The Sunshine on My Face: A Read-Aloud Book for Memory-Challenged Adults Hardcover – December 21, 2004

I purchased all three of the Read-Aloud Books for my 87-year-old mother who has advanced dementia (mid-to-late stages of Alzheimer's). She spent over 30 years teaching others to read and now finds it hard to read a sentence in most publications or to even complete speaking a full sentence without help. But these books are perfect for her -- by repeating the basic phrase on each page (such as "I love....") with a short sentence and illustration, she was able to master each book relatively quickly. The over-sized format encourages sharing with touch,reading side-by-side with others holding the books across your laps. My father (who cared for her until about two months ago and now visits her daily in an adult home)is delighted with how happy these books make my mother -- she reads them to him daily and he sometimes find her reading to other residents with dementia (there are a dozen in a very special home). These books are perfect for my mother and I'm grateful to the author and publishers for making them available to us.

I bought this book for my mom, who has dementia. The print is in large type, which makes it easy for her to read on her own. The pictures illustrate an older woman, her family, and her community, making the book relatable for her. The story uses repetitive phases (I love...) that are helpful.

I have bought 4 different adult picture books for memory challenged adults. The two best are "The Sunshine on My Face" and the "Through the Seasons" books. I have read these books with my Mom many times. She enjoys them every time and never tires of reading them...(since she can't remember that she ever read them before). My Mom's eyesight is pretty good, so I usually have heard read them to me. You get the most out of the books by relating the pictures to fond memories that you had with your parent... I definitely recommend these books...

I was hopeful that this book would be good for spurring conversation with my mother, who suffers from dementia. The book is okay, but in my case, I was disappointed. The book is very short and the questions in the back that are supposed to be used with each page are, again, okay, but nothing special.I had hoped for a book that would allow me to spend a good deal of time talking with my mother and recalling memories. The book gave us maybe ten to fifteen minutes of time together. The time was nice, but as for reading the book over and over as some have suggested, this just did not work for my mother (amazingly, she remembered having already read the book). And based on the high price of this book, the numerous positive reviews, and the publisher's description, I expected much more from this book.So, to sum up... not awful, but a disappointment and not worth the price.

I'm a speech-language pathologist and I love to use the books in this series for my patients with dementia. The books have large print simple sentences and colorful illustrations. I love them because they are appropriate for adults. In the back of the book, there are suggestions for conversation expanders and songs for each page. Highly recommend for therapists/families/caregivers of people with dementia.

Not enough to read aloud. Too many questions in the back of the book agitated my mother. Nice idea but doesn't quite work. Suggest which stage of dementia (memory challenge) this is appropriate for.

My Alzheimer's victim would not enjoy this book yet. I dread to think that the time is coming.

My late mother adored this and Lydia Burdick's other books for memory-challenged adults. She read through them frequently with me and with other caregivers and was always delighted; they gently stimulated her conversational and observational skills. I have recommended them to many other caregivers. I wish there were more of them!My only complaint is that the words "for memory-challenged adults" should not appear on the book--or should be on a removable sticker. My mother often read those words and asked about them, and knowing that she was memory challenged was not helpful to her.Tinky Weisblat, author of Pulling Taffy: A Year with Dementia and Other Adventures

I bought this book as a tool to enable interaction with my lovely Mum who suffers Fronto-temporal dementia. She is forever describing herself as hopeless and I remind her she is ill. She doesn't read anymore, she can't really but she read this to me and we enjoyed the quality of time discussing the pictures. Sadly, she will be able to re-read this and it will be as though the first time due to her condition but for my Dad and myself my 69yr old Mum can only benefit and I will be looking at further books along this line to share precious moments and memories with my beautiful wonderful mum. Thank you to Lydia Burdick.

My parents read this together every day. We hadn't realised my mother could still read until we got this book; large clear print.