Blog Archives
I Can Do What Mommy Can Do
Four-year-old Tess wants to try all the different things that her mother does throughout the day. Together, they fold the laundry, go shopping, build a business, and pray, among a variety of other daily activities. Tess and her mother have a fun-filled day together and we learn that Tess sure can do what her mother does.
This is an inspirational children’s book that shows that, with a little encouragement, young children can do the things that adults do. Readers are taken through various task that Tess’s mother has to complete for the day, and at each one we either learn why it’s important or what might be challenging for Tess. Her mother is wonderfully encouraging at every activity.
This wonderful picture book provides plenty of encouragement for young kids to try things. We should be letting kids try things, so they learn how to do them, and we let them know we’ll be there to help them. I also loved how Tess and her mother are shown growing a business. This adds a fantastic entrepreneurial spirit to the book that many children’s books often lack.
I can Do What Mommy Can Do is a charming picture book that will motivate young readers to try things and to do what their parents do. This kid’s book provides a lot of great bonding experiences, teaching moments, and fun all in one book.
Pages: 23 | ASIN: B08B4YJSY3
Socks Go Missing
The Adventures of Lefty and Righty: The Windy City follows a charming pair of socks on a fun adventure where they experience the sights, sounds, and food of Chicago. How did the idea for Lefty and Righty start and how did that develop into this story?
It kills me every time I do laundry and socks go missing. One evening, instead of blaming my kids for losing them, I said sarcastically “It’s their fault. They climbed out the window and went downtown.” Suddenly, the idea was born and the whole family brainstormed all the fun things they could be up to!
The book contains some fantastic comic art. What was the collaboration process like with illustrator Kenn Vidro?
It was a wonderful experience to collaborate with Kenn, who truly has a gift for capturing characters and places with bold color, excitement, and impeccable detail. Kenn is the father of a family friend, and when I saw his artwork all over their house and through social media, I knew he was the one to bring this story to life.
Chicago is a big place. How did you decide which landmarks and experiences to include in the book?
With our family being huge White Sox fans, I knew immediately that the book had to center around the team – and what a fun pun between the socks and Sox. For the other stops, I honed into the places our family loves to visit. There are some nods to our neighborhood in the book as well, with the L stop and the hot dog stand.
Do you have more adventures planned for Lefty and Righty in future books?
Yes! I’d love to see them travel to other cities, and maybe even get lost in the airport! Now that Kenn and I have given personalities to Lefty and Righty, there are so many fun things they could do!
Author Links: GoodReads | Instagram | Facebook | Website
How Amazing Farming Is
The Little Regenerative Farmer and The Dairy Farm follows a little girl and a farmer who, together, share their love of animals, educate one another, and implement a regenerative agricultural practice. What were some sources that informed the development of this book?
We were inspired by Alexandre Family Farm. They are the first certified Regenerative Dairy farm in the US. The dairy industry is a very very hard area and even harder to develop change in. We were so inspired by their journey, we wanted to share just a tiny look into their world.
How can children in an urban environment support regenerative farming?
We hope our story will inspire parents to help connect their kids to whatever their local farm systems are. If that’s community gardens, trips to local farms, whatever is closest to them, we hope they can reach out and experience how amazing farming is. For those who do not have local farms, we are working with others to try to make farm experiences virtual so all children can experience it on some level.
What was a key life skill that was important for you to include in this children’s book?
There’s a few! The first one was to not just accept what others say is bad or good. Most issues in life are somewhere in between and we love showing how Lina showed the other kids at school that dairy wasn’t bad. It could be! but it also could be wonderful.
The second was to look for the good in people. Her unlikely friendship with the older farmer could have been immediately dismissed because of age or because he didnt farm the way she did. Being open to shared experiences with others, even unlikely candidates, we feel is so important.
What can readers expect in the next book in The Little Regenerative Farmer series?
We are very excited to be working with 3 other amazing farms to continue Lina’s stories. Each farm has barriers and challenges and we are excited to tell their stories through Lina. You can expect a garden focused story, goats, and maybe even an underwater adventure in Lina’s future!
Author Links: GoodReads | Facebook | Website
The story of one little girl’s move to the midwest where she meets an old farmer and they connect through their love of animals. This book is a perfect story of working with others and overcoming adversity to do what you love while helping improve the world.
A must have for those who love the planet and support the regenerative agriculture movement!
Think Like A Kind Spider
What inspired you to write this informative web marketing book, Be a Spider, Build a Web: Sticky Content Marketing for Small Businesses?
I’ve worked with hundreds of small businesses and wanted to give as many people as possible a low cost, accessible map to help their business.
The book started as a full day training event I still run called “MAP IT” where I take small business owners through a marketing action plan.
Over the course of this I developed the analogy of “think like a kind spider” and it grew from there.
I appreciated the frank nature with which you told your story and shared some of the mistakes you made. What was the hardest thing for you to write about?
I am more used to it now but writing about my own failure especially when it came to growing then shrinking our team was tough.
First – we had to let people go and that still smarts. I still feel sad about that.
Second – there’s always a fear that people will judge you on your failings and I had to push through that to tell the best story – what we found on the other side of that.
What were some ideas that were important for you to share in this book?
- Trust is the most important marketing weapon
- Really knowing your values changes everything
- You need to build out the right ‘sticky content web’ for you and then trust the process and be patient. ( there is that trust word again!)
What is one piece of advice you wish someone had given you when you were starting out in the business world?
Price right from the start as if you’ll one day hire someone to do the same work. Pricing structure and profitability can make or break your business as you grow.
Author Links: GoodReads | Twitter | Facebook | Website
You’ll learn:
Why you need a trust bridge
How to identify your content anchors
How to narrow your message
How to create a content plan
Why you need different types of content
How to build your own content web
And you’ll experience growth, more sales, and success as you learn and apply the framework to your small business.
About the Author
For over ten years Rachel Klaver has worked with small business owners on their marketing, with a specific interest in content marketing strategy. As a small business owner, often low on time, and with a distinct aversion to admin, Rachel loves helping other small businesses catch the marketing bug. Her insights and personality shine through her weekly podcast MAP IT Marketing, her weekly column in Stuff and her content on any platform they let her have an account!
Empower Their Unique Purpose
The Unstoppable Artist: Discovering the Artist Inside Yourself is a step-bystep guide to help artists reconnect with their passion for art and create art that speaks to their souls. Why was this an important book for you to write?
I was an art instructor for over 30 years. Students would ask me for specific ways that they thought I could help them, and to the best of my ability, I did. After a while, it became apparent to me that what many of them were really asking for, was to achieve the feeling inside that they really were an artist, not an imposter.
After looking at other art instruction books, I felt that the artist could be better served by empowering inspiration and motivation before expecting the student to spend the time required for skill development.
My message is holistic and/or alchemical because achieving a high level of personal creativity is the result of a vision that their life is a weaving of many elements which combined contain the potentiality to empower their unique purpose.
What were some ideas that were important for you to share in this book?
I really believe that a fresh start with a new direction is possible for any artist who feels that they have reached their peak or have become frustrated with trying and failing to achieve a perceived success.
I am passionate about inspiring beginning artists to see themselves as potential super-heroes, using their talents to change the world.
I hope to encourage artists to explore the variety of ways which their myriad of talents can be combined, so that they can have alternate streams of income.
Fears and anxiety are normal for all people, but for the artist who has such potential beyond themselves, it is critically important to recognize that their creative blocks can be looked at honestly and then released.
I hope to encourage multiple skillset exploration because just like the inside matrix, artistic development benefits from thinking alchemically.
What is one piece of advice you wish someone had given you when you were younger?
That even if I didn’t go to college, I could still be an equally valuable and valid artist. I was handicapped by a messaging of traditional educational hierarchy, which was impossible for me to achieve. Even now, I notice and fight my tendency to compare myself less favorably than those artists with higher education and degrees. It’s the old excuses, the “Yah-But’s” that still occasionally make their presence felt, that prevented me from fully developing my artistic self much earlier in life.
What do you hope is one thing readers take away from your book?
I would love to inspire readers to see and feel the depth of their creative potential; to recognize that their unique creative skills woven together with their highest aspirations can become an unstoppable empowering force to affect change in the world.
Author Links: Facebook | Website | Instagram
In The Unstoppable Artist, author Barbara L. McCulloch guides you through step-by-step projects to empower you on your journey as an inspired, creative artist. Part one helps ignite your deepest passion and opens the door to growth through inspirational stories, exploring possibilities, releasing creative blocks, and projects to discover your higher purpose and empower your artistic journey.
Part two gives you an experience of creating unique art. It offers projects designed to guide you forward with confidence to develop drawing and painting skills, design strong engaging art, master color schemes to create a powerful mood, and explore techniques to develop your personal creative expression.
Through the contributions of ten artists, The Unstoppable Artist shows eight discovery projects, forty-seven skills projects, nineteen study examples, and forty-one illustrations to transform you from stuck to unstoppable, from dreaming to doing, and from craving to creating.
Bertie’s Christmas Adventure
Bertie’s Christmas Adventure by Mandy Woolf is a delightful holiday story that brings cheer and self-confidence. We are introduced to Bertie, a colorful ball that lives in the Toy Library, who watches as all the other toys get ready on Christmas Eve for Santa, but Bertie is too afraid to do anything. When Santa arrives and desperately needs help, will Bertie find his inner strength to overcome his fears and help save Christmas?
Investing in the development of a child’s self-confidence is extremely important, and this imaginative book does just that. Woolf’s talent shines through not by how the story is told but by the brilliance behind the straightforward execution of a great story with deep meaning and heart. The author is not only able to capture the spirit of Christmas through her words but with the adorable illustrations created by Elmira Georgieva. Together they succeed in showing how Bertie learns to see just how much he is truly capable of if he just believes. Santa’s support gave him the small nudges he needed to roll off that shelf and begin his journey of self-belief.
Bertie’s Christmas Adventure is the perfect book for any young reader, especially around the holidays to show the importance of believing in oneself and believing in one another. I would highly recommend this book and will be keeping this one in my own children’s home library.
Pages: 32 | ISBN : 1922670812
Ruby Pi Adventure Series
Ruby Pi Adventure Series is a collection of short stories that takes readers on an adventure through history where they must use STEM skills to solve the mystery. What was the inspiration for the setup to your story?
When I came across the mystifying fact that there is a dramatic drop-off of female STEM students at age 14, this became my challenge. The idea was to write a handful of stories to capture in human terms the wonder of Bayes’ Rule, and the Pythagorean theorem, and the measurement of earth’s curvature. The fact that I know very little math has not stopped me.
It seemed natural to place the stories at critical moments in history – the end of the High Maya, the fall of the Maginot Line, Mao’s Great Leap Forward and subsequent Famine of 1957, Martin Luther King Jr.’s last speech, the launch of Sputnik, George Soros’ assault on the Bank of England, etc.
The project gained momentum until it got out of hand. When I reached ten stories with nine different girl protagonists (Ruby appears twice), I cut the collection into two volumes.
Cleverly, I have surrounded myself with very talented people like Sandra Uve (foreword), Mai Nguyen (illustrator), and book designer Ben Kelley. I think the resulting two volumes give readers good value.
An underlying reason for my tackling STEM topics is that I don’t understand them, and I want to.
What is your background and experience in writing and in math, and how did it help you write the Ruby Pi Adventure Series?
I’m an English teacher, with an interest in history, pulp fiction, and critical thinking, and no aptitude in math. I am therefore the perfect person to tackle these adventure stories.
What were some themes that were important for you to explore in this book?
I felt that, if I could craft an honest story about a girl coming of age — and using math to carve a place in the world for herself and her family — it would be timelessly relevant. Tying my so-so writing talent to a universal set of rules is a positive.
As to specific topics, I wanted to find powerful math concepts that would hook a 14-year- old girl. Bayes’ Rule jumped out because it is such a universal tool for decision-making. Battlefield math is an easy call, and the curvature of sniper fire was a big topic at Valley Forge Military College, where I taught. Forecasting is something that all of our students need to know. The examination of volumes really grew out of the kiln story. I love the legend of Yuri Knorosov and the Maya codex and wanted to place my heroine in the middle of that. Again, that math grew out of the story.
I do not have enough real mathematics in the stories. I am working on a free-to-readers booklet by math teachers as a companion to these stories, to bridge that gap between my fiction and teaching in a classroom.
Will there be a third book in the series, if so, when will it be available?
Yes!! I have mapped out subsequent collections of historical adventures of Botany Girls, Chemistry Girls, Science Girls, Aviation Girls, and more. A Ruby story will end each collection. I hope to collaborate with other writers on these, with me editing some and writing some.
As I look at the history of each discipline, key moments jump out, so there are lots of possibilities.
This is my way of narrativizing science. This is what I have to offer.
I am currently working on “Aviation Girls.” The aim is to post this collection in December, 2023. I hope the next year will also see the completion of an epic, dark sequel to my Suez novella, “The Illustrated Boatman’s Daughter.”
Author Links: GoodReads | Facebook
Websites:
http://www.boatmansdaughter.com
The Adventures of Lefty and Righty: The Windy City
The Adventures of Lefty and Righty by Lori Orlinsky is a charming and educational read. Readers follow Lefty and Righty as they make a mad dash from the dryer and head out on an adventure with the intention to be back home before mom finds out. After finding a White Sox ticket in dad’s jean pocket, Lefty and Righty have a destination in mind. Readers follow this pair’s educational adventure as they explore historical places and landmarks throughout Chicago, Illinois but one must ask, will they make it back in time before Mom realizes they are gone?
Author Lori Orlinsky has provided young readers with a creative tale of two socks all while educating children on the city of Chicago. We have all wondered what happens to our socks when they disappear from the dryer and this engaging read will have your young one’s imagination running wild.
I thought it was cute when Lefty got himself covered in mustard while eating a hot dog and my initial thought was, “oh no, mom will definitely find out now,” which made me laugh. Another amusing part in the story is when I realized that the socks thought the White Sox were actual white socks, and not the sports team, which plays into the innocence of young readers.
The rhyming scheme in the story is a fun treat that pairs well with the comic-style artwork. At the end of the story the author includes background information on the places in Chicago, which I thought to be helpful because I was not aware that the Bean is actually named the Cloud Gate.
I enjoyed following Lefty and Righty throughout their fun-filled exploration of Chicago. This is a perfect children’s book for parents to read to their young ones as an educational experience or to prepare them to travel to Chicago.
Pages: 38 | ISBN: 1637554273
LITERARY TITAN 