Nobody’s Cats: How One Little Black Kitty Came in from the Cold

Written by Valerie Ingram and Alistair Schroff

The authors wrote this book based on a true story and contribute the proceeds of sales to animal welfare.

One day a little boy finds a hungry black kitten in the snow next to an old shed. He notices that there are many other cats there. Children passing the cats throw rocks at them. The boy asks neighbors in the area who owns the cats. They tell him that these cats are feral cats that belong to no one.

A few months pass by before a visitor to the boy’s schools comes to teach them about animal rescue. The boy learns he can become a superhero. He can spearhead a community effort to care for these abandoned animals. What will happen to the black kitty? How can the community solve the problem of overpopulation and animal neglect?

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Bret Baier and Catherine Wiley

Book Launch

Three Days at the Brink: FDR’s Daring Gamble to Win World War II (Three Days Series)

Yesterday, I went to the FDR Presidential Home & Museum to hear Bret Baier speak about his newest book. Mr. Baier is Chief Political Anchor and anchor of Special Report with Brett Baier at Fox News.

Amazon Purchase Link: https://www.amazon.com/Three-Days-Brink-Daring-Gamble/dp/0062905686/

The author explained how and why he chose to write this book Baier discussed FDR, Churchill, and Stalin’s secret meeting at The Teheran Conference. He spoke about their fears and expectations. Baier revealed overlooked “nuggets” of history that often change the course of history.

The book emphasizes FDR’s strength of character but also suggests his doubts and fears. Both Churchill and FDR distrusted Stalin. Still, they realized that they could not win the War without his help.

FDR gambled with his life to travel halfway across the world across enemy lines to talk. Here the three world giants would lay the groundwork to win the War.

I met with Mr. Baier, and presented him with my own book, Little Miss HISTORY Travels to Hyde Park, Home of FRANKLIN D. ROOSEVELT & Presidential Library.

Mr. Baier and I share common goals to restore teaching history and civics in our schools from a very young age.

Purchase link https://www.amazon.com/Little-HISTORY-Travels-FRANKLIN-ROOSEVELT/dp/0998915459

10 Step Plan to Promote Your Book Online: Online Book Marketing on Any Budget

Written by Scott Hughes

Before I begin this review, readers should be aware that the author is the webmaster for Online Book Club, and he does promote and encourage readers to utilize his business. That certainly does not mean that the book is a shameless promotion of his business. The advice he gives is sound and helpful for the self-published authors. I have used the strategies he presents and can verify they do work. The amount of time to achieve success largely depends on your budget and how much work you are willing to put into writing and marketing.

Steps 1 and 2 are the most difficult. Writers need to produce a really good product to compete in today’s market and they must take the time to proofread, correct typos, spelling and content many, many times. Only after then, can the writer send the book out for professional editing.

The rest of the steps involve becoming involved with all platforms on social media, blogging, reading other authors in your genre, interviewing, starting and participating in book clubs. All these things take time to create and build. Writers need to reach out and develop a network of trusted colleagues and friends. I agree with Hughes that twitter is very effective, and that Facebook has steadily become less reliable for marketing. Of course, the value of social media is largely determined by other factors such as personality and genre.

To sum up, the author has presented a concise program of steps to guide a writer through the competitive world of self-publishing if the reader commits the time, dedication and resources to his project.

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THE POWER OF CREATIVITY: Book 1

Written by BRYAN COLLINS

This is a self-help book that focuses on enabling readers to face the fears that prevent them from pursuing their creativity and achieving a self-fulfilling career. The author takes a realistic approach. He realizes that life goals need balance. One needs to support himself and make a living. While does not necessarily mean being trapped in a profession or job that does not bring a measure of happiness and self-fulfillment.

The book opens on the author’s thirtieth birthday when he realizes he is trapped in a career that he hates. He realizes that he must force himself to move forward. He cites artists like Salvatore Dali and Paul McCartney as examples of artists who were able to support themselves with a day job while they gradually disciplined themselves to achieve a successful artistic career.

He urges his readers to begin by searching for their true passion in life. Next, remove the distractions that eat up wasted time you could spend pursuing them. Then use your job as a safety net and pursue that passion in the remaining time available. Push past your fears and practice the craft

you want to develop each day.

At the end of the book, Collins provides a list of links that offer tools that might accelerate reader success. I enjoyed the author’s positive philosophy and would recommend this book to those who feel stuck in a rut. There is nothing new in the book, just a straightforward common-sense approach. Recommended for young adult and adult readers.

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Scavenger Scout: Rock Hound

Written by Shelby Wilde

Illustrated by Yana Popova

Scout is an inquisitive seven-year-old explorer who became hooked on rock collecting when she found an orange rock in her backyard. She searches everywhere for rocks to add to her collection. In this tale, Scout crawls into a dragon’s den to find Azurite, she travels under the sea to extract Fluorite from the bottom of the ocean floor, and then zooms into outer space to grab Alexandrite floating around in one of Saturn’s rings. Finally, she explores a collector’s canyon out West to come across a treasure trove of crystals. Wilde describes different methods of removing the minerals and provides details about each type of mineral, its place on the Mohs scale, and the types of tools a geologist uses.

The illustrations are vibrant and seem to jump off the page. Scout is an adorable strong-female role model character. Rhymes are crisp, alliteration makes them fun to read out loud. I highly recommend this book to elementary grade children. This book combines a bit of fantasy, an adventure, and a nonfiction story about rocks with a cute narrator to entice readers to come along and learn with her.

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P.I.N.K. BACKPACK GENDER EQUALITY SERIES BOOK 1

Written by Trish Allison

P.I.N.K. stands for persistence, intelligence, necessary and kind. The author writes this book as a guide for parents to help daughters become aware of and respond to gender equality bias. She provides suggestions as to how to approach the topic. Parents will need to modify these suggestions depending on the age and individual personality of their child.

Topics discussed include how to navigate online, how to discover appropriate STEM models, how to minimize stress and become successful in science projects, how to create a STEM friendly environment for your daughter at home, how to develop and sustain interest in STEM during the tween and teen years, how to make your daughter comfortable in social settings that empower girls, and how to create a gender bias-free environment in your own household.

This book could become a valuable resource for parents who want to encourage positive self-image and self-confidence in their daughters to succeed in any type of role or career situation.

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The Scribbles: Inspiring Kids to Draw

Rebecca and James McDonald

This is a charming black and white book that encourages children to learn to draw. Many children feel frustrated because they lack an artistic flair. Readers are introduced to three-line drawings dubbed The Scribbles. Anyone who came across the page thought them a bunch of scribblers. One day a child came along and said hello. The child saw the great potential that each of the scribbles might be. This child could see a sun, a mountain and a tree possibility within their lines. The child was just beginning to learn to draw, but he persisted until he created a sun and a mountain. But when the child approached the third scribble, he became frustrated and disheartened. It was The Scribbles turn to encourage and motivate the child to continue until he succeeded. Soon the child was pushing himself to more complicated drawings.

I like the author’s message that there is potential to succeed if a child has the courage to persist. The amount of talent is not nearly as important as the determination to succeed. Recommended especially for preschoolers and primary grade children as a motivational tool.

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SCRAPS TO SNACKS: A Cookbook by Kids for Kids

Written by Lightsabors Phoenix Squadron

This is a unique recipe book written by a robotics team composed of students, ages nine through thirteen. Alarmed by the fact that almost one-third of our food goes to waste, these students compiled a list of recipes that use food scraps.

There are some intriguing entries. They succeed in concocting pizza, ices, candy wraps, chocolate milk and peanut butter pops and apple desserts. For the holidays, why not try Christmas Day French Toast? These students are certainly to be commended for originality. At the end of the book, there is a short profile for each of the students on the team.

This book is a fun twist on a recipe book. Steps are outlined for each recipe, but the photos could be larger to make the recipe more enticing. Recommended for elementary and middle-grade students.

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I recently had the opportunity to present Little Miss HISTORY  in animation. Thanks to Silas Merlin, who created the avatar, the character has come to life.

• Little Miss HISTORY insists, “If you don’t know your history, you don’t know what you’re talking about.” On the day of our birth, we become a character in history because each of us has an opportunity to create our story and place our mark on history.

• As we stand here in the twenty-first century, technology allows us to immerse ourselves in history. In 2003, Linden Lab launched a program called Second Life. Its users, who are called residents, use this technology to create virtual representations of themselves. These avatars can explore the virtual world, socialize and participate with other residents in a group or individual activities. Second Life has its own virtual currency that allows residents to create, shop, and trade virtual property with one another.

• In 2014, Linden Lab announced a plan to develop a new virtual world. Content creators began working on the program named Project Sansar. The platform was released in “creator beta” to the public in July 2017. Users create 3D spaces where people can create and share social experiences such as watching videos, playing games, and having conversations. Participants are represented by avatars they create. These avatars contain speech-driven facial animations and motion driven body animations.

• Sansar supports virtual reality headsets but can also be accessed with Windows computers. The program is free to use, but like Second Life Sansar has its own economy. Users can buy and sell their virtual creations with the Sansar dollar.

• HOW DID LITTLE MISS HISTORY GET INVOLVED IN VIRTUAL REALITY? A few months ago, I was approached by Bernhard Drax to appear on his Book Club Radio podcast. When I heard that Little Miss HISTORY would have an opportunity to appear in virtual reality, I jumped at the opportunity.

• Via “draxtor”..and media for all! Drax and his team now offer audio-visual storytelling for many media platforms. Bernhard Drax studied audio engineering at the University of California at Los Angeles and music at the Hochschule fur Musik and Theater Munchen. He is an expert in user-created content in Virtual Reality. His award-winning mixed reality documentary series “The Drax Files: World Makers” is just one of his many video series featured on youtube. https://www.youtube.com/user/draxtordespres

I invite you to join us in a discussion about books, education, and history, past, present, and future!

Check out Little Miss HISTORY’s journey into virtual reality!

If you would like to read the entire interview on the podcast, please go here:

show #222: little miss history is making history