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Love, Humor, and Hope
The Little Book of Emmy is a heartwarming story of a tiny blind dog’s journey from danger and hardship to rescue, friendship, and a loving forever home. What was the inspiration for the setup of your story?
It’s a real story based on reality and our experience with Emmy. We thought she was an extraordinary personality and her story needed to be told.
How did you balance the difficult moments of rescue and loss with the book’s warmth and hope?
The balance really came from Emmy herself. She had every reason to be fearful or defeated, but that simply wasn’t who she was. She was joyful, trusting, curious, and incredibly resilient. I tried to let her spirit guide every creative decision in the book. Even when the story moves through rescue, uncertainty, and loss, Emmy’s personality keeps bringing us back to love, humor, and hope. In that sense, the balance wasn’t something I had to manufacture. It grew naturally out of who Emmy was.
What do you hope children understand about animals with disabilities after meeting Emmy?
I hope children understand that being different doesn’t mean being less. Emmy couldn’t see, but she still found her way through the world with curiosity, courage, and a lot of joy. She loved, played, trusted, and connected with people just like any other dog. I’d love for children to come away from her story feeling more compassion for animals with disabilities—and maybe for anyone who experiences the world a little differently.
How do you hope the book influences the way families think about rescue animals?
I hope the book helps families see rescue animals for who they can become, not just for what they’ve been through. Many of them arrive carrying fear, uncertainty, or physical challenges, but they also bring an incredible capacity for trust, affection, and joy. Emmy taught me that giving an animal a second chance can change both lives—the animal’s and the family’s. If her story encourages even one family to look at a rescue animal with a little more patience, compassion, and possibility, that would mean a great deal to me.
Author Links: Website
The Little Book of Emmy
The Little Book of Emmy by Ahavia Scheindlin and Lon Levin follows a tiny blind dog from the dusty streets of Celaya to a safe and loving home. Emmy’s journey includes danger, rescue, friendship, grief, and a second chance at companionship. The story covers a surprising amount of emotional ground while keeping its focus on the dogs and the ways they care for one another.
Emmy is an appealing main character because her blindness is presented as part of how she experiences the world. Her nose guides her, her courage keeps her moving, and her gentle confidence eventually helps the energetic Juanito settle into family life. April, the older golden retriever who first helps Emmy navigate her new home, brings tenderness to the middle of the book. Her death introduces loss in clear, simple language and gives families an opening to talk about why saying goodbye to an animal can hurt so much.
Lon Levin’s illustrations give the picture book much of its emotional pull. Warm golds, browns, and creams create a softly painted look, while expressive close-ups make Emmy’s fear, comfort, and sadness easy to read. The scenes in the pound feel shadowy and confined, and the pictures grow brighter as Emmy finds safety and friendship. Juanito’s caramel-colored fur and lively movements also contrast nicely with Emmy’s quieter presence. Several pages use generous white space and small groups of images, which lets young readers pause over important moments.
This is a compassionate rescue story with a strong sense of place and an unusual willingness to explore both love and grief. Dramatic sound effects such as “RUMBLE, CLANG, SCREEEEECH” add energy for reading aloud, while the repeated acts of kindness keep the story grounded. Younger children may appreciate having an adult beside them during the sadder passages. By the final sunset image, Emmy and Juanito’s shared silhouette feels earned, and the book leaves readers with a warm picture of companionship, resilience, and home.
Lily and the Tooth Fairy
Lily and the Tooth Fairy by Latia Smith, RDH, turns the familiar experience of losing a baby tooth into a playful story about family, imagination, and the mystery of the tooth fairy. Lily spends a sunny day at the beach with Papa, building an elaborate sandcastle, enjoying a picnic, and pretending she’s part of a royal celebration. The story shifts when Lily bites into a blueberry scone and discovers that her loose tooth has finally fallen out. Papa helps her care for the spot where the tooth was lost, then takes the experience in a magical direction by sharing the story of the tooth fairies and what happens to children’s teeth after bedtime.
One of the book’s strongest qualities is the warm relationship between Lily and Papa. Their beach outing feels affectionate and relaxed, with small details such as Papa preparing food, joining Lily’s pretend royal banquet, helping her clean her tooth, and later telling her a family story about tooth fairies. Those moments make the book feel like more than a story about losing a tooth. It’s also about the way adults can turn an ordinary childhood milestone into something memorable. The rhyming text keeps the story moving, and the progression from beach adventure to bedtime fantasy gives young readers plenty of changes in setting and mood.
The fairy mythology adds an imaginative layer that gives the second half of the picture book its own personality. Papa explains that fairies have different jobs and that one group collects children’s fallen teeth, which leads naturally into Lily dreaming that she’s a fairy herself. In her dream, she can turn gold into coins, while the real tooth fairy arrives to collect her tooth. By morning, Lily finds shiny gold coins under her pillow, connecting the dream world neatly with what happened during the night. That sequence should be especially fun for children who are already curious about the tooth fairy tradition because it gives them a whole hidden world to picture.
The illustrations are a major part of the book’s appeal. The beach scenes are bright and busy, with umbrellas, waves, sandcastles, food, families, and playful background details that give children plenty to look at beyond the main action. Later, the nighttime fairy scenes switch to deeper skies, glowing wings, moonlight, and sparkling magic, which helps the fantasy section feel visually distinct from Lily’s everyday world. Lily’s expressions remain cheerful and easy to read throughout, and Papa’s friendly presence helps the more practical moments, like dealing with the lost tooth, feel reassuring.
Lily and the Tooth Fairy is a cheerful and imaginative take on a childhood milestone that blends family warmth, dental awareness, and fairy-tale adventure in a way that feels accessible for young readers.
Pages: 38 | ASIN : B0H6NN6B75
Babies on Board Part 1 (a Grumpy the Iguana and Green Parrot Adventure)
Babies on Board Part 1 is a gentle adventure about friendship, family, curiosity, and looking out for others. The story begins with Little Mouse choosing a wish for a family beach day, which brings Grumpy the Iguana, Green Parrot, and the reluctant Mr. Squirrel along for the outing. That simple setup works well because each character brings a different personality to the group. Little Mouse is enthusiastic, Grumpy is supportive, Green Parrot is knowledgeable, and Mr. Squirrel provides some light comedy with his complaints about the beach and especially the sand.
The beach trip soon becomes more than a day of swimming and relaxing. The friends discover a protected sea turtle nest, and Green Parrot explains that the baby turtles will soon hatch and make their way toward the ocean. The story then adds a bit of suspense when Little Mouse falls off a paddleboard and disappears beneath the water. His rescue by a giant sea turtle gives the adventure an exciting turn while also connecting the book’s themes of kindness and friendship. The turtle remembers that Grumpy and Green Parrot once rescued him, so his help feels like a meaningful return of that earlier kindness.
Illustrator Natalia Loseva uses bright, soft colors and expressive animal characters that make the story easy to follow for young readers. Some of the funniest images come from the characters’ reactions, such as Grumpy’s enormous worried eyes after Little Mouse falls into the ocean and Mr. Squirrel examining his sandy paws with obvious disgust. The ocean pages also shift the mood nicely, moving from sunny beach scenes to large stretches of deep blue water that make Little Mouse’s disappearance feel more dramatic. The pictures often carry the emotion of a scene before the text fully explains it, which should make the book especially enjoyable to read aloud with children.
What I enjoyed most is how naturally the story mixes an adventure with ideas about family, helping others, and caring for wildlife. The sea turtle storyline gives children something real to be curious about, while the characters keep the picture book playful and warm. By the end, the friends are preparing to return that night to help protect the baby turtles as they make their journey to the sea, leaving the story on a clear cliffhanger. Since the final page promises “To Be Continued,” this first part feels like the beginning of a larger adventure, and the combination of humor, mild suspense, colorful artwork, and affectionate friendships gives young readers plenty of reason to want to see what happens next.
Pages: 38 | ASIN : B09B5CKMNK
Welcome to our OOL
No Pea in the Pool follows a sweet little pea who is ready for a day of swimming with her friends when she realizes she forgot one very important thing before leaving home: going potty! What was the inspiration for your story?
It took me over a decade to write this book, get it illustrated, publish it, and put it out into the world… and it all started when I was on tour as a songwriter and decided to go swimming at a hotel we were staying at while on the road.
As I was walking toward the chairs to set my towel down, I noticed a sign that read:
“Welcome to our OOL. Please leave the P out of it!”
It’s a good thing no one else was on the pool deck because I burst out laughing. It was hilarious!
Afterward, I was telling my husband about the sign, but just thinking about it cracked me up again, and he couldn’t understand a word I was saying. In between giggles, I finally got it out: “The sign says OOL, so there’s no P in the Pool.”
That’s when it hit me. I saw the character so clearly in my mind.
What if it hadn’t been the letter P… but an adorable little pea who wanted to go swimming? What if there was some reason this pea couldn’t go in the pool?
That was the moment NO PEA IN THE POOL was born.
When I started working on it, I used my songwriting background to create my children’s book in a lyrical, rhyming style.
What do you think makes humor such an effective way to introduce practical lessons to young children?
When stories are fun to read, kids revisit those books again and again… and repetition is an incredible teacher.
When I was little, I re-read my favorite bedtime stories so often that I had them all memorized. Decades later, I can still recite many of them to this day.
But there’s something even deeper than that….
As a reader myself (and as a novelist), I gravitate toward books where the lesson is a natural, inevitable result of the journey the characters went on. Story is my number one focus, always!
For my children’s books, I want the experience to feel like: “Hey, we just had a lot of fun and made new friends… and wow, we learned something, too!”
The illustrations contain jokes and details beyond the words themselves. How did you approach making the pictures another part of the humor?
My illustrator and I had a blast with all the tiny details! One of my favorite moments is when Pea sees the Dalmatian peeing on the hydrant and realizes that isn’t an option for her. Also, the onion crying! I knew I wanted a character to slip and fall with Rule #1: No Running. That background character could have been anything – a banana could have been cute… but the idea of an onion crying felt like the more unique, funny visual choice.
The fun is in the details, quite literally! Look at the sunscreen bottle, it says S-PEA-F! And on the back cover above the barcode, it says MSR-PEA.
One visual joke also solved a practical problem: in a world of fruit and veggie houses, what structure is a public restroom? I knew that making it another fruit or veggie just didn’t feel right. When I came up with the concept for a watering can, I felt that was both funny and perfect for the setting. And my illustrator executed it perfectly!!
It’s not just humor, there’s foreshadowing in the illustrations, too. Notice the picture on the easel in Sweet Pea’s room? She drew a Dalmatian! Then we meet the dog a few pages later. It’s such a tiny detail you could easily miss, but it adds to the richness of the world. The family photos in her living room are another clue: we’ll meet all of those characters in stories to come.
Could Sweet Pea, the Spelling Bee, or the other characters return for another adventure?
Absolutely! My illustrator and I are currently finishing book #2 in the series, THE PRINCESS IS THE PEA, which stars Sweet Pea as Princess Pea. After that, we’ll release PEA-B-J, featuring Sweet Pea’s twin brother, Pete Pea. (Look closely at Sweet Pea’s bedroom in NO PEA IN THE POOL… she drew a picture of her brother there, too!)
Right now on my website, PlanetPea.com, you can meet several of the characters, find out their hobbies, and discover which books each will appear in. And best of all… the experience is interactive!
Play a spelling game with the Spelling Bee. Complete a maze to help Pea, Carrot, and Apple find their way to a pool, or download printable pictures of your favorite characters to color at home. All of it is 100% free and promotes learning and creativity through fun!
Author Links: GoodReads | Instagram | Facebook | Free Coloring Pages | Games | Pea-Mail – Substack | Website
Should Sweet Pea… pee in the pool?
NO PEA IN THE POOL is a rhyming picture book perfect for ages 3 to 6 sure to make a splash at storytime! With cheerful illustrations, lovable characters, and a story made for giggles, NO PEA IN THE POOL is a delightful read-aloud little ones will want to dive into again and again.
The ABCs of Crabbing on the Chesapeake Bay
ABCs of Crabbing on the Chesapeake Bay by Susan Swift is an inviting introduction to the world of Chesapeake Bay watermen, told through the familiar structure of the alphabet. Swift draws on a life closely connected to the Bay and to a family of watermen, and that firsthand connection gives the book a warm sense of purpose. From “A is for Aboard” to “Z is for Zinc,” young readers get a clear look at the people, creatures, tools, and traditions that make commercial crabbing possible.
What makes this children’s book especially engaging is how much real information Swift fits into such an accessible format. Children learn why crab pots have escape rings, what makes a crab a “keeper,” how a pot puller works, why menhaden are used as bait, and even the difference between a jimmy and a sook. The book also introduces ideas about conservation in a natural way, explaining size limits, quotas, and other practices that help protect the crab population for the future.
The watercolor-like backgrounds, labeled crab anatomy, boats, buoys, pots, gear, and working watermen help children understand things they may never have seen up close. Some pages function almost like visual field guides, while others capture the feeling of being out on the water. By the time readers reach the early-morning crabbing scene and the familiar Chesapeake tradition of gathering around a table to pick steamed crabs, the book has connected the work of harvesting seafood with the culture that grows around it.
There’s also something meaningful about the way ABCs of Crabbing on the Chesapeake Bay celebrates knowledge that’s often passed from one generation to the next. Swift introduces children to the vocabulary of a working waterfront while showing the preparation, skill, rules, and long hours behind a bushel of crabs. It’s a book families can read together, teachers can use to spark conversations about the Chesapeake Bay, and young readers can return to whenever curiosity sends them back to the water. ABCs of Crabbing on the Chesapeake Bay turns the alphabet into a lively voyage through the work, wildlife, and traditions of one of America’s most treasured waterways.
Page: 38 | ISBN :1962416380
No Pea in the Pool
No Pea in the Pool by Candice Jarrett is a playful children’s book that turns a basic pool rule into a funny lesson about bathroom habits, safety, and spelling. Sweet Pea is invited to go swimming with her friends, and in her excitement she rushes out with her towel and floaty ring after getting covered in sunscreen. On the walk to the pool, she suddenly realizes she forgot something important: she needed to use the bathroom before leaving home. That small problem gives the story an easy-to-follow plot and creates just enough tension for young readers to wonder whether Sweet Pea will make it in time.
The book has a strong read-aloud quality, with rhymes, repeated sounds, and short lines that keep the story moving. One of its funniest ideas comes from the pool rules. When the lifeguard announces “No pea in the pool,” the Spelling Bee arrives to explain that pea and pee mean very different things. That wordplay gives the story an educational layer without pulling attention away from the action. The book also works in straightforward pool-safety reminders about running and diving, so the humor sits alongside practical information children can actually use.
The pages are packed with bright colors, oversized expressions, and vegetable characters who look cheerful and animated. Sweet Pea’s big eyes and changing expressions make her feelings especially easy to read, from excitement at being invited to swim to panic when she realizes she has to go potty. The settings are imaginative too, with produce-shaped houses, sunny neighborhood paths, and a lively pool full of colorful characters. The illustrations often carry jokes of their own, and details such as the misspelled pool sign and the Spelling Bee’s chalkboards help make the language lesson visual as well as verbal.
By the end, Sweet Pea finds the restroom, makes it to the toilet in time, and gets to enjoy the pool with her friends. The closing message, “A pool is not a toilet. Let’s all keep it that way,” sums up the book’s purpose in language young children can understand. No Pea in the Pool is built around a silly situation children are likely to remember, but it also gives parents and teachers an easy way to talk about bathroom etiquette, pool safety, and simple spelling differences. The combination of rhyme, visual humor, and a very concrete lesson makes it well suited to preschool and early elementary readers, especially as a read-aloud before a trip to the pool.
Page: 35 | ASIN : B0GX378NHD
Practicing Kindness
Practicing Kindness by Alicia Smith is a children’s book centered on social-emotional learning and the small choices children make throughout a typical school day. The story follows Ms. Smith and her students through recess, lunch, playtime, art, music, story time, and dismissal. The book shows kindness in action through sharing, patience, listening, apologizing, problem-solving, and thinking about another person’s feelings. For example, Lauren returns a shovel after realizing Makaylah is already using it, and Willie agrees to stand behind James after a disagreement about being the line leader.
I liked how recognizable the situations are for young children. Wanting a certain seat, getting upset during play, teasing a classmate, and having trouble transitioning from one activity to another are all moments children are likely to understand. The characters don’t simply hear adults tell them to “be kind.” They get chances to make better choices themselves. When James realizes that teasing Lauren about her Lego dollhouse has hurt her feelings, he apologizes and encourages her instead. Later, the children compliment each other’s art projects, showing how kindness can be expressed through simple words as well as actions.
The illustrations add a cheerful, energetic feel to the picture book and make the classroom routines easy to follow. The children are shown running outdoors, building in the sandbox, working with blocks, painting, dancing, listening to a story, and lining up at the end of the day. Their facial expressions often help communicate what’s happening emotionally, especially during disagreements or moments of excitement. The sandbox illustration, for instance, shows Makaylah looking unhappy while Lauren has the shovel, then shows the two girls smiling together after they solve the problem. Other spreads use bright classroom settings, colorful toys, art supplies, and movement to keep the pages visually active. The pictures also feature a diverse group of children, which gives the classroom a warm, inclusive feeling.
Practicing Kindness brings its examples together by having Ms. Smith point out that the children have practiced kindness through listening, teamwork, patience, and helpfulness. The book also includes a note for parents explaining social-emotional learning and offering discussion questions about empathy, helping others, strengths, and what kindness looks like. That makes the story useful both as a read-aloud and as a starting point for conversations at home or in a classroom. It’s a practical, encouraging book that gives children concrete examples of how kindness can look during the ordinary parts of their day.
Pages: 54 | ASIN : B0H66Y2B4P
