A light, but charming book by first-time author Rebecca Ramsey, French by Heart will steal yours. It is the true story of an American family and their four year adventure living in France. It begins with a whirlwind as Rebecca and her husband Todd accept a job transfer. They quickly pack up their home in South Carolina, including their piano and their old cat, say their good-byes and set out to make a new home overseas with their three small children.

France through Rebecca’s eyes is intimidating, yet provocative. She has a wonderful way of sharing her struggle to acclimate without affronting the people or places that present her with the challenge. Her memoir is filled with colorful characters and engaging landscapes. The chapters are brief, but heartwarming stories about the everyday events of an expatriate wife and mother. Her account of September 11th as an American living abroad was especially moving.

Whether you’re a seasoned traveler or a homebody who hasn’t gone beyond their back yard, you’ll enjoy visiting France through Rebecca Ramsey’s amusing and courageous tale French by Heart.

We always love getting new kids books to review since we are a family of book lovers. So today I’m happy to be bringing you a review of BOB books. We received the BOB books set 1 for beginning readers. Set 1 is for ages 4 and up. However, our 3 year old enjoyed them just as well.

The BOB books set 1 remind me of a simple set of books that I had as a child. I think these books are perfect for the beginning reader. Having three letter word stories helps a child feel confident in reading. The first book in the set “Mat” was easy for our 6 year old to recognize and read. I was thrilled by this and I’m looking forward to checking out some of the other sets.

Overall, I give BOB books 4 thumbs up! We hope you’ll feel the same too!

*Don’t forget to enter our contest. We are giving away a subscription to the Tessy & Tab Reading Club that all the mommas are loving!

All kids love getting mail so when the Tessy & Tab Reading Club offered to send my son a free subscription we were eager to check it out.

Before I get into our thoughts on the Tessy & Tab Reading Club, I’d like to tell you what the Tessy & Tab Reading Club is all about. The Tessy & Tab Reading Club is actually an educational “early reading” magazine for kids ages 2-6 sent in the mail bi-monthly. It costs $48 per year for 24 issues. To visit Tessy & Tab online go here
Immediately after getting our first issue,”Tessy’s Birthday” we sat down and read it. The stories are short and engaging. These mini books are great for the beginning reader. The last 4 pages of the book focuses on one letter and one number with a theme from the story. There is also a page at the end of the book for your child to color. Overall, we definitely recommend the Tessy & Tab reading club. Both of our kids loved it and keeps asking when we are going to get another one in the mail. Additionally, with each book that comes in the mail, parents receive an email around the same time with more information about the issue along with more links and activities for your child.
AmomsReview.com gives the Tessy & Tab Reading Club Magazine the highest rating, a 4 thumbs up! The Tessy & Tab Reading Club gets kids excited about reading and few things are better than this!

***We’re so excited about the Tessy & Tab Reading Club that we want to give one of you a chance to win a subscription! Your child will get a book in the mail every two weeks! To enter all you have to do is leave a comment on this post. For an extra entry, link to this post. And, for another entry(3 total) link to my mommy blog, Petite Mommy, too! It’s that simple. This contest will run from today until Wednesday September 12, 2007. 11:59pm EST.

We also have an offer for those of you who just can’t wait to win! As a special offer for our readers, the folks at Tessy & Tab will extend your subscription by 1 month (that’s 2 FREE issues!). Enter “AMR-07″ as your coupon code when you place your order by December 31, 2007. Get Tessy & Tab Today.

We are today’s stop for the MotherTalk blog tour for best selling author James Patterson’s Maximum Ride: Saving The World and Other Extreme Sports.

Being a long time James Patterson fan I am thrilled to be involved in this book tour. This book is part 3 in a series of Max Ride books aimed at young adults as well as the regular James Patterson fans. Of course most adults know James Patterson for the Alex Cross series and not YA fantasy. But he does just fine and his writing style is just the same.

I read Maximum Ride 3 without reading the other two books in the series mainly because I just haven’t had the time to get to them. However, I have read the two other earlier books that briefly introduced the “bird kids” to the world, When The Wind Blows & The Lake House, which are two of my favorites!
Now on to the book,

Max, Fang and the rest of the gang are your typical kids except they have wings and super human powers plus they have the ultimate responsibility of saving the world. Overall this is a great book for young adults and adults alike. I didn’t read this book with my 6 year old son since I think he is too young for the story line. I will save it for him to read in a couple of years,however, as I am sure he will enjoy this engaging and fast paced piece of literature.

Ultimately,this book is definitely a book for kids to get excited over. I love how a blog in the book is tied to a real life blog. Kids will love this! Of course, they already do! Max Ride 3 is a thrilling read and I look forward to seeing it on the big screen! I’m sure the movie will be AMAZING!

You can read more about Max Ride and keep up with Fang’s blog here. And for every click garnered on the official Max Ride website a book will be donated to a child in need by First Book.

Hot Stuff to Help Kids Cheer Up: The Depression and Self-Esteem workbook is a new book by author Jerry Wilde for kids ages 9 to 12.

This self help workbook for kids is an informative guide to help kids cheer up. The book is filled with lots of questions and activities designed to help kids work out their feelings and to begin thinking differently about those feelings.

Whether or not you think your child is suffering from depression or low self-esteem, this book is still valuable to every parent and child. The workbook is actually a good idea for all age groups. I recommend that parents of kids ages 9 and older pick up this book and let your child work through it because chances are that most of them will have a few of the feelings mentioned in the book. One of the most important parts of this book is about how to stop worrying about what other people think. That is such an important lesson to learn and the earlier you learn it the better your life will be.

Overall I give this book a 4 thumbs up!

When children reach a certain age they become fascinated with superhereos and my son was no exception. He loves all things superhereos especially The Fanatastic Four, X-men, and Spiderman. A couple days ago he asked me for a comic book after seeing The Fantastic 4: The Rise of The Silver Surfer, however, I wasn’t so sure he was old enough for a comic book of his own.

Around the same time, we surprisingly received the Marvel Puzzle Peril book from BrighterMinds Media. Our son was so delighted to receive the book which is truly aimed at kids in his age group. As a parent, I was pleased as well.

Each book includes a two-sided puzzle with several comic book characters across from the story on every page of the book. I think this is great. Even better, my 6 year old son thinks it’s great! It’s a good substitution for the more adult-like comic books out there.
The Marvel Puzzle Peril will be available this coming Fall.

Overall, we give this book from BrighterMinds Media 4 thumbs up! If you have a young superhero fan then this book would be a perfect gift!

Recently we came across BrighterMinds Media when they contacted amomsreview.com to review some books for which we happily obliged because, hey, we are a family of book lovers!

The first book we will be reviewing from the BrighterMinds Media selection is the PBS Kids Hide And Peek lift the flap book ($6.95) aimed at 3-5 year olds. Tomorrow we will be reviewing the Marvel Puzzle Peril book for ages 6 and up.

Hide And Peek by Sherry Gerstein, with eye-catching illustrations by Andy Bennett, is pure edutainment! This book caught my son’s attention so quickly with Hideki the frog and the flaps!
These books are so fun that kids don’t even realize they are learning and that’s what I am constantly aiming for. Learning should be fun and this book does just that! The Hide and Peek book featuring Hideki the frog from PBS Kids is engaging and a great start for teaching your kids the basics!
Overall, we give this book a 4 thumbs up because it was such a big hit in our house. AND now we are really interested in trying out several of the other books in the PBS Kids series that you can browse through right here! There are so many interesting and fun titles to choose from and the brainquest game looks really cool. I know where I am going to be purchasing my next gifts from!

A representative from Sourcebooks sent along some new children’s literature called The Fairy Chronicles. The Fairy Chronicles is a new series of books from J.H. Sweet about fairies, magic, and self-discovery aimed for girls ages 6 and up. Of course, boys can read the story too. In fact, I’m reading it to my 6 year old son. If your younger child likes books about fairies and magic then you should read this book to them.

The first book that I got my hands on and read in this series was The Fairy Chronicles: Marigold and the Feather of Hope, the Journey Begins.  This beautifully illustrated book was about a 9 year old girl named Beth who learns about her fairy status after going for a visit with her Aunt. This book is the first one in a series of fairy adventures to come.  More from the Fairy Chronicles series are Dragonfly and the Web of Dreams and coming in July 2007 are Thistle and the Shell of Laughter as well as Firefly and the Quest of the Black Squirrel.

Overall, we give this new series from J.H. Sweet a thumbs up for the messages it gives, the lessons learned, and the wonderfully magical adventures! Go to The Fairy Chronicles website to learn more and to buy the book. Additionally the website offers fun for fairies, an activity section for kids.

Teaching your children about safety is very important. And luckily, we found a great animated colorful cartoon called the Danger Rangers that we would like to share with you. The Danger Rangers cartoons emphasize and support how important safety really is.
The Danger Rangers offer a wide range of cartoon DVDs, books, and more to empower children with life-saving safety messages. The safety issues that are a part of the Danger Rangers series are water safety, bike & scooter safety, medicine safety,  playground safety, sound safety, and fire safety.

Recently we were sent a few sample DVD’s, a coloring book, and a reading book about water safety & fire safety. My oldest son,age 6, really enjoyed these cartoons and devoured them. A couple days later we were talking about fires and he talked in detail about what we should do if there was ever a fire in our home. While I don’t expect the Danger Ranger series to be a replacement for me teaching my children about safety I do think it is a great supportive cartoon to really drive home what parents have taught their children about safety. Furthermore this is a great series to offer on public television as well as in schools and daycares. I think so many children could benefit from the books and cartoons.

Additionally, your children can learn a lot from the the Danger Rangers website. There are six educational and entertaining safety games.  You can also download music and activity coloring pages from the site as well as order all of the DVDs, books, and other fun Danger Rangers merchandise.

Overall, we give this kids safety product a huge thumbs up for filling such a huge need! Our family really likes the series and we hope to see it on our PBS station soon.

When it comes to religion and parenting, I really don’t know what I want to share with my children. I want them to be able to choose for themselves what they believe in as they get older so when I saw a blog tour for Parenting Beyond Belief I knew I had to get this book and read it.

Religion is one area that I truly struggle in. I’ve seen the harmful effects of strict organized religion on children and then I’ve seen some good things. However, the bad far outweighs the good. So my husband and I have decided against involving our children in “going to church” on a regular basis.

And here I am reviewing Parenting Beyond Belief: On Raising Ethical, Caring Kids Without Religion. Parenting Beyond Belief is a collection of essays on parenting without religion. It is an excellent resource book for parents who are either non-religious or like myself, not sure what they believe in at this point, and need some guidance as to how to deal with so many of life’s most asked questions.
This book has so many wonderful reviews already and I hope you will take the time and read some of them here, here, and here. Also, take a few moments and browse the ParentingBeyondBelief.com Website The site has a lot of great information.

Overall, I give this book a thumbs up. Buy the book or check it out from your local library. If your library doesn’t have it then request it be added.