Grace for President

Girls rock! Do you agree? If so, you will love the picture book Grace for President, that teaches children not only about the election process, but to be ambitious and believe that they can achieve anything they set their minds to!

Grace for President, begins with an innocent question from a young student and turns into a race for school president!  In school one day, Grace is shown a large poster featuring all of the past U.S. presidents, and she notices that none of them are women. Grace then asks her teacher "Where's the women?" - to which her teacher responds, informing Grace that there's never been a female president, which bothers Grace, who then decides she will run for class president! Grace wants to show her classmates that women can be president too! Besides, how hard can it be? Or so Grace thinks to herself.

The next day, its announced that Grace has an opponent from another class - one who happens to be the Spelling Bee champion, AND captain of the soccer team. Grace realizes running for president won't be as easy as she thought, but she doesn't let it discourage her and presses on, working hard to win the election. She does doing everything from handing out cupcakes to joining the school safety squad and creating a school beautification committee.

Grace for President is an absolute treat of a picture book for many reasons. It's simplistic style of educating children about politics in a way they can understand and can relate to. It's non-preachy lesson, and fun illustrations featuring diverse children of all races and every skin shade. And most importantly, it encourages young girls and children in general to be ambitious through a fun civic lesson that has the reader wondering what will happen next! If you find these ideals important, purchase Grace for President today!

Grace for President

Author: Kelly DiPucchio

Illustrator: Leuyen Pham

Available at: Teaching for Change bookstores, Amazon.com

Halloween ABC

The rumpled rabbit is ready to rest, the spooky skeleton is sleepy.

The tiny tiger is terribly tired - from too much trick-or-treating!

Does  your little one love Halloween? If so, they'll love Halloween ABC from a Little Golden Book. This adorable picture book teaches kids the alphabet in a fun way with illustrations of children going trick-or-treating, dressed in various costumes, from ballerina and a cowboy to a dentist, dinosaur and kangaroo. The book not only teaches children their ABCs, it also teaches them about animals they may not have ever seen or heard of, including an iguana, kangaroo and a yak .If your little one hasn't yet decided what he or she wants to be for Halloween, this is a great book that will give them many fun, cute ideas.

This book is also worth reading for two more reasons: it reminds kids of the importance of brushing and to not eat too much candy as they can get sick, AND it features a great representation of children of several races and cultures, promoting unity in friendship. 

The cute illustrations, along with the fun Halloween story, non-preachy lessons, and an ending that has the children getting ready for bed makes Halloween ABC a great book any young child would love. It's also a great book to help put your little one to sleep after a fun night of trick-or-treating. 

Halloween ABC

Author: Sarah Albee

Illustrator: Julia Woolf

Available at: www.amazon.com. 

Gazpacho for Nacho

September is Hispanic Heritage Month and to celebrate, won't you read this delightful story to your little one! Gazpacho for Nacho is a fun and educational picture book that children and adults alike will love. It is about a picky little boy named Nacho, who wants only to eat a certain food - Gazpacho, a cold tomato-based vegetable soup that originated in Andalucia, Spain.

The story begins with Nacho refusing to eat anything but Gazpacho - not meat, not fish, not even helado (ice cream)! He wants to eat Gazpacho all the time - for lunch and dinner and even for breakfast! He even tells him mother that he thinks leche (milk) and churros, a Latino pastry is for the burros (donkeys)!

Nacho's mother eventually gets fed up with Nacho's pickiness and takes Nacho to the market where she introduces him to all the veggetables that go into making Gazpacho, so that Nacho can help her to make the soup, because she's worn out from making it all the time by herself. The trip to the market brings on a love of other vegetables by Nacho, which helps him to realize that there is more to life than Gazpacho. Once he's back at home cooking Gazpacho with his mother, Nacho also realizes that he enjoys cooking!

Gazpacho for Nacho is a fun picture book to read to a child who wants to learn Spanish, and features a Spanish-English glossary at the back of the book to help parents and children who need assistance pronouncing the Spanish words. It is also a great book for parents dealing with a stubborn child that wants only to eat certain food.

The illustrations by Carolina Farias, are simply beautiful, adding to the book's humorous and fun rhyming prose. Gazpacho for Nacho is sure to be enjoyed by children and parents of all cultures. It's positive, promotes healthy eating, as well as mother and son time, and will keep you smiling throughout.

Author: Tracey C. Kyle
Illustrator: Carolina Farias

Dress Up Day

Come with us as we dress up!

Be a princess, pilot or chef. Maybe you think a policeman is best.

Farm the land, sing in a band, or fight fires like a fireman.

See a teacher, a doctor, an artist too and learn about the jobs they do.

Just like that, with a few things, it's easy to do - just start imagining!

Does your child talk about what he or she wants to be when they grow up? If so, they'll love Dress Up Day, a fun picture book about a little girl who makes a day of fun by dressing up with her friends. The kids try on several different outfits and to visualize all the different careers they could have when they grow up.

Dress up Day has fun rhyme and is a great book for giving children ideas about all the different options they have for their future. With beautifully colorful illustrations depicting both girls and boys of diverse backgrounds, the kids dress up from everything from a doctor, judge, and soldier to a farmer, pilot and firefighter.

Dress Up Day is a great book for encouraging young children to dream and to also create positive, fun, ways to play.  It is written by Tina Marie Kaht and illustrated by Hatice Bayramoglu, and available at Amazon.com.

My Friend Has Autism

My Friend Has Autism by Amanda Doering Tourville, is a book about a kid named Nick and his friend Zack. Zack doesn't always respond when Nick talks to him and he can even walk away when Nick is talking to Zack. The book explains that when Zack does those types of things, it is because of his Autism, and that Zack doesn't mean to be rude, it's just something in his brain doesn't grow the way that it should, which is why Autistic children can have behaviors that are odd to others. Some Autistic children don't talk, or only talk about their own interests.

Another aspect of Autism that the book explains is how Autistic children are more sensitive to sound than those without Autism, and how they don't like to be touched. It's not because they aren't friendly, they just have sensory overload which makes them that way.

Nick thinks Zack is a great friend, and despite his Autistic oddities,  likes him better than all his other friends because like Zack likes to play with model airplanes with Nick, and they play video games together. The best part of the book is that Nick realized Zack isn't that much different than other kids his age. He just has a few quirks. And that's okay.

My Friend Has Autism is a great book to read to children who have questions about Autism. It's also a great book to read to your child if you want to make sure your child grows up to be sensitive to special needs children; this book will will help them understand the quirks of Autistic children around them. It's a great book for children and adults alike. By buying this book, you will help dispel myths and educate others on Autism. And education is a beautiful thing!

A Child of the Civil Rights Movement by Paula Young Shelton and Raul Colon

A Child of the Civil Rights Movement by Paula Young-Shelton, tells the story of the civil rights movement with mention of Dr. King, and the role he played, as seen through her then four year-old eyes. Young-Shelton, the daughter of Civil Rights activist and former U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations Andrew Young, begins the story begins with Paula and her family moving from New York, where there were no Jim Crow laws, to the south, where inequality and Jim Crow laws ran rampant. She describes Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. in a way many of us have rarely seen - a man full of joy with a twinkle in his eye -  a man that the media rarely portrayed, but a man that no doubt did exist in the presence of his loved ones.



In the story, Young-Shelton refers to Dr. King as "Uncle Martin," because while he was not her blood uncle, she explains that like her father Andrew Young, Dr. King was part of the American civil rights movement family - a family she describes as frequently eating dinner together at one another's homes, where like a biological family, they would have heated discussions together, many times about the next steps to take in the civil rights movement; and like a a family, they struggled through the era of inequality together, they worried together, and  they marched together like a family from Selma, Alabama to Montgomery, Alabama - an event she is proud to have been a part of, since it led to the signing of the Voting Rights Act of 1965.



A Child of the Civil Rights Movement is beautifully told, and the illustrations by Raul Colon add to beauty of the book. From the expressions on the faces of the characters to the corn rows in young Paula's hair, the illustrations vividly capture the essence of the story and those in it.



A Child of the Civil Rights Movement is an interesting re-telling of the civil rights movement that children can understand, that will also keep adults interested. It is a thoughtful introduction to the civil rights movement, and stirs up emotions you don't expect from a children's picture book. I felt sorrow for the loss of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., but I also felt pride in the African-American leaders he worked with who like Dr. King, sacrificed time with their families; who were beaten and thrown in jail so that they and African-Americans could have the right to vote like those of white Americans.



This book touches on these subjects and more in a way that will not scare children, but make them think about and realize how much they have to be thankful for - and those who helped them have the basic human rights they are able to live with today.

Whoa, Baby, Whoa! by Grace Nichols

Tomorrow is Multicultural Children's Book Day, and in recognition of the day, I am reviewing Whoa, Baby, Whoa!, about a baby from a mixed-race family who gets into all sorts of mischief.

Have you raised a toddler or had the pleasure to watch a baby grow from crawling to toddler? If so, you remember how quickly they can get into trouble. Whoa, Baby, Whoa! depicts a super speeding crawling 1-2 year old who wants to get into everything his legs will allow him. In the book, the curious unnamed baby is bi-racial – his mother is African-American, and his father is white - but that tidbit is never mentioned throughout the story. The author treats this fact as normal, not unusual, focusing instead on the antics of the baby – something any parent, black or white can relate to.

Whoa, Baby, Whoa! features the little baby getting into all kinds of things he shouldn’t; from mom’s makeup top of the bookshelf – that is until mom or dad, or another family member catches up with him in time to keep him out of harm’s way. Baby, however, still manages to get into the newspaper and rip it to bits, grab grandpa’s glasses off his nose, and get mashed potatoes all over his face while eating in his high chair at the dinner table.

The author’s ability to portray a typical day in the life of a baby - whose family just happens to be mixed-race, is both humorous and heartwarming, and sure to give both children and adults a giggle. It's a great book for those seeking a tale about life with baby, but also a great book to read to a young child to prepare him for a new sibling that’s on the way.

Illustrator Eleanor Taylor provides wonderful details in depicting of the mischievous baby, with pictures that show the baby sitting in a high chair with one shoe on and one shoe off, adding to the heart and humor of the story.

Whoa, Baby, Whoa! was a joy for me to read and I hope you find it as enjoyable as I did. Happy reading!