The word "parent" is not just a noun. It's also a verb.
Studying his reflection, he recognizes all the traits that make him different from the other creatures on the beach. Not feeling comfortable with those differences, Benjamin begins to modify his personal imperfections, in hopes of blending in better with his fellow creatures. Though he is successful in his attempt to hide his differences, he quickly learns why those different traits are so important to him, and to the many blue-footed boobies like him.
The list goes on and on. Practically everything you can imagine needing to do around a house as well as simple roadside safety information is included in this book.
Messner gives you the building blocks for helping your child, from the youngest age possible, craft a story they’d be proud to write.
At school, she is ridiculed both because she is and is not latina (in appearance yes, in culture, no)–sometimes called a coconut [brown on the outside, white on the inside]. She sings in the choir, loves English class, has two great friends and has trouble with some mean girls. Internally, she struggles to figure out who she is, at the same time rejecting everything she perceives as being forced upon her. I know. She sounds like the ordinary 12-year-old. And that’s why this is extraordinary. As she faces each challenge, and overcomes each perceived failure, she builds her identity with each step.
The plot is a straight-forward one. A pencil, symbolic in that pencils are generally used to describe everything presented to the eyes, the heart and the mind, tells us the story of a crayon called Red. His name is Red, because he’s wrapped in a red wrapper. But, to anyone who can see beyond the wrappings, he’s a blue crayon with a red label.
On a special trip to the beach, Jules has one thing on her mind: building the BIGGEST, FANCIEST, MOST EXCELLENT castle that has ever been built–all with the ultimate goal of impressing her big sister. She soon finds out that even the best laid plans do not always work out as intended.
Books like Lyons’ Going Down Home With Daddy, are a mystery to me. A dad piles his family into a car and they drive down home to see great-grandma Granny and share in an amazing anniversary celebration where everybody shares something personal. Sounds amazing. And it is!
The pain of losing a loved-one weighs like a heavy presence on those that are left behind. Death, is hard on the living. Thoughts of what was, what is and what could have been loom everywhere. The proverbial elephant in the room lumbers about, its presence felt, knocking things in its path. Carnavas, in his book The Elephant, a Middle Grade novel just recently released in North America, explores what happens when a young girl starts seeing an elephant hanging around her Dad, as he deals with the death of her mother, his wife.
The other day at school, a classmate got angry at me and said ‘Clown!’ So begins our story and our entry into this black, white, grey and red world created by Andrés and Hernández, where a boy walks us through a few moments in his life and the impact his two dads have had on it.