By: Amy Knapp
Publisher: Calendar Systems USA 
Date: April 2008 
ISBN: 978-1932751208 
Reviewed by: Holly Connors 
Review Date: February 2009 

Busy moms and dads take note – Amy Knapp’s Family Organizer is a great way to keep track of your busy life.

Measuring a handy 8.5 inches x 6.3 inches, this organizer is the perfect size to fit in a pocketbook, knapsack or book bag. And that’s where you’ll want this agenda book so that you can refer to it again and again. One quick look will tell you that this organizer was created by a busy mother, one who had experience with the crazy days of carpooling, soccer games, PTO meetings, and rushing home and trying to cook dinner.

Unlike many standard organizers that simply offer a calendar, the Family Organizer has several parent-friendly features. The very first page has a place for personal information, followed by emergency phone number and school phone numbers. This is followed by two pages of tips on how to get the most from your organizer.

The Family Organizer covers 18 months, from July 2008 through December 2009. Two pages are devoted to each week; the left page has a “To Do” list while the right page has a one-inch space marked for each day of the week – plenty of room to jot down several notes. There are also small “at a glance” calendars for that month and the next at the bottom of each “To Do” page. Particularly useful is the grocery list attached to the left page and the menu list attached to the right page. Each of these lists are perforated for easy removal.

Before each month, there is a two-page calendar with holidays and other special dates noted. Not content with these creative ideas, Knapp also includes a family budget planner as well as pages for baby-sitter information, your children’s likes/dislikes, allergies, etc (for baby-sitters), play date phone numbers, web addresses (although I wouldn’t recommend filling in the password information), as well as ideas on how to use the organizer as a fund raiser. Finally, in the back of the book are stickers for use in the calendar which include birthday reminders, doctor appointments, and vacations. It would be nice if the stickers were a bit larger as they are so small that I don’t know how anybody could fill in the blanks on some of them and still be able to read what they wrote. As a whole, however, the stickers are a great idea.

Quill says: No parent should be without the Family Organizer.