New Release: Tomey and the Caterpillar

In this contemporary world of bullying and not-so-nice peers, TOMEY AND THE CATERPILLAR is an inspiring story about being proud of who you are and being confident in your individuality. Written by Sabrina Panfilo, with illustrations by Massimo Mongiardo, TOMEY AND THE CATERPILLAR is a tale of personal strength and positive self-esteem.

“This isn’t the first time a caterpillar has graced the pages of a children’s picture book,” a recent review in the New York Post points out. But, “while Eric Carle’s famous multilegged creature was very hungry, former Post reporter Panfilo brings us one who is very lonely. In her rhyming tale, Tomey, a red pony with its own issues, befriends the caterpillar who is sad due to, among other things, a lack of color. It offers simple lessons encouraging self-esteem.” TOMEY also gets a nice mention on the Crazed Mind blog.

Sabrina Panfilo is also the author of another recent Vantage title: the two-in-one Cosmo’s Crave and Guppy’s Gall. A graduate of NYU, Panfilo has molded her professional expertise in journalism, education, and psychology into one passion – creating a literal world for children that reminds each and every one of us that we are indeed unique and beautiful – and, undoubtedly, loved.

TOMEY AND THE CATERPILLAR
By Sabrina Panfilo
Illustrations by Massimo Mongiardo
Vantage Press
ISBN 978-0-533-16566-7
Publication Date: May 15, 2012

Vantage titles are distributed to major booksellers via Ingram Publishing Services. Find this title at AMAZON, B&N, POWELL’s, INDIEBOUND or your local bookseller.

“Respecting Autism” garners respect

RESPECTING AUTISM: The Rebecca School DIR Casebook for Parents and Professionals has been garnering positive reviews and praise since its release in November. Readers have called the Vantage Press title “engaging,” “beautifully written” and “clearly presented.”

Written during the third year of The Rebecca School’s operation in Manhattan, RESPECTING AUTISM adroitly describes the results of Tina McCourt and Michael Koffler’s efforts to conceive and create a new school in New York City for children diagnosed on the autism spectrum. Because of the devotion of the entire staff as well as parents, all New York students can now receive a developmentally appropriate, thoughtful, and integrated education. “At Rebecca School we believe that everything we do originates with respect,” says Dr. Gil Tippy, the school’s clinical director an co-author of the book. “Respect for the children we serve, respect for the staff with whom we work, and respect for the families of the children.”

Dr. Tippy and Floortime™ creator Dr. Stanley Greenspan collaborated on RESPECTING AUTISM. In 2005, Dr. Greenspan became a consultant to Rebecca School, and his work with students is featured throughout the book. The school institutionalizes Dr. Greenspan’s “Floortime™” methods of teaching and its educators work to extend students’ circles of communication using the Developmental, Individual Difference, Relationship-based (DIR®) model also pioneered by Dr. Greenspan.

Autism Spectrum Disorders are not issues of memory or of extinguishable behaviors, but rather difficulties with relating and communicating. Throughout RESPECTING AUTISM, everyday real life students and their families generously open up their homes and personal histories to Dr. Tippy who then conveys to readers these student’s triumphs and frustrations, joys and fears as each child in her or his own way strives to experience the freedom of the world of abstraction.

RESPECTING AUTISM introduces readers to sixteen students and their personal stories presented as case studies. In each of these very different studies, Dr. Tippy takes a thorough and thoughtful approach to introducing readers to these individuals; he first establishes their family’s story and educational background, then provides specifics regarding the students’ work as well as behavior at school. Each case study concludes with Dr. Greenspan’s diagnosis, reflections, and plan regarding how best to proceed to bring the student fully into the circle of communication.

About the authors:

GIL TIPPY, PsyD is a founding member of Rebecca School and its Clinical Director. He has evaluated hundreds of children from the Developmental, Individual Difference, Relationship (DIR®) based perspective, having been mentored by Dr. Stanley Greenspan, the late creator of the DIR® model. Dr. Tippy also has a large clinical practice in Oyster Bay, New York. He has two children and lives on Long Island with his wife and daughter.

STANLEY I. GREENSPAN, MD, the world’s foremost authority on clinical work with young children and Clinical Professor of Psychiatry and Pediatrics at George Washington University Medical School, died shortly after finishing his work on this book. His influential books include The Challenging Child and The Growth of the Mind, as well as Engaging Autism and The Child with Special Needs (both coauthored with Serena Wieder, PhD).

Find RESPECTING AUTISM at Powell’s Books

Gilding for “The Tarnished Fed”

Vantage author Jim Kudlinski is getting kudos from a variety of review media for his important book, The Tarnished Fed: Behind Closed Doors, Forty Years of Successes, Failures, Mystique, and Humor. Kudlinski, a forty-year veteran of banking institutions, has written a clear exposition of the Fed’s genesis, operations, and power, and makes the case that it has moved well beyond its central purpose. As Foreword Reviews puts it:

In The Tarnished Fed, the reader becomes the proverbial “fly on the wall,” gaining rare access to this sometimes mysterious, frequently misunderstood institution. Kudlinski provides a window into the Fed but he does so in a professional and good-humored way. As a result, The Tarnished Fed presents the general public with an unvarnished look at the Federal Reserve Bank that has the ring of truth.

The book has also gotten positive reviews from Publishers Weekly Select, Midwest Book Review, and Credit Union Times.

Jim Kudlinski is a former executive with the Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve System. Mr. Kudlinski worked closely with George Mitchell, former vice-chairman of the Board, to modernize the nation’s payments mechanism. In addition, he was director of the division of Federal Reserve Bank operations under Fed chairmen Burns, Miller and Volcker, and had oversight responsibilities for reserve bank operations nationwide. The author and his wife Ginny reside in Kansas and are the parents of five adult children.

THE TARNISHED FED
Behind Closed Doors: Forty Years of Successes, Failures, Mystique, and Humor
By Jim Kudlinski
ISBN 13: 978-0-533-16318-2
250 Pages, $16.95
Publication Date: November 9, 2010