Tasty Baby Belly Buttons is a Japanese folktale that is retold in this book written by Judy Sierra. The story tells of the Oni (which is something like an Ogre) who come into a Japanese village and steals the babies of the village to have their favorite snack—baby belly buttons. The adults of the village are frozen with fear.
One young child who was gifted to her aging parents; as they had no children and so hoped for one. She arrived in a melon as a newborn babe; therefore…she had no belly button to steal. Her mother always dreamed of a child to teach to make millet dumplings with. The father always dreamed of a child to teach how to be a warrior to protect those who were weak or helpless. Together they raised this young child to do wonderful things. She alone… was brave enough to battle the Oni and win the babies of the village back.
This book may not be for very young children as the images in the book may be a bit too scary for them. If they love to be dazzled with stories of good versus evil it may be fine…you just have to know your child. The drawings of the Oni are a bit big, overwhelming and repulsive…as scary things should be. But if your child is meek or easily frightened this book may not be for them.
Tasty Baby Belly Buttons was illustrated by Meilo So. The book was copyrighted in 1999 and published by, Alfred A. Knopf and distributed by Random House, Inc. http://www.randomhouse.com/kids
This Old House is a sweet tale filled with the idea of turning a house into a home. This story has an old abandoned home that needs repairs. It has been neglected and feels sad. People look at it and see all of it’s faults but they don’t see the potential in the house.
The home has given up it’s sense of hope. It still serves a purpose by providing shelter to the birds, a backdrop to the tree in the yard, and a place to showcase the flowers that grow alongside of it. Still, it has no family to call it’s own.
People began to talk about tearing the house down. The house looses all of it’s pride and is sagging under the criticism. Just like people do when others put them down…it lowers their self confidence.
Then one day, a family comes along in need of a home. They look at the house and examine it’s structural stability. They talk about how much work it would be to turn the house into a home. They wonder if the house is sturdy enough to house their family and be a place to call home. The house finds a shred of confidence and stands up tall and it’s stability is noted by the father. The family leaves and the home assumes all hope is lost. That negativity spreads to the trees, the birds and the flowers…all think that they have lost an opportunity to flourish and thrive.
When the family comes back; they invest their time, their energy and alot of work. The house has someone to love it, and someone to nurture it and together…the family, the home, the birds, the tree and the flowers form a place of love, safety, and security. A place to call home!
If a person were to apply this story to the relationships in their lives, you would see much more happiness and strength in the world. It shows the power of positive thinking, praise, and hard work; and you see the results from focussing on the good in life as opposed to the negatives!
This book was written by Pamela Duncan Edwards and illustrated by Henry Cole. It was published by Dutton Children’s Books in 2007. This book is a treasure and should be shared with those you care about…and those that you know who could use some hope in life!
This is a great book; i think it would even get many young boys who don’t normally wish to read to pick up the book and even finish reading it.
Many a young child expresses and interest in becoming a police officer. Lots of television shows, focus on police dogs in their dramas. There has always been alot of interest in how police dogs know what to do. This book explains the kind of work that they do, how they are trained, who they stay with and how they act when they are not doing a job for the police. Police dogs are also called K-9 units; they live and work with their handlers. There are certain kinds of dogs that are better at police work than other dogs. See how the dogs are taught to chase criminals, work at airports to find drugs, help protect their human police partners.
This is a book that answers questions that kids ask, that many parents and teacher don’t have the answers to. This book was written by Judith Janda Presnall. It was copyrighted 2002 by KidHaven Press, an imprint of Gale Group, Inc. It is written as juvenile literature.
There are many pictures in the book and even a glossary of terms in the back for a child to understand the terminology better.
Dirty Joe the Pirate is a kids picture book that has a rhyming quality to it but it is infused with a sense of humor that children will love. Dirty Joe is a wild and mangy pirate who has a love of dirty socks. He hijacks other boats and collects their dirty socks.
Along the way, the pirates run into another fierce pirate who is female. She battles them and uggghhh the humiliation….she wins the fight. What does she demand from Dirty Joe the pirate and his crew? Something worse than socks that smell…it is their underwear. Turns out that she flys their undies on the rigging of the ship…just like they fly the dirty socks on their rigging as a warning to all other ships.
The female pirate is very familiar…she looks sort of like Joe…her name is Annie and she is just as disqusting smelling and looking as Joe. It is his sister and she is just as bossy as a pirate as she is his big sister! 
Fun book for children and adults to read together.
This book was written by Bill Harley and illustrated by Jack E. Davis. It was published by Harper Collins and was copyrighted in 2008. The website for the publisher is: www.harpercollinschildrens.com , the author’s site: www.billharley.com , the illustrator’s website: http://picture-book.com/imagelist/72.
This is a book, A Man for All Seasons, was written for people who love to learn…it is about the life of George Washington Carver and his love of the earth and his love of learning. George was born African American in a time when it was not easy being black; and, having a desire to go to college and learn. Many colleges wouldn’t even talk to him when they discovered he was black.
He was not an angry young man…he just studied nature and plants; learning how they grew best and sharing that knowledge with others. He went on to study at college and to teach others…even when he was discriminated against. Sometimes, even at places where he was giving speaches…he was not allowed to come in the front door like the white people who came to hear him speak. This was not right…but he did not let it hold him back.
Being poor did not stop him from learning. Loosing both of his parents at a young age did not stop him from what he wanted to do in life. Being black did not stop him…even when others did not want to give him a chance. He learned to read and write; in a time of our country’s history, when it was not acceptable to learn to do so, if you were black.
The thing about George is that he loved to show others how they could improve their lives by rotating their crops and get more cops from the land by fertilizing and watering as well. He wanted to help others have a better way of life. George received a letter one day from a very famous black man in the country. His name was Booker T. Washington, president of the Tuskegee Institute. He wanted George to come to the Institute to teach because George was the only black man to receive a stellar degree from a white man’s college. Booker thought that George could be a wonderful role model for the poor black students who wanted to attend the Institute to go on and excel in their education.
George went on to teach at the Tuskegee Institute in Alabama in the agricultural department. He deeply respected nature and chose to share that respect with everyone who would listen. He taught others to perservere in their growth and in their desire to learn. George even spoke before Congress. He set an inspirational example for others…black, white and of every nationality.
This book on the life of George Washington Carver was written by Stephen Krensky and was illustrated by Wil Clay. It was published by Amistad and Collins an imprint of HarperCollins Publishers and was copyrighted in 2008. It was written as juvenile literature. You can view the writer’s website at: www.stephenkrensky.com and the illustrator’s website at: www.wilclay.com .
What a wonderful book about creating awareness regarding food allergies. This book, written by Christine Taylor-Butler teaches what food allergies are, how they affect the person with the allergies and how to avoid ingesting foods that can cause an allergic reaction if a person is allergic to certain ingredients.
People are becoming increasingly aware that food allergies can be severe and life threatening. Even smelling a food that a person is allergic to can cause serious health problems for some. This book, Food Allergies, teaches children to be sensitive towards those who suffer from food allergies.
I like the fact that the book show pictures of people who are affected by food allergens. I think sometimes, people think food allergies and they think mild reaction like itching or sneezing…but that isn’t always the case, sometimes food allergies can be life threatening.
The book goes into detail about how to communicate to others about any potential food allergies and how to avoid being contaminated by another person. It also show children that their actions can hurt another person just by touching something that someone else might be allergic to and going near them.
The book is wonderful in the fact that it teaches children that they can have some control over their environment by learning how to avoid hidden food ingredients, by reading food labels. Often times, the ingredients in some foods have more than one name and can still be harmful to the person with allergies. The book teaches that when cooking or baking a person can substitute certain food items in place of the ones that they are allergic to.
This book, Food Allergies, was published for Juvenile literature by Children’s Press an imprint of Scholastic. You can see their website here: www.scholastic.com/librarypublishing .
Discovering Wetlands is one of the books in the series of World Habitats. There are six books in this series including this one…the others are: Reefs, Mountains, Rain Forests, Arctic Tundra, Tropical Savanna. This book was written by Janey Levy.
The subject of wetlands is very important. Most of the time when we hear about wetlands it is in regards to legal fights between business or homeowners who are in a fight with agencies set up to protect the wetlands. It is important to find a balance between life choices and protecting the wetlands life cycles.
The wetlands are a part of our ecosystems that help to improve the quality of life for people, plants and animals. There are three main types of wetlands…each has it’s own function. There are marshes, swamps and peatlands. Each of those have several types of varieties. Take for example marshes…there are saltwater and freshwater. Each of them provides different functions for plant and animal life. Many plants are only found in wetlands; the same with animals. The wetlands provide breeding grounds as well as, a perfect environment for raising their young.
Humans have started to understand the impact of destroying wetlands. In the past, it was not unheard of to divert the water from the wetlands; trying to reclaim more ground for building and planting on. In doing that…many things were destroyed. Wetlands help to prevent flooding. Man was not meant to live in some of those areas, many in coastal regions…and infact, in recent years, flooding has taken a huge toil on city’s and populations that have built businesses and homes, in areas that were formerly wetlands and paid a very high price in doing so.
Since the 1900′s about half of the world’s wetlands have vanished. In the United States, we loose about 100,000 acres every year. Some species of animals and plants only live in wetlands…so when we lose the wetlands, often we lose those plants and animals as well. Wetlands also help to clean up water that we use for drinking…it filters it, naturally, for us.
This book was published in 2008 by the Rosen Publishing Group, Inc. You can go to this website to learn more: www.powerkidslinks.com/whab/wetland/ . The world around us is beautiful and useful. This book helps to explain some of what we see around us and why it is there. This book is for Juvenile readers. It is hardcover and full of fun and important information.
Hidden Michigan is a wonderful book that opens the eye of the reader to many of the wonderful things to do and see in Michigan. The writers, Anne Margaret Lewis and Janis Campbell, have all of the answers to the subject that always comes up with children about mid-summer; I’m bored…isn’t there anything to do?
If the book was written for adults it would be a tourist guide written in small print with photographs and written descriptions of where to go, where to stay, and how much everything costs. However, this is written for children; so it tells about things that interest them.
There are sports, heros, dinosaur footprints, activity centers, famous food places, orchards, planetariums, bridges, lighthouses, animals, water parks, inventors, museums, festivals, Sleeping Bear Dunes, Bear caves, boats, trains, ferries and so very much more to explore.
No boring old pictures in this book…the whole book is illustrated and in a fun way…turn the book in different directions and you find something new to peak your interest. The book was illustrated by Wendy Popko. Kids will love this book. It is fun to discover new places and things to see in your own back yard.
Hidden Michigan was copyrighted in 2006; and was published by Mackinac Island Press, Inc. Here is there website: www.mackinacislandpress.com