An interesting picture book that explains how to use self-talk to respond to the flood of emotions a child experiences everyday.
A little girl named Elle wakes up on a Monday and prepares to get ready for school. Her mind races with a bunch of different scenarios as she tries to sort things out.
The colorful illustrations assist in identifying each situation.
While the book is targeted for ages three through five, I believe it might be more beneficial for children a bit older.
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I got completely absorbed in this middle-grade adventure. At the outset, readers meet Lucy who is arguing with her brother Tom. Readers feel at home in an average American family. When Lucy’s teacher introduces the topic of oceans, Lucy decides she is all-in on pursuing an adventure to cross the Atlantic Ocean in a boat without engines or sails.
Her determination and persistence convince her family, friends, and teacher to support Lucy in her adventure. She solicits sponsors, learns about navigation, secures supplies, accesses communication equipment, and prepares for the big day.
Readers share the elation of stars, sunsets, and serenity of the seas. They also experience its dangers at every turn. For forty-five days, they read her diary and the writings of her classmates at home.
I love the lessons of sea-faring knowledge, and the strong character displayed by the protagonist. This book is a page-turner and an enjoyable read for the target audience of ages seven through twelve, but I promise a rewardable experience for any age reader.
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Do you know anyone who seems to be bulletproof? You know, that friend of yours that takes failures in stride and is always smiling and moving forward in life. How do they do it? You know they’re not immune to setbacks or hardship. They just seem to be able to bounce back quickly. Life’s inevitable difficulties don’t keep them from living the life they desire.
By the way, that person can be you. Mental resilience is something that can be developed. It’s not a character trait you have to be born with. Every time you suffer some type of loss or failure, you have an opportunity to respond with resilience and emotional control.
“Never confuse a single defeat with a final defeat.”
That is such a powerful reminder that your outlook is everything. The person with resilience chooses a positive outlook. They understand that negative things are going to happen in their life. Yet they don’t allow that to be the end of their journey.
They don’t embrace any single failure or loss as the final declaration of who they are.
Just Take One More Step
Resilience means persisting. You keep going. You push forward and see life’s difficulties as nothing more than challenges. You can either become stronger and more capable or allow a defeat or failure to be a statement of who you are.
This can seem like simple advice, but the truth is, sometimes, the hardship we encounter in life can be truly debilitating. We simply don’t see a way out. The worst of possible things has happened, and there’s simply no way that we see any good coming from this.
When this happens, as it inevitably will in life, just take one step forward.
Don’t worry about some big end result. You may be in a terrible situation. If you are, just make one positive movement.
Have one positive thought. Move in the direction of a positive outcome. Even if it’s miles away, don’t worry about that end result. Just take the first step that moves you a little bit away from the difficulty you encountered.
Never let any single defeat be your final defeat. The instant you decide to relentlessly push forward, you show the world and yourself that you are a resilient human being. You won’t be kept down for long because your unbreakable mental resolve won’t allow you to be defined by defeat.
You can learn to bounce back and help others do the same.
IT IS NEVER TO EARLY TO START DEVELOPING RESILIENCE FOR WHAT LIFE WILL THROW OUR WAY!START TODAY!
This past year has been a hectic year for many all over the world. People have been coping with all that life brings in many ways. One way is working on self-care practices. There are many reasons why introducing practices of self-care into your life can make a pivotal difference in your life. For many, these practices and habits get overlooked in the chaos of the day, particularly during the busy holiday season.
What Is Self-Care
Self-care is defined as any activity that is intentionally meant to care for our mental, physical, emotional, and even spiritual health and wellness. Certain activities are common self-care practices. This means taking care of yourself so that you are healthy physically, and mentally.
You are at your best so that you can work, interact with friends and family, and you can do all the things you need to and want to in a day. This can look very different for each individual but some common self-care activities are listed below.
Self-Care Practices:
Yoga
Taking a hot bath to relax
Enjoying a cup of tea
Journaling
Meditation
Spirituality Practices
Getting a massage.
Listening to calming music
Cutting down on screen time.
And many more.
Why Is Self-Care Important
Adding self-care practices to your life has many benefits. Self-care is shown to reduce stress. In addition, many people feel that making time in their lives for self-care practices improves their own mental health greatly. Many people also report greater levels of happiness in their daily lives when incorporating self-care practices.
Taking care of yourself can also improve physical health. In addition to self-care on a personal level, self-care is a factor when facing illness, disease, or disability. Many health care professionals are adopting an integrative health care style approach that includes checking in with patients to help them seek balance in all aspects of life. This helps people facing illness or disease recover faster, better, and more successfully overall.
Tips To Practice Self Care In Your Life
Get enough sleep
Balance your commitments and priorities
Make a weekly schedule
Say no to optional tasks or events you don’t want to take on.
Stay on top of physical and mental health
Exercise
Allow quality time for friends and family.
Making space for self-care in your life provides great benefits to physical and mental health. Some aspects of self-care are personally enriching and fun.
Self-care is not selfish; it is vital to being a well healthy and balanced person. This lets you face whatever life throws at you without breaking your stride.
The Forgotten Horse – Book 1 in the Connemara Horse Adventure Series for Kids. The perfect gift for children age 8-12. (Connemara Adventures)
Written by Elaine Heney
This is Book 1 in a series. The author has trained thousands to develop and care for their horses. She also creates films featuring the human equestrian relationship.
Primarily intended for a middle-grade audience, Heney creates beautiful characters. Readers learn about a close-knit Irish farming family that faces hard times. Clodagh immediately falls in love with the grey pony that she names Ozzie. Clodagh knows one day she will work with horses.
The book is filled with issues that usually pop up for its target audience like bullying and learning to cope with school peers determined to look down on her. Throughout the book, Clodagh reveals her steadfast determination to overccome these obstacles and find a way to keep Ozzie.
Highly recommended for any reader who loves horses and down-to-earth family stories.
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Phyllis Schwartz is a married mother of two, who, after a highly successful career in the TV news business, finally has the luxury to indulge in and focus on her “civilian” writing. Even as a kid, she kept a diary and wrote little stories and poems, a creative release that continued well into adulthood. She wrote news by day and poetry by night. And despite battling three different types of cancer over more than three decades, she is still filled with energy, joy, and optimism, and she looks forward to writing more poetry and children’s books.
Her writing centers on the beauty she finds daily: Her friends, husband, and two children, as well as her garden and her beautiful beach town residence in dreamy Encinitas, provide continued inspiration for her verse.
A family pulls together to help their mother when she is sick with cancer. They make funny videos, bake cookies, color get-well cards, entertain her and do all they can to cheer her up.
The beautiful, colorful, multicultural illustrations and funny rhymes keep elementary grade children entertained while discussing a serious subject. Young readers learn lessons about compassion, love, empathy, and family resilience while working through a difficult situation.
I would highly recommend this book to parents and teachers, especially those undergoing a family illness as a model of strength and resilience to teach children strategies for dealing with the stress of a family crisis.
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Cinnamon the Adventurous Guinea Pig Goes to Devil’s Island
Written by Daniel Turner
Illustrated by Gayle Skinner
This is a delightful beginning reader chapter book. It contains a few simple illustrations peppered throughout to keep the reader interested. The animal characters featuring guinea pigs and Siamese cats are delightful. They provide young readers with models of compassion, kindness, empathy, resilience, and teamwork.
Driven to flee their home because of a volcanic eruption, the animals get lost at sea, captured by the nasty, Captain Blood, and develop a plan to resist their enslavement. Will they be able to escape his clutches? What will the future hold for them?
The book is under sixty pages which makes it a good choice not only for a beginning but also for a reluctant reader. I would also recommend it as a classroom read-aloud that could be used to teach desirable values.
If you are looking for more teaching resources, check out my youtube channel.
Fatso Runs Away from Home: An easy reading adventure following a cat’s adventure
Written by Garth and Mo Reason
Illustrated by Harriet Kim Anh Rodis
Fatso is a spoiled cat. For many years he has lived a comfortable life in the home of Mr. and Mrs. Reason.
One day a visitor to the home brings a dog named Maria to the home. Fatso wants to become friends but Maria is bossy and unwilling to share. So Fatso ventures out into the outside world he has never seen.
At first, Fatso sees his outing as an adventure. He meets a neighborhood cat, Sebastian. When Fatso gets lost, he becomes frightened until he meets up with Fluffy and her family.
Will Fatso survive in the outside world? Does he ever find his way back home?
This picture book uses a cat world view to teach children how to have courage, resilience, and empathy. The author includes activities to encourage young readers to think about what happened in the story and enhance reading comprehension skills.
I would suggest this book as a picture book for younger children or a beginning reading for older elementary school readers.
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The author is an educator and parent of six. She shares the hopes that most parents have for their children. Courage, resilience, empathy, and kindness are a few of these. The short rhymes are easy for young children to remember. Illustrations are multicultural and include references to the author’s own family as revealed in the fun facts at the end of the story. Adults and children will enjoy learning about the symbolism of nature and the themes included in this book.
A delightful read-aloud or bedtime story for elementary age readers.
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The Boy Who Painted the World: A Middle Grade Novel
Written by Melody J. Bremen
While the subtitle of this book indicates a middle grade novel, this book can be enjoyed by adults as well. It tells the story of Indigo, a ten-year-old boy who is abandoned by his mother. He finds a friend with Jade, an older teen, who tries to take care of him until fate intervenes. They are separated and Indigo is forced to fend for himself. Indigo has a passion for painting. It fuels his desire to survive. He is resilient and resourceful. While Indigo is wary of trusting others, he gradually learns to reach out and experience a connection to others.
Bremen does a marvelous job of painting her characters and developing them for her readers. Each page reveals a different layer. This book is addictive, once opened the reader will have difficulty putting it aside. Readers cannot wait to discover what will happen to Indigo and his newly found friends and enemies.
This is a powerful story about resilience, homelessness, and adoption. These issues are addressed within a moving novel that encourages deep thought and discussion. Highly recommended for readers aged ten and older.
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August 28, 2024
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