The perfect antidote for rainy-day sulks and backseat boredom

Your kids are buzzing bundles of energy, ever eager for new experiences and new challenges. And one of your toughest jobs as a parent is finding ways to channel kids' energies that promote healthy development while keeping them entertained. Good news, your job just got a little easier.

Great for car trips, rainy days, and even power outages, the Great Big Book of Children's Games is a treasury of games and activities for all occasions, every setting and every mood. You'll find indoor games and outdoor games, party games and solo games, sidewalk games, beach games, ball games and water games. There are games that stimulate young minds and those that promote physical development. You'll find skill-building games and games designed to sharpen individual faculties, card games and word games, and an abundance of pencil-and-paper games. And to help you do your part to keep our highways safe (and your sanity intact), there's an entire section devoted to games to be played while on the road.

Fair weather or foul, the Great Big Book of Children's Games helps you keep the peace and banish bad moods with:

• • 450 indoor and outdoor games for pre-school to middle-school age kids arranged by age group • Games for every occasion, setting and number of players • Solo games, team games, party games, and family games, many including innovative twists on old favorites • Colorful text, 375 illustrations, and amusing game trivia that add to the fun and make the book easy to use

Debra Wise is a writer specializing in women's and children's topics, and has written for the New York Times, Cosmopolitan, Glamour, and GQ.

Sandy Forrest has designed and illustrated over 40 books and won a Parent's Choice Award for Illustration.