The Girl in the Well is Me

This is another unusual book for kids.

In The Girl in the Well is Me the main character, Kammie, was tricked by girls at her new school to participate in a fake initiation into their clique and, as a result, falls deeply into an abandoned well.

Nearly the entire book consists of her thoughts and physical sensations during the experience of being trapped in that terrible situation, not knowing if she'll ever be rescued or not.

Karen Rivers has done an amazing job of keeping the readers attention while describing the girl's suffering.

Kammie's thoughts and memories inform us of her drama-filled life up to the present time and realistically portray what it must be like, both physically and emotionally, to be trapped like that.

I was a bit disappointed that we don't find out if the girls who got her trapped in the first place have any consequences, but the story isn't about them and the main character's results are very satisfying.

But there's potential for a future story about the same characters, and I hope Karen Rivers writes it.

Devotional for Kids

Kisses From Heaven is another book with an original concept. If you've read many of my blog posts you know that always appeals to me.

This book is a daily devotional for young children. I've never seen one of those for this age group before.

Each of the 66 pages has a Bible verse and just a few words that can be read to a child. And little ones won't care that the meter or rhyme aren't always perfect because the concepts will appeal to them.

This book would be good to read to kids before bed ,or during family worship times.

It could also be used at Sunday School classes or Christian pre-schools.

And children will enjoy the cute,  black and white illustrations drawn by the author, Nancy Rogers Schlact. (It must be nice to be multi-talented.)

Here's what the cover looks like:

Devotional for Kids

Kisses From Heaven is another book with an original concept. If you've read many of my blog posts you know that always appeals to me.

This book is a daily devotional for young children. I've never seen one of those for this age group before.

Each of the 66 pages has a Bible verse and just a few words that can be read to a child. And little ones won't care that the meter or rhyme aren't always perfect because the concepts will appeal to them.

This book would be good to read to kids before bed ,or during family worship times.

It could also be used at Sunday School classes or Christian pre-schools.

And children will enjoy the cute,  black and white illustrations drawn by the author, Nancy Rogers Schlact. (It must be nice to be multi-talented.)

Here's what the cover looks like:

Sloth the Lazy Dragon

Sloth is a gigantic dragon who spends his time sitting on a pile of treasures.

But he's very fat, although that word isn't used in the book. In fact he's so overweight he can't even fly.

Then a dwarf named Radish offers to help him so the dragon won't frighten him and the other dwarves and Sloth accepts the offer.

This book by Regan W. H. Macaulay will be an encouragement for kids to eat a healthy diet and stay active so, eventually, they can stretch their wings and fly like the dragon in the story.

And I won't give away what happens to the treasure.

Alex Zgud created illustrations that show the story well.

Mokey's New Friends

It isn't likely that a monkey would escape from a zoo in real life, but in Mokey's New Friends, Mokey the Monkey's escape sets the premise for a great story.

Mokey is a cute little monkey and, as he explores the world outside of his usual environment (the zoo,) he makes some interesting new friends. 

First he gets to know a donkey, and then a squirrel. Both of them are different from the monkey in many ways, but they cooperate and have fun together.

Anyone who often reads my posts knows I care a lot about helping kids accept others who are different, and Connie Arnold does exactly that in this book. I hope as a result of enjoying this warm and cheerful story, lots of children who read it or hear it read will consider making friends with kids who are different from themselves. I believe that will probably happen.

The bright and creative illustrations by Marina Movshina will add to the children's enjoyment of the book.

FairyTale Town

Next Saturday I'll be giving a presentation at FairyTale Town in Sacramento, CA about one of my books. I'll be one of many authors at the ScholarShare Children's Book Celebration.

I'll be sharing with the kids about one of my books, Slime & All and expect to have a good time doing so.  As a parent, grandparent and former teacher, I love spending time with kids.

But something surprising has happened.

I found out one of the people presenting immediately after me is a distant relative. And I do mean distant.

His name is Andy Domek and I think he's my second cousin's cousin's son-in-law, but I may have missed someone in between.

I have a very complicated group of people who I see at family gatherings and consider them all family, but the relationships are hard to keep straight.

When we got married my husband soon gave up on figuring out who was a second cousin twice removed or a Cousin's cousin's grandchild and coined the term, step-neighbor-in-law, to refer to all of them.

So, besides meeting some wonderful kids and telling them about my book, this weekend I'll get to see one of my step-neighbors-in law at FairyTale-Town.

And that sounds sort of like a fairy tale itself. ;-)

Clever Camel

I always enjoy retellings of classic tales, but this story from the Middle East is a retelling of one I hadn't heard before. It's about a camel who wants his master to let him sleep in the tent on a cold night. As the title says, the camel is clever.

But what I like best about the book is the way it shows the environment and culture in a few, well-written pages.

I especially enjoyed the poetic description of the sunset.

"Even the stars trembled in the cold" is a perfect example of showing, instead of telling readers about the atmosphere and preparing us for the camel's motivation to get into the tent.

The author, Chitra Soundar, grew up in India, so she knows a lot about Middle Eastern cultures and environment.

And Eugene Ruble did a great job with the illustrations.

Kids will enjoy Clever Camel and learn from it as well.