The original motivation behind this book was interest shown by a couple of local schools in Gary's first book titled "A nod and a smile".  This interest pleasantly surprised Gary, and at the same time, raised a couple of concerns.  First, "A nod and a smile" was not originally designed or intended to be used in schools.  Another concern was, that "A nod and a smile" is a random book, in that, you can literally open it to any poem and just read what is there.  As such, it does not contain a Contents page  or an Index.  This makes it somewhat impractical as a reference material for a school.  As a result, it was decided to create this book.

"The Little Book of Values" consists of 46 pieces of prose over 128 pages.  It is approximately 10.5 cm (4.125 in) wide, 14.8 cm (5.875 in) long, and approximately 0.9 cm (0.25 in) thick.  The book contains a Contents section and an Index of Poems.  It is divided into four sections, namely, Starting Out, The Little Book of Growing, A little deeper, and To Conclude.

The book was self-published by the Gary using his publishing name of Outside The Square Publishing.  Three print runs of 200 copies each have been conducted.  At this time, only a limited number of copies are available.

Gary created the book on his desktop PC, and is responsible for every word in it.  The feather on the front cover was part of his first book and is expected to be a feature on all subsequent books that Gary may publish.

To create this book, Gary used several poems, relating to values, from his first book "A nod and a smile".  He added some other poems from his collection to produce this book. The majority of the poems in the first section, "Starting Out" are from Gary's first book, "A nod and a smile".

The second section of this book titled "The Little Book of Growing" is a collection of poems written by Gary on one day in 2004.  The aim of these poems was to give our younger friends in life, some insight and hints on what might happen, and what they could do, to assist themselves on their path in life.

The third section of this book titled "A little deeper" is, as the title says, a little deeper.  It is biased to characteristics that are believed worthwhile, meaningful, and helpful for each of us in our lives.

The final section of this book titled "To Conclude" consists of three poems that hopefully will stimulate your thoughts on your direction in life, where you are, where you are heading, and more importantly, where you want to go.

As with his first book, the theme behind each piece of writing is to stimulate your thoughts and ideas.  Gary readily acknowledges that he does not have the answers.  He offers his words as suggestions and ideas that may help you along your journey in life. In anything that Gary does, his wish is to give the reader hope for the future.

It is hoped that this information will give you an insight into what you will find in "The Little Book of Values."  You are welcome to contact Gary using the link below if you have any questions regarding this book.