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Gratitude canBenefit Children
Honeycake: Counting All My Blessings teaches children about the importance of gratitude and how to focus on what matters most. Why is this an important lesson for kids to learn?
Firstly, I would like to say thank you for conducting this author interview. I’m so honoured and grateful to be given this platform to discuss the importance and the valuable lessons my books will give families around the world.
After reading Honeycake: Counting All My Blessings, I hope my readers come away with incorporating gratitude in their everyday lives. Most parents have taught their kids the importance of saying thank you by grade school, if not sooner. But how many have truly instructed them in the art of being grateful? You can be grateful for a wide range of “gifts,” everything from nature and good food to good luck or a wonderful opportunity for the people in your life. A sense of gratitude can benefit children (and adults) in a variety of ways. It can decrease stress and has other important emotional health benefits. A person who is grateful tends to spend less time comparing him or herself with others and feeling envious. I also feel that it’s important to showcase that we need to be grateful when things don’t go our way, or when we make a mistake. It’s through those challenges we have to overcome, that we learn our greatest lessons in life. Ultimately gratitude can help adults and children alike, and the best thing parents can do is be a good role model for their children. So, the next time something good — or even not so good — happens, express your appreciation out loud, start a gratitude journal, and start and end your day with what you are grateful for. Everyone will benefit from it.
Nala has to deal with feelings of jealousy when a new baby arrives. Is this something inspired from your own life?
Yes, this was inspired by my own daughter Shanaz’s reaction when her little brother Jean-Diar (JD) was born. She was only 15 months old at the time but I made sure we taught her the importance of gratitude and how to count all her blessings even at that age.
Where did the idea for the ‘green eyed monster’ come from?
Jealousy can lead even the nicest people to become angry or green with envy. That’s why it’s often referred to as the ‘green-eyed monster’. Because it’s so universal in human nature, jealousy is a common theme in storytelling, so I thought it would be a good metaphor for children to relate too.
What plans do you have to continue the Honeycake series?
I will be taking a break after this book, to focus on a bigger project. I have partnered up with a production company and my Co-Creator Lanette Ware-Bushfield CEO of AWWB Production Inc. is helping me take the Honeycake Book Series and adapting it into a tv series, which is being pitched to major television and animation studios.
I do plan to come back with another 5 books in the Honeycake series, with our heroine Nala and her little brother Luka when they are a little older with books that are geared for middle graders.
Author Links: GoodReads | Twitter | Facebook | Website | Amazon
This book teaches children the importance of gratitude and how to focus on what matters most in life. Showing gratitude is a great way to find balance in the materialistic culture we live in today.
With the help of her grandmother, Nala learns the importance of gratitude and how being thankful for all the wonderful things she has in her life equips her with a powerful tool to make those icky feelings of jealousy from the “Green-Eyed Monster” disappear.
Don’t Step on the Spider
Don’t Step on the Spider is a charming children’s picture book that educates readers on the importance of life and how every insect benefits mother nature and brings balance to the ecosystem. Kirk Raeber accomplishes this with very easy language and a cute comic art style.
Young Tim is at his grandparent’s house when he decides to go out and play and encounters a spider. He’s about to step on it, like I think most people would do, but is stopped by his grandfather. His grandfather tells him that every creature has a right to live, and to prove his point he takes Tim on a jaunt through the forest to meet many more insect friends.
Every insect they meet along the way is adorable and friendly, and each one explains how they contribute to the ecosystem. There is plenty to learn in this book, even I learned about the importance of ants! This is a great book for early readers or for parents and teachers to read to children. This book provides many opportunities to discuss nature and how everyone has a role. Don’t Step on the Spider skillfully informs and entertains young readers and is one book I can see reading several times.
Pages: 35 | ASIN: B0842DJSWV
Mattie Boombalatty
Mattie Boombalatty by Wayne Gerard Trotman is a children’s illustrated short story that follows Mattie Boombalatty as she moves to a new town and falls victim to bullying by her new schoolmates. Trotman’s simple yet profound lesson about morality, combined with the book’s vivid and lively illustrations makes this a fantastic book for children.
Nhat Hao Nguyen, the illustrator of the book, is a skilled artist who makes each scene and character come to life. He uses vivid colors that pop, and his life-like yet cherub-like character illustrations add just the right amount of magic and realism to this children’s picture book. His attention to detail on each page is fantastic.
Trotman’s message about treating others who treat us lesser than we deserve is, as aforementioned, simple yet poignant. Mattie faces many anxieties that are understandable and normal for a school-aged girl. Some of her schoolmates decide for no reason that they do not like her and, as mean schoolchildren do, they make their feelings known. As distraught as she is over being taunted by her peers, she displays strength in refusing to wish them ill will, even when she comes across a glowing opportunity to get revenge. Mattie is ultimately rewarded for choosing the high road, and she reaches her happy ending in the story. While we as humans are not always rewarded for rising above our circumstances, Trotman makes it clear that the reward is not what matters – rather, the peace of mind that comes with choosing the right path is what ultimately matters.
Pages: 50 | ISBN-10: 1916184839
The Garden and the Glen – Trailer
“You are all different and all perfect, just as you are. Lately, you have become more than that. Now, you reach beyond yourselves, using your differences to help your friends. That is the magic of belonging.”
A tiny blue butterfly is chased out of a yellow garden because she does not blend in.
She flees to the nearby forest glen, where she encounters a colorful band of woodland creatures-all of them expelled from the garden for the same reason-being different. The glen provides safety, friendship, and acceptance. However, it’s the garden that holds the blue butterfly’s true destiny.
A Queen, a mystical potion, and the fate of their natural world hang in the balance. The blue butterfly, and what makes her different, holds the key.
The Garden and the Glen is about the magic that finds us when we’re brave enough to be our unique selves.
The Ultimate Love
Nadeem was just 25 years old when he passed away after a short, but painful illness, however he lives on in the tireless efforts of his mother, Sherine Anniruth, to memorialize his life. The Ultimate Love is as much about Nadeem, the central figure that binds together the chapters of the book, as it is about his mother’s grief over his loss, in all its unimaginable dimensions. Anniruth’s grief comes in waves, some that reduce her to tears, others that almost obliterate her ability to continue with daily life. And her work serves as an open letter to anyone experiencing the same pain, wondering how they could possibly live on after their child has gone.
The Ultimate Love is a work of deep and startling honesty, but not one likely to fly off the shelves. Anniruth struggles to keep her emotions down long enough in order to analyze and discuss her grief, rather than to be caught up in the depths of it. Perhaps it’s not possible to capture such a deep sense of grief in words, let alone review a work that details a mother’s unending love for a lost child. As Anniruth herself says, “each person’s struggle is different”, and her experience of grief is hers alone. The Ultimate Love is less a novel and more of a guide to living through loss, authored by a loving, abundantly caring mother who asks how the world could dare to move on, when she’ll never be able to do the same. She tries to find positive affirmations and an overarching meaning for what happened to her son – a young man we sadly, barely come to know in the book, falling back on her faith for support.
What Anniruth has written is more a testament to the fragility of life, to its cruelties, and to our natural, built-in resilience to continuing on in the face of loss. As she carries the ghost of her son with her, she is herself transformed by the act of keeping him close to her heart. It’s not an easy read, for more reasons than one, but a book that’s bound to touch those who find themselves in the same position as Anniruth, and trying to cope with what feels like an insurmountable loss. Her parting gift to us as an author is to try and face it all, her grief, her hopes, her fears, and the small ways in which life does go on, while memory never fades.
Pages: 125 | ASIN: B0871MW1M9
Honeycake: Counting All My Blessings
When there’s a new baby in your home, it’s easy for a child to feel jealous or forgotten because the baby will need lots of attention and care. But having the right people there for you can change everything. You can learn to be thankful for all the things in your life instead of focusing on the bad things.
Honeycake: Counting All My Blessings, by Medea Kalantar is a touching story about a little girl named Nala that has to deal with all the attention being placed on her newborn brother. She begins to wonder why her brother is getting gifts and why he’s, seemingly, more important than her. Lucky for her, Nala has a wonderful family member to talk her through it and teach her to count her blessings. She learns all about the Green-Eyed Monster and its negative effects on her. She learns to be thankful for everything in her life and to accept this new change as the blessing that it is.
The way the author is able to send a message to young readers about the importance of being thankful is amazing. She is able to write in a way that would capture any child’s attention. I enjoyed the cute and emotive drawings that do a great job of showing how Nala is feeling. This makes it easy for any reader to relate to Nala. Not only do children get an eye-catching story but they learn an important life lesson.
Honeycake: Counting All My Blessings is definitely one of the most educational books for a child to read. It teaches thing not often taught in school. Young readers will learn about gratitude and thankfulness towards things in their lives.
Pages: 37 | ASIN: B08FPK3Q53
Captain Fantastic
I’ve Got You is a fun space adventure that explores fear and helping friends overcome it. Why was this an important theme for this book?
For me, it was super important to get this book out during Covid-19 as I wanted to help any children feeling lonely and to make sure they never felt alone! It times of trouble we must stay together and look after those in need the most.
This is book one in your Captain Fantastic series. What can readers expect in book two?
The next book is ‘Captain Fantastic and the Chocolate Planet’ and will be ready for Christmas 2020:
“Good grief,” cried the captain “we’re space monster stew!
Or perhaps it’s an ogre, a witch or some new
Strange kind of monster, a space ghoul or mummy.”
“Captain,” said Winston, “I think it’s my tummy!”
Author Links: Website | Twitter | Facebook
Winston is one of the bravest dogs in the universe. He’s travelled through space and battled monsters with his best friend, Captain Fantastic, but there’s one thing that still scares him.
Come along on this adventure to find out what makes Winston tremble, and discover how Captain Fantastic comforts his loyal space dog so he’s once again a happy, waggy-tailed space hero.
First in the exciting new series of intergalactic adventures, based on the awesome and educational Captain Fantastic parties.
“In this lovely story about friendship and fears is an important message about being there for each other and being able to face our fears when we have someone to face them with. Now more than ever, this is an important message for children – I’ve Got You is like having a hug delivered in the form of a storybook.” Dr Gummer, Good Play Guide
The Magical Mistake
The Magical Mistake is an adorable children’s book about a farmer who participates in his towns Annual Harvest Tasting only to find a magical cursed berry, supposedly ridded from the land, in his harvest cart. Before he’s able to remove the berry from the cart the Mayor has already begun tasting it. With the towns Mayor cursed by a magical berry farmer John must rush to find a cure.
Kaavya Shah provides young readers with a delightful story that helps build their vocabulary by introducing new words, in an easy to understand context. The glossary provided at the end of the book helps provide everything readers will need to get a full understanding of new vocabulary words and how to use them. With only two characters in this story, there is still quite a fantastical world created here. The supposedly cursed berry is not what it turns out to be, leaving readers with a bit of a mystery, but this opens the story to a continuation in a series that could explore further what this berry is. I would have liked to have seen farmer John come up with a solution to the curse, or at least provide a little backstory to the berry. As it is, it seems that the problem at the heart of the story seems to just resolve it self. Every page of the book is brightly colored and accompanied by cute vector art that suited the story well. The Magical Mistake is an entertaining story that will also build young readers vocabularies.
Pages: 28 | ASIN: B08BW511YD
LITERARY TITAN 