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Category Archives: Children’s Books

The Big Book of Bling by Rose Davidson

29 Monday Jul 2019

Posted by truebooktalks in Children's Books, Children's Non-fiction

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Children's books, Trivia

If it grabs your eye, if it sparkles, twinkles or shines anywhere in the universe, you might find it discussed in this book.  This is a trivia book, full of color and glitz; but it does not provide much depth in any one subject.  Rather, it is designed to intrigue and possibly to lead young minds down other paths of discovery. 

In an age when the eye is pulled quickly from one subject to another through electronic means, a print version must be eye-catching and appealing.  I think that is what the authors intended for this work. 

The reader will find a great many fascinating subjects from rocks, history, science, splurges, to lights and beyond. Young readers will enjoy looking at the pictures, and more advanced readers will find fascinating tidbits to share with their friends.  I recommend it for elementary and middle school libraries. /:c

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Her Own Two Feet by Meredith Davis and Rebekah Uwitonze

07 Sunday Jul 2019

Posted by truebooktalks in Children's Books, Children's Non-fiction, Social Issues, Uncategorized

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Christian non-fiction, courage, disabilities, faith

The subtitle of this book really tells most of the story of the book.  It is an inspiring story of a brave little girl who at nine, with the help of her sponsors, came half way around the world by herself in order to have the chance to walk on her own two feet.  Rebekah had been born with twisted arms and legs and her parents were urged by others in her home in Rwanda to abandon her by the side of the road and let her die.  But her parents refused to do that.  Instead, they encouraged her to do everything that she possibly could do and then go beyond that.

  Doctors in Rwanda tried to straighten her legs once when she was about four, but it didn’t work.  Rebekah could not walk to school, so her younger sister taught her everything she was learning each evening when she came home.  Rebekah taught herself to walk, instead of crawling around on the ground.  However, she had to walk on the tops of her feet since her feet were twisted all the way to the back.  Nevertheless, she persisted, and although she never could get her arms to work correctly, she learned how to eat and brush her teeth.  One day she found out that a person from America had sponsored her, providing her family with a guarantee of food and a chance for her to go to school.  This is itself encouraged her to keep up working toward her goal of walking and going to school. 

She did not know that her sponsor was a doctor in America.  One day another family who had sponsored children from her village came to visit them.  Mr. Clay Davis saw her need and realized that he knew her sponsor and that her sponsor, Dr. Rice, might be able to find another doctor who could help Rebekah walk.  Thus began the saga of Rebekah’s struggle to be able to walk.  Her father and mother knew that she had lived for a reason, and so they were able to let their little girl go to a strange land with people they did not know to find the help they could not give. 

The author of the book is Mrs. Clay Davis. Meredith and Clay Davis not only helped Rebekah come to the U.S. They provided a home for her and treated her as their own daughter through the years that she had to undergo treatments and surgeries. She tells Rebekah’s story from her firsthand knowledge and uses Rebekah’s words to explain all of Rebekah’s emotional turmoil.

I think this book deserves a place in every library.  It is a testimony to the power of faith and perseverance.  While the people involved in the story are obviously Christian, the story is not overtly about their faith.  It shines through, though, because faith is like that.  When it exists, people notice, even if editors may have pruned out overt religious references. Buy this for your upper elementary and middle school children – even if it is only for the cultural references which abound in the book.

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The Dragon With a Chocolate Heart by Stephanie Burgis

29 Wednesday Nov 2017

Posted by truebooktalks in Children's Books, Fantasy

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Children's books, dragons, Fantasy, Fiction

Aventurine is a young female dragon who wants to explore the world outside her family’s lair. Her adventure into the unknown has disastrous results when she meets a food wizard who gives her enchanted chocolate which turns her into a human.

Aventurine falls madly in love with chocolate and wants more of it. She eventually is taken in as an apprentice to a famous chocolatier and begins to learn how to make the best chocolate in the kingdom. She also makes a friend of a young girl in the town.

Unfortunately, her dragon family is trying to find her, and Aventurine must decide how to stop them from destroying the world she must now live in. This is a cute story for elementary readers, grades 3-6. I recommend its purchase because it is a very unique approach to dragon tales.

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Welcome to New Zealand: a Nature Journal by Sandra Morris

05 Thursday May 2016

Posted by truebooktalks in Children's Books, Non-Fiction, science

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Children's books, Science, watercolors, writing

welcome to new zealand

When I found this book available for review, I hoped that this might be a book about the flora and fauna of New Zealand, a place that has long fascinated me.  I was mistaken.  It is about how to make a journal of one’s own environment.  The author informs the reader what to look for in his/her own neighborhood, and gives examples of the materials needed.  She also give suggestions of how to enter the findings into a nature journal.

The artwork is done by the writer.  It is mostly watercolor and pen and ink drawings.  It is very pretty and welcomes the eye to explore the pages, even as it encourages the reader to explore the out-of-doors.  It does have a glossary and an index to aid in research.  I recommend this book for the elementary reader, ages nine through twelve.

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Jump Back, Paul by Sally Derby

08 Friday Jan 2016

Posted by truebooktalks in Children's Books, History, Non-Fiction

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Children's books, History, Paul Laurence Dunbar

jump back

This well-researched, excellently written biography of Paul Laurence Dunbar will be one that middle school and high school libraries will definitely want in their collection. Along with Dunbar’s life story, Derby also gives the reader a sampling Dunbar’s poetry.  She tells the reader how to read the dialect poems so that the words sound like actual speech.

The facts about Dunbar’s life are delivered in a chatty style that make the reader feel as if Derby were talking directly to him or her. She even uses the first person pronoun, “I” at times to make the reader think that she has first-hand knowledge of what she is telling him about Dunbar.  Sean Qaulls completes the book with his pen and ink sketches for the book.  I loved the use of pen and ink as the medium for the drawings since the book itself is about a man whose life was using pen and ink. Derby presents us with a chronology of events that affected Dunbar’s life.  She includes extra notes and information about each chapter, a bibliography for those who want to know more about him, and an index for the researcher.

I suppose that Derby could not cover everything about Dunbar’s life, and perhaps some of the facts, such as his alcoholism and drug addiction, might be difficult for younger readers to fully understand.  However, I think she paints his wife, Alice, as more of a villain than she actually is.  Her parents were upwardly-mobile blacks and were very upset that she had married a man with such dark skin. Dunbar’s mother was upset that he had chosen Alice over her and that Alice was very light in color.  I believe that both sides had a great deal to do with their separation, and I think it was especially sad that Alice did not receive any communication from his mother when he became very ill.  Alice had asked a family friend that she be notified if he got worse because she wasn’t on good terms with his mother; however, that friend suddenly died shortly before Dunbar passed away.  None of this changes my opinion about the quality of this book.   I still highly recommend it for upper elementary and high school readers.

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Just a Teacher’s Pet by Mercer Mayer

16 Monday Nov 2015

Posted by truebooktalks in Children's Books

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Children's books

Scan0087
A new girl comes to school. She ingratiates herself to the teacher by doing all sorts of favors for her. She bosses the other kids around by telling them what to do and when to be quiet. These behaviors rankle the rest of the class. Then, when the children play a ballgame with the older kids, the statement is actually made,”But at least the teacher’s pet can’t tell us what to do.” However, the teacher tells them not to forget to invite the new girl to play. During the game, the new girl hits a home run, and their class wins the game. After that, all the kids want her on their team.
This is a cute little story about how children really do treat each other. It is a good beginning reader. I definitely recommend it for the primary school library.

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Forces of Nature by Nate Ball

16 Monday Nov 2015

Posted by truebooktalks in Children's Books, Science Fiction

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Children's books, Fiction, political fiction, Sci-Fi, Science

This is number 6 of The Alien in My Pocket series. Zach McGee and Amp, the small alien that lives with him go on a family camping trip. Amp wasn’t supposed to go, but Zach’s little brother left the door to his room open, and Amp came along without Zach knowing it. Zach’s friend, Olivia, who knows about Amp, was allowed to come along with the family on the trip. Zach, Amp, and Olivia manage to get lost in the woods, but Amp teaches them how to make a compass that works, and they find their way out of the woods.

While the story, by itself is a interesting, I like the extra science information given both in the story and at the end of the book. Elementary readers will enjoy reading more of the adventures of Zach and Amp, and they will learn more about science as they read.Scan0084

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Bridget Wilder: Spy-in-Training by Jonathan Bernstein

16 Monday Nov 2015

Posted by truebooktalks in Children's Books

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adventure, Children's books, spy stories

Bridget Wilder’s family sometimes treats her as if she doesn’t exist. They even forgot her birthday. To be fair, they are only her adoptive family. They took her in when her own parents disappeared. However, someone knows it is her birthday because they gave her a goody bag with strange things in it: dorky glasses, gross-flavored lip gloss and a broken smartphone.
Her world begins to change – and so does she – when the phone begins to ring, and she receives her first assignment as a CIA super agent. She is introduced to Section 23, a covert CIA department so secret that the CIA doesn’t even acknowledge that it exists. She even finds out that her real father is Carter Strike, a top CIA agent involved in saving the world. However, she soon learns that things are not always as they seem; and not everyone can be trusted.
This is a cute little story for elementary readers in grades 4-8 that just might turn into a Bridget Wilder series
bridget wilder

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Petlandia by Peter Hannan

28 Thursday May 2015

Posted by truebooktalks in Children's Books, Political fiction

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Children's books, Peter Hannan, political fiction, political power

petlandia

When the Finkelblurts, the humans who live in the same house as the cat, Madame Wigglesworth, bring home a dog named Grub, Madame Wigglesworth is NOT pleased.  She especially dislikes how much attention the dog is getting.

She begins to suffer from “stark-raving nutjob-it is” or AWK “aggravated wackadoodle disorder.” She decides the humans must be punished for hurting her so much.  In order to do this she enlists the help Honeybaked, the hamster and Clowney, the fish. Together they cause so much chaos they kick out the humans and establish Petlandia.

But, when Grub, not Madame Wigglesworth, is elected as president of Petlandia, she goes into over-drive and sets out to bring in more voters to Petlandia to get her rightful position as president. She enlists the help of the rats who live in the basement, but Honeybaked then goes to the attic and enlists the bats. So, the battle for Petlandia begins.  More and more voters are brought in until Petlandia actually falls. It is a cute little chapter book similar to Animal Farm about political power and the corruption it can bring.

Because of the upcoming presidential elections, it may pick up readership. One cannot help but see the similarities between Madame Wigglesworth and Hillary Clinton. A political fiction for little kids, is that is good idea.? You be the judge. It is a good story for the elementary reader in grades three- five. I recommend it for those readers.

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A Penny For Your Thoughts by Pat Brown

01 Friday May 2015

Posted by truebooktalks in Children's Books, Picture Books

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Bullying, Children's books, multiculturalism, Picture Book, racial issues

a penny for your thought

Today we are experiencing much racial unrest and divide in our society. I would like to offer my book, A Penny for Your Thoughts, as a way of discussing racial differences with a Christian perspective.  How a little boy begins to understand the reason for differences of skin color is theme of this story.

This book began to take root in my mind many years ago while I was attending college. I started to think that our racial problems would begin to disappear when enough intermarriage occurred so that we were all tan or brown in color.

However, as time went on I began to learn that we need to appreciate our differences, and that God didn’t make a mistake when He mad us different in color.

Time passed and my daughter married an African-American (He gets upset when I say that.  He says, “I am an American, and I have black skin: I am not some hyphenated American). I use that phrase because it seems to be the most acceptable one for our culture in spite of what my son-in-law believes.  My daughter had two boys. The older of the two has lighter skin than his brother.  The younger boy asked me one day when he was about three, “Grandma, when will my skin look like yours and mom’s.” I told him that it would never look like ours, but that wasn’t a mistake because God made him just the way he should be.

From that conversation grew the story you will find in A Penny For Your Thoughts.  It is available from me or through Amazon. A few libraries also carry it. It is a picture book intended for Pre-K through grade two – or as a read-aloud.

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