The Kid Casino

Humorous Message Promotes Importance of the Bible for Kids
Book Review - If You Give a Boy a Bible by Andy Holmes
Reviewed by Lisa M. Hendey

On the surface, hot tubs, red Kool Aid, iguanas and shish-kebabs may not seem the perfect enticements towards promoting Bible reading for young children, but a reading of Andy Holmes newest book If You Give a Boy a Bible (Kregel Kidzone, May 2004, hardcover, 32 pages) shows that you can’t make assumptions when it comes to kids.

Author and Illustrator Andy Holmes takes a humorous approach towards evangelization with this book, which is loosely reminiscent of the classic If You Give a Moose a Muffin. The opening pages of the story find a father sharing the Bible with his son and in turn taking time to read it with him. From here, the true action of the book begins as this gift leads to all kinds of imaginative thoughts. As the boy learns stories from the Bible, he begins to act out the accounts in his own little world.

Sprinkled throughout the book are references to classic Old Testament accounts. Readers will love how the boy absorbs and then finds his own take on the stories of Noah, Joseph, Moses and others. Holmes illustrations lend life to the story - I was particularly drawn to the variety of facial expressions in the book.

The book’s end finds the boy sharing the gift he’s received and loved so much with a friend. This gentle approach to witnessing to our faith will make sense to kids - who wouldn’t want to share a gift that brings so much wisdom, enlightenment and fun? If You Give a Boy a Bible is aimed at children ages four through eight years of age, but I’m willing to predict that most grown ups will learn a thing or two from this enjoyable book.

For more information on If You Give a Boy a Bible visit http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/0825455138/digitalcropper-20

Lisa M. Hendey is a mother of two sons, webmaster of numerous web sites, including http://www.catholicmom.com and http://www.christiancoloring.com, and an avid reader.

About the Author

Lisa M. Hendey is a mother of two sons, webmaster of numerous web sites, including http://www.catholicmom.com and http://www.christiancoloring.com, and an avid reader.

Several of the large box stores and some of the smaller boutique stores have taken their business online in the past 7 years. Some have been more successful than others. What does it take to be successful online? How do you develop a successful online business?

There are 3 things you need, one is having a business that is relevant to being online. In the beginning of the internet age being successful online in a retail business was few and far between. The ones that were the most successful were the ones with lots of dollars to invest in the technology for the back-end systems, not just the front end display.

You had to be able to meet customer needs for inventory and deliver solutions on time and be secure as well. Security was a big issue, people were concerned about buying online. This is still the case today, however several companies have developed secure technologies to transfer funds and keep information more secure online.

Online transactions have increased since the advancement of shopping cart technologies, 1-800#’s and improvements in online business software development. Alot of the recent revenue has been in the form of online advertising and having your site promoted through pay per click or search engines. But what does it take to make a successful online store?

1. You need to have a business that lends itself well to the internet, i.e,(You are selling books, information or software or intangible products). However this in now changing.

2. You need to understand what market you are tapping and their buying behaviors if you are tapping a hard goods product. i.e. (EBay and the founders of Google understood this well in 1999 and 2000), although with much adaptation and understanding of how to develop models and create businesses online that would actually create revenue and create a profit that investors would actual back them and see the revenue happen. It was a long and ever changing process, but they had a group of people that had the expertise and connections needed if necessary.

3. You have to have a unique product presentation, yes you can sell baskets handmade from Africa or the latest software innovation, but you have to prove how it will improve peoples lives or make things more enjoyable for them day to day. It has to provide some direct benefit that they think they can use in the immediate future.

Today the Internet is an immediate tool, before everyone was putting information online and content was expanding, now people are buying things online, things that fill more immediate needs. They are more comfortable with the use of the internet and the internet has expanded beyond the original U.S. military function it was designed for into a commercial entity. Alot has been benefited though in terms of time savings, travel costs and productivity advancements. Like any large entity things change, markets change and the opportunities change.

What is the next big opportunity on the Internet will be up to major players like Google, MSN and Yahoo, but other innovators with small software and small programs will come along like WAYN, video advertising and numerous other new technologies. The next 10-25 years of the Internet age will be very interesting to the global economy.

As moms, we have hectic lives. Whether we work out of the home, in the home or look after the kids full time, we definitely have our jobs cut out for us. We clean, chauffer the kids around, mend scraped knees, help with homework, do laundry and on top of all that we STILL have to figure out what we’re going to make for dinner each night.

Here are a few tips to take the pain out family meal planning:

First, choose a quiet time once a week when you have enough time to sit down and prepare your menu for the week ahead.

Look through your cupboards, fridge and freezer and make a mental note of all the food you already have in there.

Start with the food you’ll need for dinner. Plan your next weeks dinner menu around the food you already have. So for example, if you have pasta, simply add pasta sauce and ground beef to your list.

Plan as many dinner meals as you can around what you have in your kitchen already. Once you “run out” of meals then start planning new meals from scratch.

Once you have all your dinner meals then move on to breakfast. In my house this is fairly easy as my kids like to have cereal and fruit or toast and fruit (they’re not very adventurous at breakfast time!)

Once breakfast is sorted, then move on to lunch. If you have older kids who have school lunches you don’t really have much to worry about. If you have toddlers or younger children, a lot of the times they can actually have leftovers from the night before.

Lastly, add snacks, fruit, juice, milk and all those little extras we always seem to need.

Keep your weekly food shopping at that, once a week. Plan your weekly meals and do one shopping trip. If you have to keep going back and forth to the supermarket a few times a week, you can end up spending more money.

Stick your weekly menu on your fridge so all you have to do is glance at it in the mornings and take out whatever meat needs thawing and you can also make a mental note of how much time you’ll need to prepare dinner that night.

I guarantee if you take the time to do this once a week, you’ll actually save time and definitely save money. So it pays to plan ahead and be prepared.

With a little thought and planning ahead you’ll be on your way to hassle-free meal times… now if you could only get your kids to eat all their veggies!

Mila Sidman is a mom of three and the creator of http://www.easy-kid-recipes.com.

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