Blog Archives
Clancy: A Gift of Christmas Story
A.K. Miller’s Clancy is a children’s book about the uneasy feeling of being asked to do something special when you’re convinced you don’t belong. In bustling Cameltown, preparations for a Christmas production bring plenty of excitement, but Clancy’s attention keeps returning to his crooked hump, awkward knees, unruly hair, and troublesome tooth. He’s an easy character to care about because his worries are so specific. Children who’ve felt uncomfortable with their appearance or nervous about speaking in front of others will recognize something familiar in this anxious camel, even with all the festive silliness around him.
Miller tells the story in rhyming verse, giving Cameltown a chatty, slightly goofy vocabulary of its own. The invented camel expressions and playful names are fun to say aloud, and they give the town a personality that extends beyond its central character. There’s a lively contrast between the crowd’s excitement and Clancy’s private uncertainty, which helps the emotional thread stand out. Some lines invite a little adjustment in pace when read aloud, especially where the phrasing gets elaborate, but the short stanzas offer useful breathing room. It’s a story that benefits from a reader willing to enjoy the sounds and give the characters distinct voices.
William “Bubba” Flint’s illustrations bring a great deal of humor and feeling to this picture book. The camels have wonderfully expressive faces, with large eyes, toothy grins, raised brows, and drooping mouths that make their moods easy to read. Clancy’s curled forelock and uneven smile give him an immediately recognizable look. Loose washes of turquoise, green, yellow, and orange sit behind bold, sketchy outlines, creating pages that feel bright and lively. Christmas trees, wreaths, ribbons, confetti, and a splendid top hat provide plenty for children to notice. I especially like how Clancy’s posture and expression communicate his discomfort, giving young listeners a way into his feelings through the pictures.
The book’s Christian faith is central to its treatment of worry, belonging, and Christmas. Prayer and trust in God shape the conversations, and the religious language is direct enough for families to discuss together. The mayor’s patient attention is particularly appealing: he listens to Clancy’s concerns and speaks from personal experience, making their exchange feel caring and personal. There’s room here to ask children what makes them nervous, whom they can talk to, and how faith fits into those feelings. For families seeking a Christmas read with explicit Christian teaching, an affectionate animal cast, and colorful illustrations, Clancy offers plenty to share during a quiet reading session together.
Pages: 34 | ASIN : B0HDNTLP25
This Book Is Not Ready!
This Book Is Not Ready!, written and illustrated by JWoodall.Art, turns the making of a story into a lively children’s book. Its central character is a wide-eyed, scribbly figure who discovers that it’s inside a book and immediately starts worrying about the missing plot, scenery, and supporting cast. What follows is a string of creative experiments, complaints, costume changes, and mishaps, with the reader recruited as a helper. The character’s exaggerated reactions give the book its personality: it’s bossy, easily flustered, and eager to keep things moving. There’s something funny and inviting about watching this little figure try to manage a project that keeps growing beyond its control.
The reader participation is one of the book’s strongest features. Shaking the book sends a jumble of objects tumbling across the page, including a banana, a treasure chest, and a rubber chicken. Pointing out a green crayon helps get the scenery started, while turning the book upside down creates a fresh problem for the character. These prompts make page turns feel like part of the action, and they give an adult reading aloud plenty of chances to pause, invite a response, and play up the surprise. The humor also moves between straightforward silliness and jokes about storytelling, such as a plot hole becoming an actual hole that needs construction work. Some references, including craft services and aviation approval, seem especially likely to amuse the grown-up sharing the book.
The illustrations carry much of the comedy. The main character’s round head, wiry limbs, and dark, crosshatched body keep its expressions easy to follow, from suspicious sideways glances to full-on panic. Against pale, textured backgrounds, bright crayons, yellow sticky notes, green trees, and scattered props stand out clearly. Slanted panel borders add movement, and oversized drawing tools make the act of creating this picture book feel physical. I especially liked the trees that resemble broccoli and the enormous dragon whose size overwhelms its creator. A small squirrel keeps appearing in different roles and situations, giving children an extra detail to track on another reading. As the pages fill with jungle foliage, outer space, and a winding path to a castle, the expanding artwork makes the character’s progress visible.
The book’s pace is busy and episodic, with each attempted solution opening the door to another joke. A search for coffee and a wardrobe inspection stretch out the preparations, so the experience works best when readers enjoy the character’s detours and the running commentary. The final castle doorway gives all that activity a satisfying destination, even as it suggests another adventure is waiting ahead. The closing thanks to the reader fits the book’s shared approach to invention, and the last pages of sticky notes keep the jokes going through squirrel complaints and reminders to buy more crayons. It’s a cheerful choice for children who like talking back to a book, spotting small visual surprises, and imagining how stories get made. Its most appealing idea is that a messy beginning can be enough to get everyone creating together.
Pages: 39 | ASIN : B0DKJRMJSS
The Listening Path®, an Interactive Children’s Book Teaching Kids the Superpower of Listening
Christine Miles’s The Listening Path turns everyday conversation into a shared reading activity. This interactive children’s book invites children and their grown-ups to explore the stories tucked into an ordinary day, with a cheerful guide leading them along a woodland trail. Its premise is simple and appealing: everyone has something worth sharing, and listening takes curiosity, patience, and practice. I like how the book gives both people something to do. Children have room to speak, while adults receive gentle guidance for asking questions and paying attention. That shared involvement makes the reading feel personal from the start.
The writing moves through short rhyming passages and recurring prompts, giving families a clear framework for talking together. Questions about events and feelings encourage children to slow down, remember details, and put their experiences into words. There’s a reassuring openness to the emotional language, welcoming both cheerful and difficult moments. The repeated questions are useful because they’re easy to carry into conversations after the book is closed. Some rhymes feel a little stretched, and the recurring instructions give the text a deliberate pace. Still, that pacing suits a book designed for pauses, responses, and a child’s own contributions.
Arthur Lin’s illustrations give this picture book a sunny, welcoming atmosphere. Bright greens, turquoise skies, and golden paths fill the pages, with flowers and woodland animals providing small details to notice along the way. The cartoon figures have clear expressions and gestures, especially in the images that help children identify emotions. Those visual cues support the conversation directly, giving young readers another way to communicate when finding the right word takes time. I also like the alternation between full woodland scenes and spacious pages with brief text. The open layouts keep individual prompts easy to spot and allow time for discussion.
I think the book’s strongest feature is how readily its ideas fit into family life. You can imagine using it during a quiet afternoon or as part of an evening conversation, allowing the child’s answers to shape each reading. The opening guidance helps caregivers understand the approach, while the author’s personal reflections and additional pages explain why listening matters across different settings. Those sections make her commitment to the subject feel grounded in real experience. This is a book that benefits from an adult who’s willing to linger and participate. For families who enjoy reading together and want help making room for fuller conversations, it offers a friendly, practical place to begin.
Let’s go Backer and Backer!: The Lovely, Shiny, Smooth Obsidian Rock
Maureen Devlin’s Let’s Go Backer and Backer! begins with something small enough to hold in one hand: a shiny piece of obsidian. A park ranger shows it to a group of children, and that simple encounter opens a question about where the rock came from. This children’s book follows the answer backward through cooling lava, an erupting volcano, and magma beneath the surface. It’s an inviting way to introduce geology because the starting point is so tangible. Children can picture themselves gathered around the ranger, wanting a closer look. The playful title also gives the book a clear sense of purpose: keep asking how something came to be, and see where the question takes you.
The writing uses a cumulative pattern, adding a new piece of information while repeating the steps readers have already encountered. That structure gives the book a steady rhythm for reading aloud and lets children anticipate familiar language as the explanation grows. Descriptions of heat, movement, shine, and smoothness make the geological processes feel active and connected to the senses. Scientific words such as “magma” and “volcanologists” appear within that repeated pattern, giving listeners several chances to hear them in context. The later passages become quite long, so an adult reader will want to pause and give children time to follow each connection. Those pauses could become useful moments to point at the pictures or invite children to explain the sequence themselves.
Nancy D. Conde’s illustrations give this picture book much of its energy. The outdoor scenes feature green hills, flowers, drifting leaves, and butterflies, while the volcanic spreads fill the pages with orange, yellow, red, and deep charcoal tones. The eruptions are especially striking: bright sprays and glowing channels make the heat and force easy to imagine. A view into the volcano helps readers connect the magma below ground with the lava above it. Obsidian appears as a glossy black rock crossed with colorful streaks, giving the object at the center of the story a distinctive visual identity. The children’s attentive faces and the ranger’s welcoming expression bring warmth to the opening, and the large lettering, with selected words picked out in color, helps organize the increasingly full pages.
One of the book’s most interesting choices comes near the end, when the backward journey reaches a scientist’s childhood. A little girl who once imagined becoming a volcanologist grows up to do that work, extending the book’s interest in origins to the people who study the natural world. The illustration of her examining a rock, surrounded by crayons and improvised play materials, makes that connection particularly approachable. It gives children a recognizable place within a story that also contains enormous eruptions and underground heat. Devlin’s dedication, which recalls reading with her twin daughters and answering their questions, fits the book’s conversational approach. For families, classrooms, or young readers who enjoy rocks and volcanoes, this is a lively read-aloud that can lead naturally into a closer look at a stone and another round of questions.
Pages: 24 | ASIN: B0HCF88WD6
The Robe Squad: A Charlestown Tail
A man and his dog wearing bathrobes around Boston is an appealing place to start a story, and Arthur Russell Smith makes that little quirk feel perfectly at home in The Robe Squad. This children’s book follows Artie and Gizmo, two companions who enjoy watching boats, sharing everyday routines, and being together. When an evening walk brings them face to face with a tiny mouse who needs help, their familiar world opens up to someone else’s needs. It’s an easy premise for young children to follow, with a gentle sense of curiosity and a clear invitation to notice the lives around them.
Smith’s writing has the friendly, unhurried feel of someone telling a child a story while sitting beside them. Short sentences, repeated references to being together, and animal sounds give adults plenty of opportunities to vary their voices and invite listeners to join in. The bathrobes add a playful touch, especially because Artie treats his dog’s outfit as an ordinary part of their shared life. The emphasis on kindness is direct, and some of the dialogue spells out feelings that the pictures already communicate. Still, the characters’ affection gives those exchanges warmth. For preschool listeners, the familiar language and steady pace should make the story comfortable to revisit.
Craig Orback’s illustrations give this picture book a lot of personality. The harbor scenes have pink and peach skies, reflections on the water, sailboats, and brick buildings that make Charlestown feel like a particular neighborhood. There’s plenty to look at beyond the main action, from window boxes and passing pedestrians to the objects tucked onto shelves inside Artie’s home. His bright blue robe and Gizmo’s pink one keep the pair easy to spot across the pages. Orback also uses scale effectively: the small animals’ faces and bodies draw attention to their vulnerability beside the human figures. Alternating broad scenes with closer views encourages readers to pause, notice expressions, and spend a little longer with the pictures.
I liked how naturally the book connects companionship with paying attention. Artie and Gizmo’s closeness establishes a reassuring starting point, and the story makes room for children to think about what another creature might be feeling. It’s well suited to a shared bedtime reading or a preschool conversation about caring for animals and recognizing when someone needs support. The author’s note adds a personal connection by explaining the real experience that inspired the story and his fondness for Charlestown and bathrobes. For families who enjoy gentle animal stories, this is an inviting read with an affectionate central pair and illustrations worth lingering over.
The Weird Fish
The Weird Fish follows Pearl, a little fish who loves to sing, dance, and show off her bright colors. She’s proud of looking different from her family, even though they laugh at her and leave her out. Then she wakes up to find that they’ve gone, and no one she asks will help her. Nydoria Tiombe gives this children’s book an unusually painful starting point: Pearl’s fear is immediate, and her question about whether she still deserves a family stays with her as the story moves on. Her confidence at the beginning makes the loss feel personal. Readers have met a lively, curious fish before they see how deeply she’s hurt.
Pearl’s hurt soon spills into her school day. She insults Mrs. Starfish, mocks the Crablettes and seahorses, and frightens some octopuses for a laugh. These scenes show how the treatment she received from her family has begun to shape the way she treats others. An older fish stops Pearl and urges her to remember who she is. Later, Pearl mistakes her reflection in a discarded bottle for another fish and calls it ugly. It’s a memorable turning point, especially because Pearl has to recognize her own face before she can face what’s happened to her. The older fish’s sudden appearance and disappearance add a touch of mystery to that change.
Early coral reef scenes surround yellow and pink Pearl with lively plants and sea creatures, while her purple family swims nearby with stern expressions. When Pearl retreats into a hole to cry, the water turns dark, and she appears small against it. As her behavior changes, the artwork shows her in deep blue tones, giving children a visible way to follow a feeling that’s hard to name. The bottle scene is especially effective: Pearl faces a blue reflection that looks back at her with tears in its eyes. By the final reef scene, her warm colors return amid smiling crabs, an octopus, and other fish.
The ending comes quickly after Pearl’s recognition. She weeps again, then returns to singing and dancing as the sea creatures gather around her. That pace leaves room for a conversation with young readers about what rebuilding friendships might take after Pearl has frightened and mocked her classmates. It also keeps the story’s attention on the quality Pearl valued from the start: she’s different, and she’s glad to be herself. The Weird Fish handles abandonment and unkind behavior directly, with expressive images that invite children to pause over Pearl’s feelings at each stage. It’s a story well suited to reading together, especially when an adult can give Pearl’s harder moments the time they deserve.
Pages: 24 | ISBN: 1637657994
A Plushy Story: The Tale of Violet the Bear
The Tale of Violet the Bear begins with a lovely bedtime idea: Mika picks her oldest plush toy and asks Nanie to tell its story. Nanie imagines Violet as a young purple bear setting out alone into a snowy forest. That familiar scene of a child tucked in with a favorite toy gives this children’s book a warm, personal start.
Violet’s journey moves through friendship, growing confidence, and family life. She meets Clover the bunny, finds courage during difficult days, and eventually cares for cubs of her own. The patches in her fur carry the story especially well. They show the passing years while making the well-loved bear in Mika’s arms feel connected to the bear in Nanie’s tale.
Michelle G. Rocque’s illustrations give the picture book a dreamy feel. Soft purples and snowy blues open into spring greens and autumn golds as Violet grows. The art also lingers on small moments, like Violet meeting Clover by a stream, before returning to the quiet bedroom. Text pages alternate with full-page pictures, leaving plenty to look at during a read-aloud.
The rhyming lines have a gentle bedtime cadence, even when a few phrases feel shaped by the rhyme. What stays with me is the way Nanie sees a whole life in Violet’s worn fabric. By the time Mika falls asleep holding her bear, its patches feel like part of a story someone has cared enough to tell.
Pages: 53 | ASIN: B0HDSKZMVZ
Literary Titan Gold Book Award: Fiction
The Literary Titan Book Award honors books that exhibit exceptional storytelling and creativity. This award celebrates novelists who craft compelling narratives, create memorable characters, and weave stories that captivate readers. The recipients are writers who excel in their ability to blend imagination with literary skill, creating worlds that enchant and narratives that linger long after the final page is turned.
Award Recipients
Vanished Twin by Lawrence Hoffman
POINT FIRST by Nannette Potter
Visit the Literary Titan Book Awards page to see award information.
