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Living Green and the Spell
In his children’s book about the environment, Living Green and the Spell: The day the plants stood still, but they are still alive, Florian Bushy introduces kids to a world where plants bounce with life and spirit.
Long ago, during the early days of planet Earth, our world was habited exclusively by plants, trees, and flowers, all living harmoniously together, moving around as humans do today. They spread their joy and cheerful nature around, loving and protecting one another. Unexpectedly, a threat arrives in the world of friendly plants: an invader that holds in his heart the terrible purpose of breaking the lively spirits of the plants to turn them still forever. This short story will bring kids closer to the importance of nature and our environment, letting them understand that the world around us, though seemingly still, is full of life.
The author creates an inventive mythical story to explain the hidden life behind every plant in our environment. It’s filled with lovely illustrations that portray the little plants as amicable and humanizes them to the eyes of the reader. The story is simple and quickly familiarizes kids with our environment and its beauty. It also warns them of the dangers humans oftentimes bring to it, trying to make them conscious of their power and the meaningful role they can already start partaking in to try to protect the world that we’ve come to call our home.
The plants portrayed in the story and in each of the illustrations are vivid and energetic. They are happy, cheerful, and radiant. They represent an ideal world, fraternal and peaceful. The dreadful consequences of the damage brought by humans towards the plants can be immediately felt and understood throughout the story, bringing forward the main point: nature can only keep sharing its beauty and life with humans as long as us, as a society, actively decide to protect and take care of it. It’s a beautiful and important message to start passing on to the youngest of generations to create a more positive impact.
Living Green and the Spell is a beautiful and inspirational children’s book that will bring our little ones closer to nature, understanding the importance of environmental care and realizing that our world is shared between humans and other living organisms that are of equal importance and hide in them just as much life as us.
Pages: 32 | ASIN : B09V571BCT
Rooty the Rutabaga: A Story About Vegetables, Inclusion and Seeing the Sunny Side of Life
Rooty the rutabaga is all alone. He sits in a dark patch of the garden, away from all the other vegetables. Rooty has no friends and has never ventured out of his garden corner to discover what is making all the noise he hears on the other side of the plants. Then, one day two peppers are playing and accidentally throw their nut over into Rooty’s corner of the garden. While looking for their nut, they meet Rooty, who is initially rude and unfriendly. Not to be dissuaded, the peppers lead Rooty out into the sun and introduce him to all the rest of the vegetables. Soon he is making friends and learning how to play for the first time ever.
Children’s author Steven Megson has created an entertaining picture book with illustrator Andy Yura to teach kids about inclusion. Kids usually hear about the more common vegetables, like broccoli, carrots, cucumbers, and tomatoes, which are all friends and grow in the bright sun. However, rutabaga is a vegetable that many kids have never heard of. It has a strange name and looks really different. Megson uses this to teach children that even thorough someone is other, they are still part of the community.
The moment that stood out for me was when Rooty was rude to the peppers; they thought about leaving him alone and returning to their friends. Instead, they saw Rooty was lonely and afraid. So they took his hands and led him to meet the rest of their community. It was more than just being kind; it was seeing someone that needed help and taking a chance on them. This is a motivating story to help children learn to identify others needing help and show them ways that, even as children, they can make a difference in their world.
Rooty the Rutabaga: A Story About Vegetables, Inclusion and Seeing the Sunny Side of Life is a heartwarming picture book that children and adults can appreciate and learn from. This is an excellent children’s book for school classrooms and libraries to teach about multicultural groups and the value of kindness.
Pages: 30 | ASIN : B09RG9YW6X
LITERARY TITAN 