A Parent's Library: Recommended books

Featured Books:

Super Healthy Kids: Strengthening Your Child's Resistance to Disease

Child Health Guide: Holistic Pediatrics for Parents

The Vaccine Guide: Risks and Benefits for Children and Adults

Other Recommendations:

(click on the category you wish to view)

Breastfeeding

Strengthening Immunity - Disease Prevention

Nutrition

Home Prescribing

Bedsharing

Parenting

The Difficult (Spirited) Child

Learning

Environment and Chemical Exposure

Vaccinations

Chinese Medicine

Holistic Dentistry

Breastfeeding

The Womanly Art of Breastfeeding

by La Leche League International, (Plume Books, 2004, 463 pages)

Still the classic instruction manual that promotes the virtues and presents the nitty-gritty of how to do it. Updated with scientific information. Disregard the "not available" text in the box below. This book IS available.

The Breastfeeding Book

by Martha and William Sears (Little, Brown, 2000, 272 pages)

Similar information contained in The Baby Book by the Sears team, provides everything you need to be successful with an emphasis on bedsharing, attachment parenting, and extended breastfeeding.

The Ultimate Breastfeeding Book of Answers

by Jack Newman and Teresa Pitman (Prima Lifestyles, 2000, 464 pages)

Written by another world-renowned pediatrician who specializes in breastfeeding, this guide takes you through all the steps necessary to establish a healthy breastfeeding relationship and answers an amazing number of practical, obscure, and unusual questions about breastfeeding details.

The Nursing Mother's Herbal

by Sheila Humphrey (Fairview Press, 2004, 336 pages)

Written by a lactation consultant and La Leche League leader, this book covers safety of herbs, therapeutic uses for milk production problems and breast problems, and suggestions for success in lactation.

Strengthening Immunity - Disease Prevention

Super Healthy Kids: Strengthening Your Child's Resistance to Disease

by Jane Sheppard

Super Healthy Kids gives you valuable information on what you can do to strengthen your child's immune system to prevent disease and create increased vibrant health and vitality. It covers food and nutrition, supplements and herbs for building healthy immunity. Super Healthy Kids tells you how to avoid exposing your child to toxic substances. It gives you reliable information about antibiotics and vaccines and how they can weaken your child's immunity. Included is a section on preventing and dealing with allergies and another section on easily integrating healthy immunity-building into your family's lifestyle.

(Click here to order this book)

Nutrition

Super Baby Food

by Ruth Yaron (F.J. Roberts Pub., 1998, 608 pages)

Full of valuable advice about the introduction of solid foods through the toddler years. Emphasis is on organic foods and a vegetarian diet. The sections on preparation of foods are excellent, but the emphasis on avoidance of bacteria and her advice about fats require some critical reading.

Nourishing Traditions: The Cookbook that Challenges Politically Correct Nutrition and the Diet Dictocrats

by Sally Fallon with Mary Enig (New Trends Publishing, 2001, 670 pages)

An excellent theoretical and practical book about nutrition and cooking, with over 700 recipes. As the authors say, "a fascinating guide to wise food choices and proper preparation techniques" recalling the culinary customs of our ancestors. This is the book I can wholeheartedly recommend for family nutrition.

The Family Nutrition Book: Everything You Need to Know About Feeding Your Children from Birth Through Adolescence

by William and Martha Sears (Little Brown and Co., 1999, 432 pages)

You'll learn how the body works, how to read food labels, what ingredients to look for (and which to avoid), what makes up a balanced diet (not just the "food pyramid"), which foods are thought to prevent cancer, and more. The Searses also offer helpful food lists: good fats, best proteins, and top 10 complex carbohydrates. Again, their thinking on fats is outdated and needs revising.

Eat Healthy, Feel Great

by William and Martha Sears (Little, Brown, and Co., 2002, 32 pages)

Written for elementary school children, presents the tools kids need to make their own wise food choices.

The School Lunchbox Cookbook

by Miriam Jacobs (Globe Pequot Press, 2003, 179 pages)

Everything you need to know to pack healthy lunches for your kids.

Home Prescribing

Flu: Alternative Treatments and Prevention

by Randall Neustaedter, OMD (North Atlantic Books, 2005, 119 pages)

Best alternative strategies to boost immunity and treat the flu. Contains valuable children's section.

Everybody's Guide to Homeopathic Medicines

by Dana Ullman and Stephen Cummings (JP Tarcher, 1997, 374 pages), and Homeopathic Medicine for Children & Infants by Dana Ullman (JP Tarcher, 1992, 256 pages).

The classics for quick homeopathic prescribing for acute ailments.

The Homeopathic Emergency Guide

byThomas Kruzel (North Atlantic Books, 1992)

This is the best supplementary book for detailed homeopathic descriptions of acute symptoms that will help to differentiate the alternative prescriptions.

Bedsharing

Good Nights: The Happy Family's Guide to the Family Bed (And a Peaceful Night's Sleep)

by Jay Gordon (St. Martin's Press, 2002).

Three in a Bed--The Benefits of Sharing Your Bed with Your Baby by Deborah Jackson (New York: Bloomsbury, 1999).

Nighttime Parenting: How to Get Your Baby and Child to Sleep

by William Sears and Mary White. (Schaumburg, IL: La Leche League International, 1999).

The Family Bed

by Tine Thevenin (New Jersey: Avery Publishing Group, 1987).

Parenting

The Baby Book: Everything You Need to Know About Your Baby From Birth to Age Two

by William and Martha Sears (Little, Brown and Company, 2003, 704 pages)

One of the best how-to baby books with a baby-centered approach to promoting attachment. All of the Sears's books encourage a natural and healthy lifestyle. I also recommend their Pregnancy Book, Birth Book, Breastfeeding Book, and Family Nutrition Book. Be warned that the medical advice follows established, conventional pediatrician guidelines.

Natural Family Living

by Peggy O'Mara (Pocket Books, 2000, 372 pages)

Contains a wealth of information about the distinctive style of parenting promoted by Mothering Magazine, Ms. O'Mara's publication. She briefly discusses alternative medicine for children, but the majority of the book is devoted to psychological and developmental issues.

Attachment Parenting: Instinctive Care for your Baby and Young Child

by Katie Allison Granju (Atria, 1999, 336 pages)

Techniques to facilitate connection and communication are outlined, but mostly the book is an exhortation to listen and to trust yourself, and to trust your child's ability to convey to you what he or she needs.

Raising Our Children, Raising Ourselves: Transforming Parent-child Relationships from Reaction And Struggle to Freedom, Power And Joy

by Naomi Aldort (Book Publishers Network, 2006, 270 pages)

Every parent would happily give up ever scolding, punishing or threatening if she only knew how to ensure that her toddler/child/teen would thrive and act responsibly without such painful measures. Raising Our Children, Raising Ourselves is the answer to this universal wish. It is unlike any other book before it; no more nice and kind ways to control, but a way of being and of understanding your child so she/he can be the best of herself, not because she fears you because she wants to, of her own free will.

The Difficult (Spirited) Child

Transforming the Difficult Child: The Nurtured Heart Approach

by Howard Glasser (Center for the Difficult Child, 1999, 272 pages)

Clear and simple techniques for changing the dynamic in your home and the heart of your child.

The Challenging Child: Understanding, Raising, and Enjoying the Five "Difficult" Types of Children

by Stanley Greenspan (Perseus Books Group, 1996, 318 pages)

The familiar emotional stages of childhood are translated here into types of behavior issues that parents find the most difficult to manage.

Children the Challenge

by Rudolf Dreikurs (Plume Books, 1991, 335 pages)

This classic establishes a parenting style built on natural consequences and builds a framework for managing the wide range of discipline problems with compassion, consistency, and love.

Rage-Free Kids: Homeopathic Medicine for Defiant, Aggressive, and Violent Children

by Judyth Reichenberg-Ullman and Robert Ullman (Pima Lifestyles, 1999)

The homeopathic alternative to drug management of behavior problems described by two experts in the field of holistic and homeopathic pediatrics.

Learning

A Mind at a Time and The Myth of Laziness

by Mel Levine (Simon & Schuster, 2002 and 2003)

These two books set forth Dr. Levine's now famous approach to learning problems that involves identifying children's strengths and weaknesses in learning skills and fostering self-esteem by focusing on their strengths. Parents can identify children's learning styles and help them overcome learning differences. The sequel identifies children's "output problems" that often lead to avoidance behaviors and the label of laziness.

All Kinds of Minds and Keeping A Head in School

by Mel Levine (Educators Publishing Service 1993 and 1990)

These two books help children learn about the way their minds work. The first depicts several students who are having learning problems. It is designed to help children under 11 understand learning differences. The second book, written for children over 11, describes the basic learning skills and attention so they can discover their own strengths and weaknesses in learning.

Beyond ADD: Hunting for Reasons in the Past and Present and Understanding ADD: A Different Perception

by Thom Hartmann (Underwood Books, 1996 and 1997)

Both books describe Hartmann's understanding of the value of ADD characteristics as creative, adventurous ways of exploring the world and making discoveries and innovations. A different perception indeed.

In Their Own Way: Discovering and Encouraging Your Child's Multiple Intelligences, and The Myth of the A.D.D. and Child: 50 Ways to Improve Your Child's Behavior and Attention Span without Drugs, Labels, or Coercion, and Awakening Your Child's Natural Genius: Enhancing Curiosity, Creativity, and Learning Ability

by Thomas Armstrong (www.thomasarmstrong.com)
(Jeremy P. Tarcher/Plume, Penguin Putnam)

Armstrong has been writing for decades about the principles of multiple intelligence, the myth of ADD diagnoses, and the ways to stimulate creativity and a fascination with learning.

Ritalin-Free Kids: Safe and Effective Homeopathic Medicine for ADD and Other Behavioral and Learning Problems

by Judyth Reichenberg-Ullman and Robert Ullman (Three Rivers Press, 2000)

The homeopathic alternative to the highly toxic drug treatment inflicted on children to manage ADD and behavior problems written by two experts in the field of holistic and homeopathic pediatrics.

Environment and Chemical Exposure

Chemical-Free Kids: How to Safeguard Your Child's Diet and Environment

by Allan Magaziner, et al. (Twin Streams Books, 2003, 304 pages)

Excellent discussions of pesticides, fake and toxic foods, avoiding toxins in the home environment, and eating organic foods, with many recipes for children's meals and snacks.

Guide to Natural Baby Care: Nontoxic and Environmentally Friendly Ways to Take Care of Your New Child by Mothers and Others for a Livable Planet

by Mindy Pennybacker and Aisha Ikramuddin (John Wiley & Sons, Inc. 1999, 320 pages)

Thousands of suggestions for raising children in natural, nontoxic, and environmentally friendly surroundings. Covers baby equipment, pollutants in the home, babyproofing, and more.

Our Stolen Future: Are We Theatening our Fertility, Intelligence, and Survival? A Scientific Detective Story

by Thea Colborn, et al. (Penguin Books, 1997, 317 pages)

An in-depth examination of the role of industrial pollutants as hormone disruptors that cause hormone-related cancers, endometriosis, and fertility disorders.

The Fluoride Deception

by Christopher Bryson (Seven Stories Press, 2004, 374 pages)

The shocking story of how a secretive group of powerful industries abused their influence and power to foist one of the most damaging environmental pollutants of the cold war on an unsuspecting and deluded public, managing to get this toxic chemical added to drinking water and toothpaste.

Home Safe Home: Protecting Yourself and Your Family from Everyday Toxics and Harmful Household Products in the Home

by Debra Lynn Dadd (Jeremy P Tarcher, 1997, 430 pages)

Simple suggestions to replace toxic products with simple, natural do-it-yourself formulas.

Vaccinations

The Vaccine Guide: Risks and Benefits for Children and Adults

by Randall Neustaedter OMD (Berkeley, CA, North Atlantic Books, 2002, 343 pages)

All the information that parents need to make a truly informed decision that considers vaccine adverse effects, efficacy, and disease incidence and complications. Adults will find useful chapters on travel vaccines and newer vaccines for possible terrorist attacks.

(click here to order this book)

Chinese Medicine

Between Heaven and Earth: A Guide to Chinese Medicine

Harriet Beinfield, L.Ac. and Efrem Korngold, L.Ac., OMD (http://www.redwingbooks.com)
(The Random House Publishing Group, New York 1991)

Harriet Beinfield and Efrem Korngold, pioneers in the practice of acupuncture and herbal medicine in the United States for over 20 years, explain the philosophy behind Chinese medicine, how it works and what it can do.

Holistic Dentistry

The Complete Teething Guide - From Birth to Adolescence

by Kathy Arnos (Spirit Dance Publishing)

The Complete Teething Guide is more than just a book about teething, it is an education on raising healthy children. It offers parents natural remedies for teething-related symptoms: fevers, diarrhea, nightmares, ADD/ADHD, sleeplessness, depression, headaches, earaches, anxiety, croup, sinus and more. Most equate "teething" with infancy, when it actually lasts through young adulthood. Unlock the mystery of your child's physical, emotional and behavioral problems and learn what you can do to help them.