Guardian Angel Press – TOS Review

One of our favorite field trips that we have taken as a homeschool family was to a local sheep farm. We were able to “pick” the wool using brushes that are made especially for this. We then pulled the wool to make yarn. Finally we put this into warm water and used soap to make felt. My kids brought the felt home and made pictures with it. The book, Rainbow Sheep by Guardian Angel Press reminded me and my children of this wonderful experience. I received this e-book and 3 others to review as part of TOS crew.

This book is written by author/fiber artist Kim Chatel and has beautiful pictures that she created with felt. The story is about Genevieve who is a little shepherdess with a big imagination. She finds a sad rainbow and tries to cheer him up with funny stories. We felt the story has a wonderful moral lesson of finding joy in everything God has given us. There are 4 pages of fun crafts you can make with felt at the end of the book. My kids are looking forward to going back to the sheep farm we visited to get wool for these projects. Suggested age for readers: 4 (read to age) to 10 (read alone).

The second book I received was Gifts From God by Cynthia Reeg. The photos for this book were taken by Mary Sue Roberts and are really what make the book special. This is a PDF book that is meant to be viewed with two Pages up setting on your VIEW menu so the double page art pictures are side-by-side. The book starts out with the author stating “Life surrounds us each day with wondrous gifts. Simple gifts. Joyous gifts. Loving gifts. As my thank you to God for all he has given me, I compiled here a short list of his bounties.” There are then pictures of God’s amazing world. On the left side of the two-page spread are Bible verses and then on the right a simple statement that reiterates the verse with photos of children enjoying life. This very short ebook reminded me to stop and enjoy what God has blessed me with.

Next, we enjoyed No Bones about it by Bill Kirk. My husband works in surgery so he LOVED this one. He is always telling the kids the real names for bones so they already hear of most of the ones named in this book. This is recommended for ages 8-13 and I think this is because of the illustrations. Although my children weren’t bothered by them I can see how some little kids could be scared by them. A few of the red eyes on the skeletons were kind of eerie. We enjoyed reading all of the extra facts called “Factoids” that are included on each page. We learned that the average person breaks 2 bones in their lifetime. That is one statistic I’m glad our family is behind on. This book would make a great labbook addition on a anatomy unit study. For our family, we ended with David explaining us how they put a rod in a femur when it is broken. He even demonstrated it on Bella’s doll. Yuck. The kids did learn how to sew an incision and tie a surgeon’s knot. Needless to say, we highly recommend this one. There is even a sheet for you to fill in all 206 bones.

Lastly I received Andy and Spirit go to the fair written by Mary Jean Kelso. This is the second book in the Andy and the Albino horse series. Andy, who is in a wheelchair, learns to cope with his handicap by engaging in equine therapy. We just had our county fair so this was a very appropriate book for us to read at our children’s book club this month. A few of the older children read a page out loud and then I finished reading it to them. I printed the book on front and back on the pages and this worked out great because while they were reading the other kids could see the pictures. This is a story about a handicapped boy and his horse. They are showing at the fair and teach us about persevering even when it would be easier to give up.

I liked this book because as homeschooled children, my kids have been made fun of and seem to be “different” to other kids because of this. They related to Andy because they too are “different” even though it is not a physical handicap. In this story, Andy proves to be a brave little boy and I hope my children learned that the best way to deal with hurtful people is just to ignore them. A portion of the proceeds from this book are donated to Healing Reins of Bend, OR.
www.healingreins.org , a non-profit organization,and Horseplay of Fernley, NV. http://downshorseplay.googlepages.com. Several of the kids in our book club enjoyed this book because they are in 4H just like Andy.

Guardian Angel Press books have been a great addition to our family library. It is so hard to find books that do not have offensive material in them and Guardian Angel Press has accomplished this in all of the books that I looked at.

All of the ebooks I received are available for purchase at their website for $5.00. Although personally I would rather have a hard copy of a book,the cost of $9.95 and $6.95 shipping and handling for these is a little expensive for the size of the books. I do have to say that printing them out on my computer used a lot of ink and I honestly can’t say I will keep them and re-read them. It is too hard to take care of printed pages without the binding.

You can also get a CD version for $9.95 and $5.95 shipping and handling.

You can also get free ebooks and downloads from the company by clicking here.

A lot of the Guardian Press books can be purchased at The Old Schoolhouse Store where shipping is always free.

Please check out what the other crew members had to say about Guardian Angel Press by visiting Homeschool Crew at www.homeschoolblogger.com.

** Please note that I received these 4 ebooks for free in exchange for reviewing them as part of the TOS crew