Handlebar Publishing in exchange for my unbiased review. All opinions expressed are solely my own.