Book Reviews: Children's fiction

Good Reads For Your Adventure Travels

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Tales from the Trees Starring Happy the Hodag & Buddy the Bulldog

A Monster Misunderstanding When Happy Met Buddy by Jill Kuczmarski

These are whimsical little paperbacks for children eight and under, non-frightening, imaginative, monster stories about the little scary green Hodags that live in trees and hide in Green places, camouflaged by their surroundings. Each little story book has its own twist and stimulates the child's imagination. The cartoonish illustrations by the author are quite appealing. Good ones to have in your pocket or car!Click Here To Order

The Adventures of Sammy the Snowflake vol.1 by Brooke Becker, Illustrated by T. Kyle Gentry is a new series for the young chapter book reader, with clever and whimsical illustrations. Sammy is an anthropomorphic snowflake with family and friends, old enough to begin to learn the facts of life and do some exploring on his own. To that end he and his friend run away on what sounds like an adult spiritual quest, which includes narration that loosely camouflages teachings about finding the meaning of life. The best part of the book is what the young reader learns about climate warming and the devastation mankind is causing the environment, hence threatening the life of Sammy and all snowflakes. Click Here To Order

Mr. Bach Comes To Call DVD I had expected this DVD to be just for kids, but it is compelling and delightful for the whole family to enjoy and learn about Bach's life and his music while listening to his beautiful melodies interwoven throughout. This is a MUST for your family library! Order Here

Song of the Unicorn CD featuring Jeremy Irons is a musical journey through Medieval Times in the form of an interactive CD which can be used on the computer by individuals or as teaching aids for teachers. Young children will enjoy the intriguing story about the children who must go to the forest to find the magic unicorn to cure their mother. The music includes many wonderful medieval selections and other later classicla music of great composers. The enhanced CD's teaching tools include many study and discussion questions for classroom learning about medeival musical instruments, medieval beliefs, superstitions, medicines, and much more. This is a fascinating CD with its multiple uses for all ages, and just plain delightful to listen to for entertainment also. Order Here

Starting With Stories by Pam Schiller and Pat Phipps is a pre-school teacher's guide to engaging multiple intelligences through children's books. The 100 books selected are considered among the best for helping pre-schoolers delight in stories and also learn other skills such as vocabulary and sentence structure, rhye, alliteration, onomatopoeia, visual recognition of upper and lower cas letters, and understanding the many ways in which print communicates. Each double page illustrated spread describes the child's book recommended, tells what the skills the child will learn are, and suggests special activities to follow the reading of the book. Learning acitivites include art, discovery, gross motor development, listening , math and science, and thinking about what was read. This is a very good guide to help anyone working with pre-schoolers. Click Here To Order

Say Good Night to Illiteracy is the Twelfth Edition of collected poems from the contest sponsored by Half-Price Books, Records, Magazines, Inc. Each year the best from the contestants poems are selected and are illustrated by professional artists to create a beautiful book to read aloud to children. This year's book includes a CD of stories and songs. The book is delightful, and all the proceeds are donated to Reach Out and Read (ROR), the nation-wide program by which children are given a new book by their doctor at each well-child check-up from age six months to five years and parents are given literacy information, encouraging family reading and reading aloud so that children reach school age ready to read.

Order your copy today, and your $5.98 price will help other children learn to read while your family enjoys every page in the delightful book over and over. This is an EXCELLENT project and book to know about and enjoy.

A Treasure's Trove Wings and Rings is a puzzles book for ages 6 - 10 and has many interesting games and pencil puzzles which include fairies and jewels, especially appealing to youngsters. There are stickers included. A fun stocking stuffer for hours of entertainment. There is also a secret hing about the real rings, which are designed by a world-renowned jeweler Aaron Basha. Click Here To Order

The Story of Grey Owl by Lori Punshon and Illustrated by Mike Keepness is a delightful new children's book which children from pre-K through 10 will enjoy. It is based on the true story of the Englishman who chose to come to Canada in early Twentieth Century to live with the Ojibwa tribe and adopt their ways. Given the Indian name "Grey Owl," he became one of the greatest advocates for ecology and made speeches to young and old about saving the forests, animals, and wild places. He was instrumental in having some of the National Park Reserves in Canada established and he prevented the beaver from becoming extinct from over hunting and trapping. The soft illustrations are perfect for children and are done by a self-taught native Pasqua First Nation man. Your family will really enjoy this book and follow it by renting the movie of Grey Owl. Click here to order from Amazon.com

THE TREE FARMER by CHUCK LEAVELL AND NICHOLAS CRAVOTTA and illustrated by Rebecca Bleau is a worthwhile children's picture book. The authors, themselves tree farmers, teach children about the value and uses of trees and why we should take care of them to preserve the earth. In the story form of a grandfather teaching his grandchild about the trees on his tree farm, the book is imaginatively illustrated with picturest that children will enjoy pondering. You can easily impart to your child important lessons in preserving our earth by enjoying this little book together.

Violet the Pilot by Bettina Jenkins Bathe & Barbara Fortin

VIOLET THE PILOT :Children's Books Series by Bettina Jenkins Bathe, illustrated by Barbara Fortin is a delightful new series whose author is an airline pilot. Two books are already in print are Violet the Pilot in Canada takes children on a fishing trip adventure by way of a pontoon plane. Violet the Pilot in France gives the delightful experience of a hot air balloon ride over the countryside near Paris. The young readers learn a lot about the kind of air transportation featured in each book, in addition to learning some geography and simple language. Phrases,typical foods and pastimes that pertain to each country visited…all within the delightful and simple story so that children learn without it feeling like a lesson. The bright and happy, whimsical illustrations will stimulate children's imaginations, as well as inform their inquisitive minds. Your children from three to twelve will love these books, and we hope the series continues to grow, as we learned a lot from reading them too! Click here to order.

All the Pretty Flowers by Christopher Rogers is a sweet little first picture book for very young children, or could be used as an early reader. With just one short sentence on each page, the book is illustrated in an unusual way. It features bright colors on slick pages with very close photographs of most unusual, highly-textured paintings of flowers. The art gives a "bargello" effect which could be a bit difficult for children to easily recognize some of the objects. But the objects will be fun to look for, as the bright colors are appealing.Click here to order.

Hey, Dad, Let's Learn from CTC (Courage to Change) Publishing is another wonderful game for fathers to play with their children. The cards have many fun ways for children to learn, and even a thing or two that Dad's might not know. It is a great game to use on a trip for family fun in a car or hotel room, and of course, Mom's can be included too! The game is for younger children, so older ones can help or be partners in the learning fun. Click here to order.

Oh No! UFO! by Linda Joy Singleton is a delightful young reader's novel in the STRANGE series about the family named Strange, with the father being a TV show host/producer who debunks the paranormal. Cassie, the main character, is the young teen who believes she is the only normal member of the family. Her genius (self-proclaimed) brother is a crazy, aspiring actor who continuously embarrasses his sister. Her little sister, Amber, converses with and understands animals, she claims. And of course, Mom is always embarrassing this teen! Cassie takes a camping trip with her family and saves her sister from becoming an Alien show-and-tell experiment. A good chapter book for older elementary or middle school students. I found it as delightful to read as young readers do!

World Almac 2004 For Kids is the perfect way to introduce your children to fact finding and reference books. A marvelous homework help, it is easy to use and safer than surfing the Internet. Loaded with millions of fascinating facts for almost any category your kids can imagine, each page is organized in bright blocks of easy to diget information along with full color illustrations and photos and games and quizzes that make the learning fun and painlessly help your child absorb the information. No homework area should be without this great book, and it is far cheaper than a set of encyclopedias and much faster than a trip to the library! Order today from Amazon by clicking on the right.

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ZZ Story by Zeb and ZeeZee Dogs is delightfully written by T.S. Franks with wonderful bright and fanciful art by Felix d'Obrin. Children of all ages will enjoy the antics of these adorable two dogs. This is the first in a sure to be popular picture story book series, with especial appeal to anyone (young or old) who loves "man's best friend." Children learn a good lesson in the delightful story as they see the dogs experiment with their state in life. You and your kids will have fun reading and re-reading this happy book, and you'll be as eager as we are for its sequel.

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WHAT IS A SEA DOG? by John Jensen and Illustrated by Richard J. King is a delightful little picture book for children, telling them many interesting and historical facts about dogs who have helped seamen, during wars, on pleasure boats, and as companions. With both drawings and photos, story line and facts, the book is great for any dog lover. It is published and sold at Mystic Seaport, The Museum of America and the Sea. Call 888-SEAPORT or click here

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The Basha Bunch

Young Illustrators Make a Difference

Sam the Hero Cat by St. Pete Beach author, Barbara Yanowski, won the top award as Best All-Around Children’s Non-Fiction Book at the Florida Publisher’s Association annual President’s Book Awards in Orlando recently.

These third graders from Glen Cove in New York City's Metropolitan area are the illustrators of the charming book Sam the Hero Cat, written by Barbara Yanowski and the Basha Bunch, who says it is a true story that happened to her family and their cat. The cat is the hero in this delightful tale which shows children what it means to be a hero. It was soon after 9/11 in this New York school that Barbara presented her little hero story to her grandson's class and asked these third graders to draw pictures. The classroom teacher, Laura Lambros, turned the illustrating process into an exciting learning experience for the children, knowing it would be therapeudic for their emotional healing process taking place. When the children were so enthusiastic about the project and the pictures turned out so well, Yanowski and her publisher husband, Hank Connolly, decided to turn it into a book illustrated by the children. All proceeds from the $12.95 book go to the Hero Fund of The Landing School, Glen Cove Public Schools in Glen Cove, NY. You and your children will love this book, on many levels. You can order it from Amazon.

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