The Astrology Center of America, 207 Victory Lane, Bel Air, MD 21014
Tel: 410-638-7761; Toll-free (orders only): 800-475-2272
Home Author Index Title Index Subject Index Vedic Books Tarot E-Mail:



Children


It's not just that children's charts are read differently than those of adults, but that each person's chart is a continuously changing set of variables, because each person changes as they age. Children change quite a lot, as any parent will tell you!

Indicates a book on our Top Ten list. If you would like to find more books like it, click on the star.

PLANETS IN YOUTH - Robert Hand, $24.95
What the child appears to be as a child is not very important. It's more important to view the child as a developing adult. Written directly to children from a very sympathetic & adult point of view: Planets in signs & houses & aspects between planets. Perhaps how the author views natal chart interpretation generally. Contents: Foreword by Zipporah Dobyns; Parent and child; Planetary energies; Elements and crosses; case studies; Sun, moon and the usual planets; Rising sign. 367 pages. Whitford, paper.


CHILD ASTROLOGY, A Guide to Nurturing Your Child's Natural Gifts - M.J. Abadie, $14.95
Contents: Anatomy of a horoscope; How zodiacal signs affect the planets; Personal planets; Intermediate planets; Transpersonal planets; Ascendant; Houses; Elements; Modes; Aspects; Family dynamics; Retrogrades. Appendices: Planetary tables; Recommended reading, Computer resources. 259 pages. Destiny Books, paper.


THE ASTROLOGY OF CHILDBIRTH - Doris Chase Doane, $19.95
Contents: Esoteric significance of childbirth; Mental diet; Physical diet; Establishing delineation factors; Natal and progressed indications; Horary astrology and children; Sex determination; Astrology helps name your child; Baby and the color connection. 120 pages with bibliography and references. AFA, paper.


AN ASTROLOGICAL GUIDE TO YOUR CHILD - Leticia Parmer, $10.95
Contents: Your child's sun sign; Your child's moon sign; Your child's ascendant sign; The chart wheel; The twelve houses; The midheaven; Calculating the correct moon sign; Finding your child's ascendant sign; Calculating your child's ascendant degree by hand. 226 pages. Citadel Press/Carol Publishing, paper.


UNDERSTANDING CHILDREN THROUGH ASTROLOGY - Samantha Davis, $16.95
How to read your child's chart & help her or him grow happier & healthier. Complete with tables to find planetary signs. Or, as tables extend from 1900 to 2025, look up your parents & find out just how tough they really had it. Contents: Programming - how it all begins; ABC's of astrology; Retrogrades; The sun; Instructions for sun tables; Twelve sun signs; The moon; Instructions for moon tables; Twelve moon signs; Mercury - messenger of the gods; Mercury retrograde; How to use Mercury tables; Mercury in the twelve signs; Venus - the goddess of love; Venus retrograde; How to use Venus tables; Venus in the twelve signs; Mars, the double-edged sword of energy; Mars retrograde; How to use Mars tables; Mars in the twelve signs. 302 pages including Epilogue, Glossary, About the author. Top of the Mountain, paper.


YOUR MAGICAL CHILD - Maria Kay Simms, $16.95
Use astrology & the author's common sense to raise children. Includes houses, signs, planets, aspects & ascendants, all written for parents trying to understand their children. Includes tables from 1985-2005, complete instructions. Contents: Understanding magic; Individuality - fate or free will; Those phases all kids go through (including a few words about single parenting, divorce and step-parenting); Your child's birth chart; The sun, moon and rising sign; Personal planets; outer planets; planets in aspect; Aspects of planets to midheaven and ascendant; The magical alchemy of relating; How to look up your child's planets; Instructions for aspects and synastry; Tables - planetary, moon, sidereal, rising sign. Includes bibliography and resource guide, glossary, index, free chart coupon. ACS, paper.


CREATIVE STEP PARENTING - Gayle Geffner, $23.95

Contents:

Introduction

1. The astrological basics of step-parenting
2. Putting it together
3. Stages of development in a nutshell
4. Retrograde planets and the effect of progressions
5. Using the lunar nodes
6. John
7. Molly
8. Mary
9. Synastry between step-parent and step-child
10. Use of Hindu decanates and dwads
11. Others in the mix and using the Moon
12. The British Royal family.

Bibliography

Comment:

The author is herself a step-mother and writes from experience. This should be a good book.

She immediately brings up the necessity of studying the chart of the partner the step-parent has replaced. If you're the second wife, look at the first wife's chart to understand the situation you are in. Geffner's next point - very specific stuff - is to realize that before your marriage, your relationship to your new husband was as a romantic interest, which put you in his 5th house, along with his existing children. You are thus a peer to his children. After the marriage, you shift from his 5th, to his 7th. Your relationship to his children, and them to you, changes fundamentally in that instant. And you will know it.

Geffner continues with an extraordinary analysis of the 12 houses, from three simultaneous viewpoints: That of a child, that of an adolescent, and that of an adult. For houses 2 and 3, the differences are not so great, but for children in broken homes, the 4th and 10th, representing the parents, are crucial. If you're the new mommy, then the old mommy will be shown in the child's 10th. That's what he's expecting, and what you're not. I am embroidering, but the book is so well-done that it empowers it. (As a step-parent, you would be the third house from the customary house. If a step-mother, you would be the child's 12th. If a step-father, the child's 6th.)

The adolescent's 6th house determines if he will finish what he starts. His 8th house are secret joys. The fifth can indicate pride. The 11th house is peer-presssure.

Chapter two starts with a list of instructions to delineate a chart. These are all the usual suspects, with one caveat: The transiting position of the Moon, which I had not before considered. When you're in a family situation and living day by day in an intimate and often intense atmosphere (or else why are you reading this?), knowing the Moon's sign and what it means is important. A bright idea or a casual remark, when the Moon is in the wrong sign, can make the difference between happiness and that other alternative. I am again embroidering the text, but this is very sharp stuff and encourages it.

The chapters on retrogrades and nodes are more customary. In them, the author straddles writing about adults dealing with stepchildren, and stepchildren themselves. The three delineations that follow are strictly natal, which is to say John and Molly, the stepchildren, and Mary, their stepmother, are delineated as individuals and not part of a composite family. They are well done and serve as examples of what you can learn by reading a chart. The conclusions you may draw as to your part of the relationship are something else.

Chapter seven is the synastry between step-mother and step-child. Geffner does it the hard way, with the child's natal inside and the step-mother's outside, showing the impact of the new mother on the child. Composites are not used and I do not think would be appropriate.

Chapter 11, synastry between half-siblings, is also good. Lots of triple-wheel charts to look at.

The British Royals are here because of Prince Charles' second marriage to Camilla Parker-Bowles. Geffner gives the synastry between Camilla and Prince William, and Camilla and Price Harry, the sons of Lady Diana. The book was published in 2009, so before the marriage of William and Kate. Regrettably, Geffner does not know how to read royal charts, but the delineations are interesting.

This book wanders back and forth between brilliant and merely good. If you are part of a composite family, you will find it to be an enormous help. The author has been where you are and knows what you've been suffering. I believe this is easily the best book about children and their parents.

AFA, 178 pages.


Read the book? Want to tell the world? How many stars (1-5) would you give this book?



The Astrology Center of America

207 Victory Lane, Bel Air, MD 21014
Tel: 410-638-7761; Toll-free (orders only): 800-475-2272

Home Author Index Title Index Subject Index Vedic Books Tarot E-Mail:


Established 1993, The Astrology Center of America is owned & operated by David Roell.
This entire site (AstroAmerica.com) is copyright 1996, 1997, 1998, 1999, 2000 by William R. Roell.
All rights reserved.