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The Listeners - Genius!!!
"Absolutely brilliant!
This book will reach a bigger audience and help prepare children for real life events.
Mr Swan should keep writing and perhaps help older emotional cripples worldwide who rely on drink and drugs to dull emotional pain.
He has provided a simple, straightforward map for the journey that is life.
Thank you, and well done."
The Listeners - Just Listening
"I haven't managed to read all this book yet. I read the first chapter, then asked a young person to review it!
She took it, related to it, enjoyed it and then shared it with others around her of all ages.
All I am doing at the moment is listening - to how much others have thought, laughed and shed tears together.
It's simplicity and its wisdom is wonderful. I want to read the next three chapters - when I get the book back!"
The Listeners - Endearing lessons for children and adults alike
"It is a family production of good old-fashioned style, and I believe the first of many to come from that particular family.
The author, Richard Swan took to heart his daughter's questions about life and through his desire to inform her with fact while taking into account her young age he set about the task in the age-old way of storytelling.
This short and lovely book has four stories for children, each of them linking up with each other as they use the same characters. Children like this 'ongoing' storytelling method. It helps them relate to the characters as real people and identify with their problems as their own.
While taking in the 'story' they also take on board the reality behind it. The stories are also very lovingly illuminated by the softness of the pencil drawings rendered by Richard's mother Anne.
Richard gets to the heart of the questions young children constantly ask about life and which more often than not, adults find hard to answer.
As an adult with six grandchildren I enjoyed reading this book myself and bought it for each of my three sons to share with their children. It opens up new ways of dealing with those "curly ones" and showing us adults how easy it is to communicate with children on their level with love and understanding, and to show children how to listen to their own intuition when it comes to fears of the unknown, preparing them for the love, joys and sadnesses of life.
It is a family production of good old-fashioned style, and I believe the first of many to come from that particular family."
Whispers from the Pond - Masterful in its lesson
The first half rings all too well with me. I'm possibly a small bit of a Ken, and I used to be - perhaps still am to an extent - a Craig. Fortunately I've never been a Crystal or a Nigel, but I'm sure like most people I can think of people they resemble in my own life too.
The author introduces each of them to us through a fifth mysterious central character. And it's through that character that we transition perfectly into the second half of the story.
In a weird way, the second half reminds me of Sybok in Star Trek V, taking away pain through sharing it! Except in this instance it's actually done in a methodical manner which breaks down each character before building them up again within the group. So much better than that movie!
There are, of course, a few twists along the way. The best kind of twists that you don't see coming and you get the full impact of them hitting you as they hit the characters.
Ultimately the moral of this book is a familiar one, whether in a biblical sense of "do unto others as you would have them do unto you" or perhaps more accurate in a Jerry Springer sign off sense of "take care of yourself and each other" - and really that's the only moral that matters in this world.
This book hammers it home in a well paced and hard hitting manner. One that captivates the reader from beginning to end and even makes you think "how could I improve myself from these lessons?"
I'd highly recommend reading this book, and I look forward to reading more from Richard Swan."
Whispers from the Pond - Fantastic piece!
Whispers from the Pond - Interesting story with varied characters
The characters all had backgrounds that most of us can relate to, either personally or through friends and family.
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