A Dreidel of Wonders: A whimsical Hanukkah story with a twist for kids
Written and Illustrated by Edith Naaman
This book combines a whimsical tale of the dreidel with an informative guide for teachers and parents. The first part of the story written in rhyme teaches children about Hanukkah and the role of the dreidel.
Each year when the holiday season passes, Nana packs the dreidel away. One year the dreidel objects and asks why it cannot remain on the shelf with the other toys. Nana accedes to his request.
The second part of the book reflects on the theory of NLP (Neuro-Linguistic Program) which is a collection of research, practices, and ideas that assist children to connect with their abilities and other people. This section of the book shows how the dreidel prepares children to conquer pain, fear, and find the courage to try within themselves.
Children as young as three can enjoy the first part of the story, while the second part is a useful resource for caretakers and parents.
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An enjoyable historical fiction read based on real characters. A well-researched tale that follows several families during World War II and the Spanish flu pandemic.
The characters are believable and well-developed. Readers are drawn into the tragedies, the struggles, and at times, a bit of humor despite the awful circumstances. Each of the separate stories hits the mark and makes a deep impression on the reader.
If you enjoy historical fiction, adventure, and in-depth characters, you will like this tale.
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J. S. Burke is the author of the award-winning Dragon Dreamer series. The marine biologist has applied her storytelling talents to a charming fairytale in verse. Bonus features include detailed directions on how to create beautiful snowflakes.
A young girl named Mariah lives in the frozen North. There are no children her age, so she becomes friends with the wind. Seeking to please her, The Wind fashions clouds, and later snowflakes into images to tell Mariah about the creatures and history of the past. Eventually, the Sun decides to join them creating colors and warmth. Soon the ice begins to melt, and the seasons reemerge.
Mariah possesses an insatiable curiosity about her world but also desperately wants friendship and companionship. Will she ever find her proper place in her world?
Burke provides her readers with beautiful verse and imagery, while, at the same time, enthralling them with tales of dragons, dolphins, hummingbirds, herons, and unicorns. She weaves fiction and nonfiction in a charming tale that will especially delight elementary and middle-grade readers, but one that a reader of any age can enjoy.
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Lindy Nelson is an American who has spent most of her adult life teaching English in China after graduating from the University of Wisconsin, Milwaukee. She enjoys arts and crafts, funny memes, eating candy, and of course, spending time with her greyhound, Clarence.
MY REVIEW OF THIS BOOK:
This is Clare is an adorable picture book about a lady named Lindy and her adventures with her greyhound named Clare. The author uses verbs that end in air and are to teach English vocabulary. The illustrations are adorable and the simple text will expand vocabulary for anyone learning English. It is a book that is fun to read aloud and will enrich the vocabulary of native English speakers as well.
The multicultural illustrations that feature Chinese culture will provide a springboard for discussion and further research. This book will delight all ages from preschool to adult English as a Second Language Learners. I am looking forward to more adventures with Lindy and Clare.
GIVEAWAY
Enter for a chance to win a copy of This Is Clare, along with a virtual Questions and Answers session with the author!
One (1) grand prize winner receives:
A copy of This Is Clare
A virtual Questions and Answers session with the author via Skype
Nine (9) winners receive:
A copy of This Is Clare
The giveaway ends December 2, 2021, at 11:59 P.M. MT.
It might surprise you to hear that one of the best ways to cultivate a hopeful, optimistic outlook is to practice some radical self-compassion.
Frequently people confuse self-compassion with self-indulgence or even selfishness. But being kind to yourself is just as important as being kind to others, if not more so.
Self-Compassion Makes You More Optimistic
Being kind to yourself means you can stop that vicious cycle of self-blame and recrimination. It prevents you from ruminating on past mistakes and builds your resilience and confidence so you can pick yourself up and get back on track.
When you are kind and encouraging to yourself, your anxiety levels drop, your mood lifts, and you become more optimistic and hopeful about the future.
Cultivate Mindfulness
Perhaps the best way to start your self-compassion practice is to adopt a more mindful attitude to life. Mindfulness focuses on the acceptance of who you are, where you are right now. With all your faults and all your glory. Accept that whatever you’re experiencing and feeling in the present moment is okay.
Mindfulness and self-compassion help you to overcome denial and hesitation in your reality. It allows space for hope to come in.
Accept that Hard Times Are Part of the Deal
Self-compassion accepts that all human lives are a mixture of hard times and good times. Often the bad things that happen are out of your control. All you can do is decide how you’re going to react. Will you be overwhelmed, or will you be angry? Or will you roll with punches, learn from your experiences, and get back on the horse?
In times of fear or illness or natural disasters or any other of life’s stressors, self-compassion allows you to take guilt or blame out of the equation and deal with whatever you’re faced with.
Treat Yourself As You Would A Friend
Take a moment to look at how you’re reacting. What is your self-talk saying to you? Are you reassuring yourself that things will work out okay, or are you beating yourself up for something you did or didn’t do? Would you talk to your best friend like that? How would they feel?
Be as gentle in your self-talk as you would to a loved one who is in crisis. Be loving and kind, and reassuring. Extend the hand of hope to your own heart, and help yourself on the first steps back towards better times.
If you want to create a better world for yourself and others, you need to become an active participant in studying the past to avoid repeating the mistakes others have previously made. Remember, the day you were born you became a character in history. Study the past, avoid its mistakes, learn its lessons, and create a better future for everyone.
The author has a way with words. Sullivan has succeeded in telling 100 stories about history, science, art, and culture and with wit and charm. Young readers will be intrigued by topics like ghosts, curses, snakes, space, and vampires. Each story reveals an adventure and interesting facts. Black and white illustrations accompany many of the chapters. Young readers unwittingly learn a lot while they are laughing and having a great time reading.
This is a book they will want to share with friends and family. Targeting the middle-grade audience ages nine through fourteen, but any age reader will enjoy and appreciate these gems.
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A fast read with interesting characters and a nice blend of genres. Brad and his wife Julie are house flippers. Julie would love to earn enough money to quit her day job to join her husband, who is a full-time contractor.
What could go wrong when they purchase an old Victorian house named Bedlam in Cold Spring? Plenty. Turns out the original owners, Gerald and Tessa decide to put their ghostly talents to the test by torturing the new owners.
Why were Gerald and Tessa killed? Readers learn about the history and the mystery of the abandoned property as they follow the clues and become absorbed in the lives of its inhabitants, past and present.
Highly recommend this entertaining read for young adult and adult audiences.
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Penn is a fourteen-year old girl who knows her way around the streets of Boston. Clever and curious, she attends one of Boston’s finest public schools and loves the library. On the other hand, Penn has learned to be tough, she was born with a heart defect, and her father left suddenly when she was seven.
One day, Penn is off exploring the city when she meets an old woman who gives her a penny to make a wish on. When she gets into trouble for stealing and uses it, she is transported back to 1915.
Penn’s whole world is turned upside down. She is now an orphan who struggles to survive. Penn worries how she will survive without her medication and if she can get back home. Penn gets mixed up with thieves and gangs. She masquerades as a boy. All she really wants is to fit in and find a true friend.
Will her secret be discovered? Can she find a way back to the twenty-first century?
The author paints colorful characters that succeed in involving the reader emotionally. There are lots of twists and turns to keep readers actively engaged. Recommended for teens and adults.
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Publisher: Big Ideas Press | ISBN-13: 978-0645099805
I feel like I’m a piece, a fragment that’s missing all the good bits, but I don’t know where to find the rest … the parts I need to work properly. I bet they wouldn’t fit anyway. (Lexy, age 17)
Publisher’s Synopsis: Eight young people navigating high school and beyond, each struggling to hold on – to family, to friends, to a piece of themselves. Perhaps you know them. The bubbly girl who keeps telling you she’s okay. The high achiever who’s suddenly so intense. The young teen obsessed with social media. The boy challenged by communication. Every single day they, and others, are working hard to keep it together. So hard, they don’t see their friends are struggling, too. Through eight imagined stories, Fragments moves from a place of disconnection to connectedness.
The action of Fragments takes place in the minds and hearts of an ordinary group of young people. Their stories encompass anxiety, depression, neurodivergence, gender dysphoria, social media, bullying, family dysfunction, cross-cultural diversity, and more, culminating in a sense of hope. Although set in Australia, their stories could take place anywhere.
From the Playwright: Rarely presenting as neat packages, mental health issues often involve feelings and behaviors with jagged edges and blurred origins. Fragments embodies the theme that stress at home, at school, and in life is challenging young people beyond their usual coping abilities, leaving them disenfranchised and vulnerable. So much of adolescent life is spent looking inwards that it’s perhaps not surprising that mental health issues are often internalized. I wrote Fragments to start a conversation. It’s only when we speak openly about mental health issues – without fear or judgment – that we can chip away at the stigma that prevents many people from seeking help. It is my hope that the work will find its way into schools in Australia and overseas. The publication includes a comprehensive Study Guide, detailing activities and curriculum links for English, Drama/Arts, Health & PE, Civics, and more.
A powerful and timely mental health resource for young people and their families. Essential reading for high school.
Maura Pierlot is an award-winning author and playwright who hails from New York but has called Canberra, Australia home since the early 1990s. Her writing delves into complex issues including memory, identity, self, and, more recently, mental health. Following its sellout 2019 season in Canberra, Maura’s debut professional theatre production, Fragments is being adapted for the digital space, supported by artsACT. The work is published online by Australian Plays Transforms and in print by Big Ideas Press.
Maura is a past winner of the SOLO Monologue Competition, Hothouse Theatre for her play, Tapping Out. Her plays have been performed in Melbourne, Canberra, Sydney, Brisbane, and Hollywood. A former medical news reporter and editor of Australian Medicine, Maura also writes for children and young adults. In 2017 she was named winner of the CBCA Aspiring Writers Mentorship Program, and recipient of the Charlotte Waring Barton Award, for her young adult manuscript, Freefalling (now True North). Maura’s debut picture book,The Trouble in Tune Town won the 2018 ACT Writing and Publishing Award (Children’s category) along with international accolades.
Maura’s poetry, short stories, microfiction, and essays appear in various literary journals and anthologies. Maura has a bachelor’s degree, master’s degree, and doctorate, each in philosophy, specializing in ethics. When she’s not busy writing, Maura visits schools and libraries as a guest reader and speaker, serves as a Role Model for Books in Homes, and contributes reviews for the Children’s Book Council of Australia’s online magazine, Reading Time.
The giveaway begins September 6, 2021, at 12:01 A.M. MT and ends October 6, 2021, at 11:59 P.M. MT.
MY REVIEW OF FRAGMENTS:
FRAGMENTS: Journeys from Isolation to Connection
Written by Maura Pierlot
Fragments is a series of monologues that lend a voice to issues of mental health faced by teens all over the world today. In these monologues, readers follow the struggles of eight teens who seek hope as they fight mental health challenges. Each fight to maintain their connections to family, friends, and the community in which they live. The monologues are representative of the issues faced by youth and adults in the challenging times of which we live.
The actors represent young people around the world struggling with emotional, social, physical, and mental issues during their teenage years. As they reveal themselves, readers at once laugh, cry, feel their pain, and empathize with one or more of the issues described. The actors may appear to be disconnected, but in truth, they are seeking the possibility of connecting with one another.
The study guide included delineates themes, the background of characters, summaries of each monologue, and curriculum guide. While the monologues are matched to the Australian curriculum for high school studies, it can readily be adapted to standards used around the world.
Pierlot’s play provided her audience an opportunity to witness the problems and challenges facing youth today. Now readers of Fragments are given the opportunity to read and ponder the insights of these teens into the causes of mental issues and the realities they present for those who are suffering. Highly recommended read and discussion opportunity for teens and adults.
TOUR SCHEDULE
Monday, September 6, 2021The Children’s Book ReviewTour Kick-OffFragments: Journeys from Isolation to Connection
December 24, 2021
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