ForeWord Reviews is a quarterly print journal dedicated to reviewing independently published books to provide booksellers, librarians, agents, and publishing professionals with reviews of the best titles from small, alternative, and academic presses. ForeWord’s Book of the Year Awards program was created to highlight the year’s most distinguished books from independent publishers. Finalists were selected…

By Michael Chissick, primary school teacher and qualified yoga instructor, and specialist in teaching yoga to children with Autism Spectrum Disorders, and author of Frog’s Breathtaking Speech. Exciting New Training Project An exciting new initiative which delivers the benefits of yoga to hundreds of children with autism will be the cherry on the cake. The project…

“[This] is not a book about disease but about finding solutions according to different ways of gaining back one’s physical, emotional and psychological energy balance. For many, it is also a path towards empowerment and finding a new meaning in daily activities.”

“Ironically, as my fibre-making skills developed, my clinical skills also developed. I became better at creating relationships and more and more comfortable with using textile as an entryway to connect with women whom I didn’t know. At some point, it became obvious to me that making textiles and clinical psychology didn’t need to be two separate compartments in my life: I realized that I was already integrating the two.”

Here’s an event you might be interested in by one of our most respected authors who is visiting the UK in February for a series of lectures and workshops. The Chinese Tea Company Presents An Evening with Master Zhongxian Wu CHA DAO: The Way of Tea An exploration into the traditional Chinese culture and appreciation…

“Touch is one of the most fundamental ways to offer support and caring and is often underestimated or disregarded in healthcare settings… A hand massage is a wonderful, easy introduction to using touch. From a caregiver’s perspective, they often feel disconnected from the person who is ill or weary of touching them, so it’s a wonderful way to approach the ill person and provide care in a manner that is satisfying to the ill person and to the caregiver, and safe.”

“It was an exciting time, because it felt like a real movement in personal well-being was taking place. It wasn’t being led by doctors, but by ordinary people who were looking for more than symptom relief. They wanted therapies that were natural and non-toxic, and a way to be involved in the healing process. That was a key—becoming an active participant in wellness and illness instead of being a passive recipient of care. The quest for ways to be involved in the healing process, and for tangible ways to share it, became the continuing thread of my studies, writing and teaching.”

JKP is exhibiting at the Frankfurt Book Fair this week. Jessica Kingsley took a few minutes between meetings to talk about why we attend this major international event, and to highlight some of the things we’ve been talking about.

“[After our] five month program of daily parent-delivered massage…Not only does autism become less severe, but the child has general improvements in health in important areas like sleep, digestion, ability to calm themselves down, and toilet training; there is less aggressive and self-injurious behavior, and parenting stress is considerably lower.”

This week the International Association of Infant Massage (IAIM) has been holding events across the UK to promote baby massage as part of its National Baby Massage Week initiative (16-21 May 2011). According to the IAIM, the many benefits of massage include parent-child bonding, better sleep, body awareness and sensory stimulation. These findings are also reflected…