This is a super cute picture book about sharing and playing together. Kids can learn a lot about commraderie in this book and how people who are different can still join in the fun. We just have to be open to it.
It also discusses the importance of including everyone and not discriminating. These are all great lessons for kids.
4 Stars
Reviewed by: Irene S. Roth
Author and Editor
Meet Suzanne Lieurance
I’m so excited to be here to kick off the 5-day virtual tour for my book, The Lucky Baseball – My Story in a Japanese-American Internment Camp.
Let me tell you a little bit about how I decided to start writing for children and how I came up with the idea for this particular book.
I actually started writing for children when I was in 5th grade. My teacher, Mrs. Smith, used to let us put on plays for the class every Friday. The only requirement was that we write the scripts for these plays ourselves. A few of my classmates and I got together and came up with an idea for our first play. I was the one chosen to write the script. Later, when we performed our little story in front of the class, everyone loved it. They laughed in the right places, cheered in the right places, even gasped and booed in the right places, so I was hooked on writing. I was a bit shy for the acting, but I loved seeing how the audience reacted to what I had written. I wrote more plays that year, although, for the life of me, I can’t remember what any of them were about, and the scripts were thrown away long ago, which is too bad. It would have been fun to reread them now.
Anyway, I loved writing from those days on. I didn’t write more scripts. Instead, I wrote stories and poems. My poems were pretty bad. But I think my stories were okay. These days, I’m more likely to be writing nonfiction that fiction. Yet I still love to write fiction and I’m usually working on assignments for both nonfiction and fiction.
I hope you’ll read and enjoy The Lucky Baseball- My Story in a Japanese-American Internment Camp. This is actually the second book I’ve written for the middle grade historical fiction adventures series from Enslow Publishers. The first novel I wrote for that series is called The Locket – Surviving the Triangle Shirtwaist Fire.
If you have any questions about any of my books or about writing for children, just leave them here as a comment. I’ll be checking in all week and answering any questions that have been left for me.
To learn more about my books, please visit my author site at www.suzannelieurance.com or visit the Working Writer’s Club online at www.workingwritersclub.com and sign up for The Morning Nudge!
Happy reading!
P.S. Follow Day 2 of my tour tomorrow at http://www.donna-mcdine.blogspot.com
Heebie-Jeebie Jamboree
By Mary Ann Fraser
This is a colorful picture book for kids of all ages. I know this book will delight many kids. It may be especially useful at Halloween.
Rating: 3 stars
Irene S. Roth
Author and Editor
The Lonely Book
By Kate Bernheimer
Illustrated by: Chris Sheban
Who would have thought that a book could get lonely? In this wonderfully cute picture book, a popular brand new book is taken out of the library over and over again. Then after a while, because it is not as new, it is placed in the children’s section and is still taken out a lot. Then one day, the book isn’t as popular any more and it stays at the library more and more. The book gets extremely lonely. Will someone come and rescue the book from loneliness?
What a unique book! I plan to read this book with my nieces and nephews. Hopefully, they will be enthralled with books from then on and make sure that many of their books aren’t lonely at the library.
Reviewed by Irene S. Roth, Author and Editor
What a thought-provoking picture book for kids about adoption.
It is about a baby, Nini. She loves her life in the womb, and loves the comfort and warmth. Then one day, she is born and taken into a colder place, some place where she doesn’t recognize anyone.
The illustrator (who also wrote the book) does a great job illustrating the ideas in the book. Through the illustrations, the child will be able to visualize what it means to be in the womb. Also, the child will be able to freely discuss adoption and how there is always hope for a little baby. This book will open a lot of different discussions for parents and children. What a gem of a book!
Rating: 5 stars
Reviewed by: Irene S. Roth
Meet Mayra Calvani
First of all, I’d like to thank Irene Roth for having me on her blog and Donna McDine for putting this virtual blog tour together.
To be honest, I never thought I’d become a children’s book author. I started writing fiction when I was about 12, but back then I wrote supernatural stories. My taste for the paranormal continued throughout my teens, twenties and early thirties. It wasn’t until I had my second child that, somehow, I got bitten by the children’s writing bug.
Reading all those picture books to my kids at night was the biggest influence. So, one day, I decided to sit down and write a children’s story. That first story eventually became my first published children’s book, Crash!
Since then, I’ve never looked back. I’ve always compared writing for children with walking on a rainbow (in fact, this is the name of my picture book writing workshop). The world of writing for children is a world full of color, imagination and possibilities.
I still write fiction and nonfiction for adults, but I have to admit that children’s literature, including teen fiction, is my new passion.
My latest children’s title, The Water Cycle: Water Play Series Book 1, for ages 4-8, follows the water droplets in their journey from the clouds to the earth and back to the clouds again. Written in a lyrical style, the book takes a new angle on the water cycle by showing the feelings it evokes in people. It also has fun learning activities at the end.
Here’s the first review!
“Written in Calvani’s delightful prose. “Huddle inside the CLOUD high up in the sky, the water droplets are excited,” While also complemented by the imaginative artwork of Alexander Morris’ fun illustrations, makes this book both easy to read and informative. The author also includes for her young readers a word search and glossary learning activity—a great addition to every teacher and homeschool parents’ teaching library.”
Carol Fraser Hagen, Reading specialist and special education teacher.
You can read the complete review at http://www.carolfraserhagen.com/2012/04/30/reading-about-science-book-recommendation
I hope you’ll follow my tour to learn more about me and my work. Tomorrow I’ll be at Donna McDine’s blog, www.donna-mcdine.blogspot.com
Thanks and have a great day!
*****
Purchase The Water Cycle: Water Play Series Book 1 from Guardian Angel Publishing: http://guardianangelpublishing.com/water-cycle.htm
Purchase from Amazon: http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/1616332379/ref=ox_sc_act_title_1?ie=UTF8&m=ATVPDKIKX0DER
About the author: Mayra Calvani writes fiction and nonfiction for children and adults. and has authored over a dozen books, some of which have won awards. Her stories, reviews, interviews and articles have appeared on numerous publications such as The Writer, Writer’s Journal, Multicultural Review, and Bloomsbury Review, among many others. Visit her website at www.MayrasSecretBookcase.com and get the first two lessons of her popular Walking on a Rainbow Picture Book Workshop free!
Title: The Water Cycle: Water Play Series Book 1
Author: Mayra Calvani
Illustrations: Alexander Morris
Genre: Children 4-8
Print ISBN: 9781616332372; 1616332379
eBook ISBN: 9781616332389; 1616332387
Published: March 15, 2012
Pages: 20
Price: $10.95 print; $5.00 e-Book
Publisher: Guardian Angel Publishing, Inc.
http://guardianangelpublishing.com/water-cycle.htm
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