Most of the time I find Children’s books that anthropomorphize their animal characters lose their ability to teach. An animal (or mammal, or fish, or bird, etc.) can not take on human attributes without losing some of their own. But the author, Stephen Vadakin, has spent enough time studying marine life to allow his characters to keep their real life tendencies and reactions as true as possible. For instance, did you know that sperm whale and squid were enemies?

Vadakin not only tells a great tale, with danger and excitement and fully fleshed out characters, he includes a vocabulary lesson at the end of each chapter so that everyone involved knows what plankton, krill, fluke and bioluminescense are.

The lessons of friendship, helping and putting aside ones differences for the greater good are all demonstrated in the tale. The one thing that I found awkward was the use of third person, present tense throughout the story. It took a while to get used to hearing a children’s story in present tense. I also would have enjoyed many more graphics. I suppose this is why I’d like to see this made into a movie. The different characters, while mostly in the whale family, are so distinct that only animation could do it justice.

source form: bookreview

Yet war is not the greatest threat to civilization. A far older enemy rises. The dragons are waking and these fiends of Chaos will swarm across the world of men, razing it to bedrock just as they have done in ages past.

But this time the world of men has a champion in Daven Carrickson. Once a beggar and still a fugitive from the king’s justice, Daven is also a hero with unrivaled powers. A brush with one of the deadly dragons left him forever bonded to the beast and able to tap into the ever-shifting maelstrom of Chaos that roils beneath man’s fragile reality.

It is a dangerous connection, one that threatens to consume him. Can he pay even that ultimate price if it means the salvation of humanity?

source form: megauploadforum

Summary: With the last of his trusted companions having fallen, Drizzt is alone–and free–for the first time in almost a hundred years. Guilt mingles with relief, leaving Drizzt uniquely vulnerable to the persuasions of his newest companion–Dahlia, a darkly alluring elf and the only other member of their party to survive the cataclysm at Mount Hotenow. But traveling with Dahlia is challenging in more ways than one. As the two companions seek revenge on the one responsible for leveling Neverwinter–and nearly Luskan as well–Drizzt finds his usual moral certainty swept away by her unconventional views. Forced to see the dark deeds that the common man may be driven to by circumstance, Drizzt begins to find himself on the wrong side of the law in an effort to protect those the law has failed. Making new enemies, as his old enemies acquire deadly allies, Drizzt and Dahlia quickly find themselves embroiled in battle–a state he’s coming to enjoy a little too much.

source form: megauploadforum

Trong “Tổ chức xã hội” ấy, có thể nói tình bạn chính là nhân tố trung tâm, ảnh hưởng vô cùng sâu rộng đến tất cả các mối quan hệ khác như bạn bè, vợ chồng, con cái, đồng nghiệp…. Nếu biết cư xử khéo léo trong tình bạn thì chúng ta cũng sẽ biết cách thu hút người khác, xây dựng nhóm làm việc hiệu quả, nuôi dạy con cái, điều hoà quan hệ gia đình và gắn bó với người bạn đời của mình.

Có thể nói rằng, yếu tố tình bạn chính là đại diện tích cực nhất cho tình yêu thương. Sự gắn bó và những mối quan hệ cao đẹp. Nó dạy ta cách sống biết yêu thương, hoà đồng và tự tin.

Dù bạn sinh ra với bất kỳ sự khác biệt nào về văn hoá, phong tục tập quán, trình độ phát triển của quốc gia hay địa phương thì vẫn có một điều tồn tại vĩnh hằng, kết nối mọi người, đó chính là tình yêu thương. Dù bạn là người sống hướng nội, vụng về trong cư xử hay một người hướng ngoại năng động, dễ gần thì cũng đều muốn yêu thương và cần được yêu thương. Điều cốt yếu là chúng ta phải có một tấm lòng, và can đảm vượt qua giới hạn của mọi khác biệt.

Bạn không phải tìm kiếm hay cố gắng tạo ta những kỳ tích để có thể thành công cả trong công việc và các mối quan hệ, hãy nhìn vào tình bạn của mình để tự quyết định điều đó.

Xã hội ngày càng đi lên, một thế hệ mới đang dạy chúng ta nhiều điều hơn về tình bạn. Thế hệ trẻ hôm nay đã bổ sung một biểu hiện tuyệt vời của tình bạn và vốn từ vựng của chúng ta. Họ đã khám phá ra rằng: Khoảng thời gian tuyệt vời nhất trong cuộc sống đơn giản là khi con người tận hưởng việc được ở bên nhau.

“Sức mạnh tình bạn” ra đời với mục đích giúp bạn có được những hiểu biết thiết thực nhất để sống gần gũi hơn với những người mình yêu thương. Nó cũng sẽ đóng vai trò là đòn bẩy, là động lực kích thích tính sáng tạo, xây dựng cuộc sống chúng ta ngày một tốt đẹp và trọn vẹn hơn.

source from: ebook4u

Cold Springs

Chadwick’s life was balanced on a knife’s edge—his career, his marriage, his relationship with his dangerously troubled daughter. And then one autumn night, the worst possible thing happened….

Now, a decade later, Chadwick’s heart is on the mend. Working for an old military buddy, he saves kids for a living, escorting troubled teens to a Texas wilderness school that specializes in the toughest brand of love.

Until he gets a phone call that threatens to shatter his new life.

Mallory Zedman is taking the same terrible path Chadwick’s own daughter once took. Defiant and out of control, Mallory is determined to destroy herself and anyone who tries to stop her. No sooner does Chadwick snatch her off the streets than he discovers she is wanted for questioning in a brutal murder—a slaying that seems directly linked to Chadwick’s past.To save Mallory, tough love will not be enough. Chadwick must find the truth behind the murder—and in doing so revisit the infidelities, shattered promises, and violent passions that cracked his world apart. And he must jeopardize the one thing he still has left to lose—a slim hope of redemption.

source from: megauploadforum

Piper has a secret. Her father has been missing for three days, ever since she had that terrifying nightmare. Piper doesn’t understand her dream, or why her boyfriend suddenly doesn’t recognize her. When a freak storm hits, unleashing strange creatures and whisking her, Jason, and Leo away to someplace called Camp Half-Blood, she has a feeling she’s going to find out.

Leo has a way with tools. When he sees his cabin at Camp Half-Blood, filled with power tools and machine parts, he feels right at home. But there’s weird stuff, too—like the curse everyone keeps talking about. Weirdest of all, his bunkmates insist that each of them—including Leo—is related to a god.

Join new and old friends from Camp Half-Blood in this thrilling first audio book in The Heroes of Olympus series.

source from: megauploadforum

It’s Semana Santa in Seville, the Easter week of passion and processions. A leading restaurateur is found bound, gagged and dead in front of his TV. The self-inflicted wounds tell of the man’s struggle to avoid the unendurable images he’s been forced to watch. When confronted by this horrific scene the normally dispassionate homicide detective Javier Falcon is inexplicably afraid. What could be so terrible? The investigation into the victim’s turbulent life sends Falcon trawling through his own past and the ferociously candid journals of his late father, a world-famous artist. Painful revelations churn up Falcon’s unreliable memory and more killings push him to the edge of terrifying truth. And he realizes that this is not just a hunt for the all-seeing killer who knows his victims’ secret lives but also the search for Falcon’s missing heart. From the Gold Dagger award-winning author of A Small Death in Lisbon, a novel that combines the tension of a psychological thriller with the emotional intensity of a literary tour de force.

source from: megauploadforum

source from: megauploadforum

Most of the time I find Children’s books that anthropomorphize their animal characters lose their ability to teach. An animal (or mammal, or fish, or bird, etc.) can not take on human attributes without losing some of their own. But the author, Stephen Vadakin, has spent enough time studying marine life to allow his characters to keep their real life tendencies and reactions as true as possible. For instance, did you know that sperm whale and squid were enemies?

Vadakin not only tells a great tale, with danger and excitement and fully fleshed out characters, he includes a vocabulary lesson at the end of each chapter so that everyone involved knows what plankton, krill, fluke and bioluminescense are.

The lessons of friendship, helping and putting aside ones differences for the greater good are all demonstrated in the tale. The one thing that I found awkward was the use of third person, present tense throughout the story. It took a while to get used to hearing a children’s story in present tense. I also would have enjoyed many more graphics. I suppose this is why I’d like to see this made into a movie. The different characters, while mostly in the whale family, are so distinct that only animation could do it justice.

source from:  bookreview

Helping Children to be Strong covers:

* me, myself and I
* being acknowledged and affirmed
* developing self-assurance
* a sense of belonging.

This handy little series of books links directly to the Government’s Birth to Three Matters Framework (DfES 2002). It provides information and ideas for you to read and digest at your own pace, then implement or share with your team.
Link:

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