Happy For No Reason - A Must Read & Barefoot Children's Books Highlighted

I haven't blogged in the last 10 days because I just returned from a business trip in Florida. I'm not much of a flyer although it's required that I do so at least twice a year. In order to keep my focus on calming thoughts, I often pick up the newest nonfiction book located in the bookstore at the airport. For this trip, I decided to buy Happy For No Reason by Marci Shimoff & Carol Kline (http://www.happyfornoreason.com/home.asp). I found the title of the book to be totally intriguing and was more than curious to find out what the 7 steps were that were going to be highlighted for truly being happy from the inside out. I finished the book during two connecting flights to Florida and two connecting flights back home. I recommend this read for anyone who has ever wondered what it takes to be truly happy and satisfied with life. It has marvelous stories of what the author calls "The Happy 100" people that she located and interviewed for this book. It covers amazing stories of people who have been successful at aligning their internal and spiritual selves with true happiness no matter what life's circumstances brings their way.

My first thought after reading the book was how we could as parents implement the 7 principals in not only our own lives but in our children's lives as well. If children are to learn that true happiness does not rely on such things as how many toys they have, or how popular they are, or what they look like, then it seems they should learn this as early as possible in life. This book is for adults but in order to teach our kids about high esteem, true internal happiness, and acceptance of self and others, then we have to start with ourselves in order to instill those values in children. Pick up this book if you get a chance as it's a true must read in a society in which we get so bombarded with busy lives that we forget to nurture our inner selves for true peace and wisdom. Another recommended book which covers the topic specific to parenting is Smart Parenting: How to Raise Happy, Can-Do Kids by Dr. Brad Smart & Kate Smart Mursau.

Barefoot Books - Celebrating Art and Story

Barefoot Books (http://www.barefoot-books.com/site/pages/choice.php) is a great web-site that provides all sorts of various children's books based on diversity in many important areas. Take a moment to check it out as their dedication to providing books based on independence, culture, and spirit is really amazing. According to http://celebrity-babies.com/, many celebrity parents such as Debra Messing and Paul McCartney have already jumped on board with them in an effort to support what they stand for. Some of the categories that you can shop by are listed below:

Gift Ideas
Age Range
Award-Winning Products
Beautiful Anthologies
Best of Barefoot
Books About the Planet
Early Learning
Literacy 2008
Picture/Story Books
Spanish Language

Quick Exciting Update:

Sunny's Adventures, a Children's Mystery Book by Leketha Marie Johnson will be released in early March 2008 (in just a few weeks) so stay tuned for more details and information!

Also, http://sunnysadventures.com/ will be launched shortly as well and kids will soon be able to download free coloring pages, enter a contest with great prizes, and much, much more!

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Free Children's Classic Books & Presidential Book Pick

I'm always on the search for anything free with added value and http://www.bygosh.com/ would have to definitely fall into this category. ByGosh.com is dedicated to famous books written at the end of the 2oth century. It has classics that I haven't read in a long time like the Wonderful Wizard of Oz and The Tale of Peter Rabbit. There's lots of short novels, poems, non-fiction, and other features. The short stories and poems can be easily printed out if you don't want to read it on the computer which may be more practical. I can't quite explain it but looking through these books which have been around forever brings back such warm memories of being a kid myself. I'm reading the Cinderella story to my little one tonight even though she's seen it on TV a hundred times. She likes the animated TV version but loves the movie version with Brandy and Whitney Houston. Click here and let your child check out Brandy and Whitney Houston singing Impossible from the Cinderella movie: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wdxRPcYgOoA

Book Suggestion Which Introduces the Presidential Election Process to Kids:

With the presidential campaign going on right now, it may be a good time to explain to kids exactly what's going on and why it's so important. Below is a book pick about being president:

Max for President by Jarrett J. Krosoczka

Price $11.96 new or starting at $1.98 used at http://amazon.com/
Description: Max thinks that he would like to be class president. So does Kelly. But there can only be one president! Who will the class elect? Full of laughs and suspense, Max for President is a lively story of good sportsmanship—and a great way for kids to learn a little about elections, too!

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Five Good Book Picks for Black History Month

The Times-Picayune (http://timespicayune.com/) listed five books today that would be great picks for kids in honor of Black History month. The books specifically focus on the Black experience historically and are recommended as permanent books to add to everyone's shelves. I'll list them briefly below but you can check out the Times-Picayune newspaper online to get even further detail by journalist Susan Larson. It's a good time to introduce all children to historical books such as these. The stories are compelling and I'm always looking for books like this which I can introduce to my own child but in a gentle manner that she would understand.

When my daughter read the story of Mary McLeod Bethune, she was fully engaged in the book but the illustrations really captivated her as well and helped her to fully understand the relevance of what she was reading. The story was explained to her on her 1st grade level and it's the one she always wants to pick for her monthly book reports. Unfortunately, I had to explain to her that she can't pick the same book all of the time.

LIST OF FIVE BLACK HISTORY BOOKS FOR KIDS

1.The People Could Fly by Virginia Hamilton - This story comes in book and audio which is narrated by the author and James Earl Jones.

2.Following The Drinking Gourd by Jeannette Winter - noted as a good introductory book for kids covering historical events.

3.The Patchwork Path: A Quilt Map to Freedom by Bettye Stroud - quick fact: the freedom quilt was one of many creative tools used by people determined to live free.

4.Night Running: How James Escaped with the Help of His Faithful Dog by Elisa Carbone - Beautiful illustrations by E.B. Lewis who has won a Coretta Scott King award for his work.

5.D is for Drinking Gourd: An African American Alphabet by Nancy l. Sanders - African American history alphabetized in historical order from past to present events.

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Free Books and Multicultural Children's Book Site

Getting anything for free is always a treat so I wanted to highlight some freebies on the internet for little readers and adults as well. Log onto http://allbooksfree.com/ and you can download children's books and adult picks too. All of the books are provided courtesy of various authors and the only thing that they ask you to do is spread the word. This is a way for them to let everyone know about their books which sounds like a really good deal to me. You can download the books now and have kids read them at their own leisure time.


Multicultural Children's Books
Thankfully we live in such a diverse society with a lot of rich culture around us everywhere we go. Because of this, it's important to make sure our children have access to all sorts of books which encourage acceptance of all people. A great site which does just this is http://www.multiculturalkids.com/ by carrying all sorts of books about all kinds of people of various races. The subject matters are pretty diverse too as they cover the topic of adoption, character building, bullying, and there's games, DVD's, and puzzles too. With all of the world's distractions (TV, video's, etc), it's important that books offer several different fun elements and real kid issues in order to create excitement over reading.

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Children's Audio Books and Online Library Fun

Right now, I spend a lot of time reading many books about the publishing industry as I prepare to release my debut children's book Sunny's Adventures in March of this year. I notice that the information I'm learning about comes in any format you need. I can read an actual book, listen to an audio CD, dial in to a teleseminar, study online or take classroom courses. These array of options must be available because it's a known fact that we all learn and digest information differently. I'm more of a reader myself because I like to mark up books I'm studying with bright colored highlighters. Well, you have to figure that children are no different from adults in that they can be mentally stimulated in all sorts of ways as well. Of course nothing should take the place of academic learning in the classroom, reading actual books, or going to the library. However, there are some supplemental learning tools out there that shouldn't be passed up either for them because they can be put in the "fun" category. Here are just a few ideas:

1. AUDIO BOOKS are a great way to help children to enjoy reading. Just imagine being on a car trip with restless kids in the back seat. You can pop in an audio book on CD and create a much better traveling experience for them as they listen to a book being narrated with sounds to enhance the story. You can even play the CD at home when their settling down for the night, or while they look at the book, beginning readers can listen along with the audio version. You're also helping them to develop their listening and comprehension skills as well. Try http://www.squidoo.com/childrens_audio-books and view some of the various audio picks there. Another pick is http://www.spoken-books.com/help.html. You can download them instantly or copy them to a CD. Click under the "juvenille" section for kids and there's hundreds of adult picks as well.

2. ONLINE LIBRARY access is a great learning choice for kids too. There are hundreds and hundreds of these sorts of sites on the web. I found http://www.mikids.com/Library.htm and what I like about this site is you can just click on the grade level of your child (K - 5th grade). Kids can listen to audio books or read for themselves and there's fun learning games as well. Another good site is http://www.awesomelibrary.org/student.html as it has much more detail and actually provides many links for all kinds of kids sites. Kids can even ask experts questions about any topic and receive the answer to their question. It can be about health, science, arts - just a wealth of subjects to choose from.

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African American Heritage Bookstore Has Closed and Fun Free Children's Magazine Highlighted

Unfortunately another black bookstore has closed down by the name of African American Heritgage Bookstore located in West Palm Beach (http://palmbeachpost.com/). It's owner James Drayton, former city commissioner is unable to sustain the losses that the store has been experiencing in this challenging economy. As I previously mentioned, another black book store named Karibu is also shutting it's doors to all of their locations as well. Heritage bookstore has been in business since 1991 so many people are sad to see the end for this store. I think it's too bad too since it was noted in the article that African American books are at an all time high in popularity (Tavis Smiley just got his own publishing company Smiley Books up and running). Sorry to see you go Heritage....

Also, if you're looking for some fun and free entertainment for your kids on the web, check out http://storiesforchildren.tripod.com/index.html which is an online ezine magazine for kids between 3 - 12 years of age. It's a cool site that has fun stories, puzzles, crafts, book reviews, and more - your child will have a lot of fun on this site. The online magazine was voted one of the top ten ezines in fiction, poetry, and art and it's really easy to navigate through.

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Black History Month - Exciting Kids Activities

It's February 1st and this marks the first day of Black History month. Quick history fact: The idea behind Black History month began with a Dr. Carter G. Woodson, a historian who created the Association for African American Life and History. In 1926, Dr. Woodson and the association created Negro week which eventually grew into Black History month in the 1970's.

There are so many fun ways to help children learn about all of the things Black people have done historically and now to contribute to our society. There's so much to grasp and understand for them, that you want to keep it exciting while you help them to connect with this part of our history. I was never a history buff in school (English was my favorite subject), but when I reached college and started actually learning about Black ancestors and their contributions in our world beyond slavery, I couldn't get enough of this information. Here are some great ways to get all kids involved and excited about Black History month and it's meaning:

1. Find out what's being offered in your community this month. You can do this simply by logging online and googling your city and state. I googled "events for Black History month" for my local city and state and all sorts of information came up from the city parade to various book fairs being held.

2. Log onto http://www.kn.pacbell.com/wired/BHM/index.html and pull up some amazing information from various sites about Black history. This is good information for both parents and teachers alike to use with kids.

3. Check out http://www.dltk-kids.com/crafts/black_history_month.htm as your kids can create some fun crafts at home with very easy to use materials. One craft requires a brown toilet paper roll which everyone can find at home. They'll think it's really cool!

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