Spotlight: The Disappearing Dolphins by Jennifer Kelman with Jordyn & Kyle Kelman, Illustrated by Michael Swaim

Kevin and his twin sister Jackie always enjoy going to the beach with their mommy, but Kevin can tell that today will be extra-special. As he and Jackie start building a sandcastle, Kevin sees a fantastic sight: a dolphin, jumping and playing in the ocean. Kevin is known for his vivid imagination, and when he tells Jackie about the dolphin, she doesn’t believe him. As he watches the joyful antics of the dolphin in the sparkling sea, Kevin is convinced that the dolphin is real—even he couldn’t make up something this fantastic! Determined to share the magic of the dolphin, Kevin sets out on an adventure of discovery that will create lifelong memories for him and for Jackie. With warm, comforting language and beautiful illustrations, The Disappearing Dolphins is sure to become a favorite with anyone who cherishes the wonder of the natural world as seen through children’s eyes.

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Watch a trailer of The Disappearing Dolphins here!

 

 

About the Author, Jennifer Kelman with Jordyn & Kyle Kelman, Illustrated by Michael Swaim

Jennifer Kelman is a licensed clinical social worker, life coach, author, and entrepreneur. She enjoys cycling and tennis, and finds endless creative inspiration from her young twins. She is the author of the award-winning Mrs. Pinkelmeyer® series featuring the lovable dog Moopus McGlinden®. The Disappearing Dolphins is her third children’s book.

Spotlight: Mimi's Adventures in Baking Chocolate Chip Cookies by Alyssa Gangeri

About the Book

Mimi's Adventures in Baking is the first storybook cookbook that creates a fun and interactive way of learning how to bake. Follow Mimi as she learns to measure, mix and bake her way to her very first batch of homemade chocolate chip cookies. Learning how to bake can be easy and fun with Mimi!

Navigating your way through a kitchen full of tools, ingredients and of course safety measures are brought to life in this storybook cookbook. No more flipping through endless recipes and boring procedures. Mimi makes baking fun for the whole family. Let your child take control and become the chef they always wanted to be!

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About the Author

Chef Alyssa has been baking since she was a little girl in her grandmother's kitchen. Since graduating from the Culinary Institute of America she has worked for famous chefs and elite companies such as the Ritz Carlton, Tom Colicchio, Norman Van Aken and Gray Kunz. She currently is the Executive Chef at Riverwalk Bar and Grill on the Historic nook of New York City, Roosevelt Island. She also has a boutique custom cake company called AllyCakesNYC where she creates cakes to appease the imagination. Through her journey of baking she developed Mimi, her very own miniature version of herself.
    
As a child she loved baking and everything that came with it. As an adult and food lover she realized there was something missing when she frequented bookstores. A interactive children's cookbook. And we are not talking about a boring old cookbook for kids with lots and lots of recipes, and some pictures. Children these days have just as much interest in the kitchen as there parents do, but the ordinary cookbook is just not going to cut it. She created Mimi's Adventures in Baking  to give children and adults a way to get into the kitchen and allow the child to become the chef and the adult the assistant. With each book has one recipe and an interactive storyline the child can read, and at the end go into the kitchen and do what Mimi did!  And for the "non-baking" parent, these elite pastry chef recipes are tested and ready for even the most inexperienced baker! Impress other moms with Mimi's creations!
    
Mimi's Adventures in Baking will also teach children how to measure, mix and bake their way through the kitchen while also giving safety tips along the way. No more boring cookbooks! Now there is a fun, exciting and educational way to learn how to bake!

You can connect with Alyssa via: Website | Twitter | Facebook

Kids Spotlight: Night Buddies by Sands Hetherington

Night Buddies and the Pineapple Cheesecake Scare  is an after lights-out adventure story that will delight young readers and middle graders who relish roller coaster fantasy and fun, filled with unforgettable characters and an astonishing and inventive collection of magical whatchamacallits.

Night Buddies is all about the nighttime adventures of a young boy named John, who is not ready to go to sleep, and his friend, a bright red crocodile named Crosley who turns up under John’s bed.

They sneak out of John’s house using Crosley’s “I-ain’t-here-doodad” which makes them invisible to John’s parents. They then embark on an adventure chasing down enemies and cleaning up one mess after another as they solve the earthshaking mystery: who stole all the pineapple cheesecakes from the only factory in the world that makes them!

The investigation starts out fine, but things get a little crazy when Crosley, who is allergic to water, gets wet.  Hilarious things happen when Crosley’s allergy to water kicks in, and when they get to the pineapple cheesecake factory and meet Big Foot Mae, the investigation gets more complicated and zany than either of them bargained for. 

Night Buddies and the Pineapple Cheesecake Scare is the first title in the Night Buddies series, a 7-times award-winning chapter book series for kids. The second book, Night Buddies, Impostors, and One Far-Out Flying Machine was published in February 2013 and the third book, Night Buddies Go Sky High is due out in March 2015. The Night Buddies series is available in both print and ebook format. 

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About the Author

Sands Hetherington credits his son John for being his principal motivator. Sands raised his son as a single parent from the time John was six. He read to him every night during those formative years. He and young John developed the Crosley crocodile character in the series during months of bedtime story give-and-take. Sands majored in history at the University of North Carolina (Chapel Hill) and has an M.F.A. in creative writing and an M.A. in English from UNC-Greensboro. He lives in Greensboro.

You can reach Seth via: Website | Twitter | Publisher

About the Illustrator

Jessica Love grew up in California, with two artist parents. She studied printmaking and drawing at UC Santa Cruz, then went on to study acting at The Juilliard School in NYC. Her favorite way to work is collaborative, which is why illustration is such a treat.

Some of her inspirations are Maurice Sendak, Edmund Dulac, Lisbeth Zwerger and of course, the incomparable Hilary Knight. Jessica currently resides in Brooklyn, New York, toggling back and forth between her work as an actor and her work as an artist.

How to Get Your Child Interested in Reading by Caldric Blackwell

Today I want to write about getting your child interested in reading. Some children are voracious readers. Whether they’re on the playground or at the dinner table, they always seem to have a book in their hands. Other children are the opposite. It seems to take a combination of bribery and pleading just to get them to consider reading a book.

The key to getting your child to be an active reader is to find books that interest your child. But how does one do that? A great starting place is to look at the kinds of activities your child likes to do in his or her free time. Does she like to play soccer and pretend to adventure in the backyard? Perhaps she’ll enjoy a Pelé biography or a book where the characters explore a new world. Does he like drawing animals and playing video games with puzzles? Perhaps he’ll enjoy a book with an aardvark as the main characters or a mystery book where the characters solve crimes with logic.

There is also the possibility that your child will be interested in a topic that he or she has not been exposed to yet. This is why it’s important to go to a bookstore or library and browse the shelves with your child. Your daughter may not have learned about satellites in school yet, but the second she sees a book on Sputnik 1, she knows she wants to read it.

We are fortunate to live in an age when there are a variety of online resources for helping you find books that will interest your child. James Patterson’s website, http://www.readkiddoread.com/, has book lists organized by age and content, such as real-world fiction and action/adventure. Another website, http://guysread.com, spring-boards off data from the U.S. Department of Education indicating that boys have scored worse than girls on reading tests for the past thirty years and offers recommendations to address the challenges of getting young boys interested in reading.

Regardless of the reading level of your child, with patience, dedication, and the use of available resources, you can get your child interested in reading.

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Caldric Blackwell realized he loved reading when he read about a bunch of people (with single-syllable names) and their pets (also with single-syllable names) in kindergarten. 

Exposure to a host of great authors while studying at the University of California, Santa Barbara inspired him to begin writing fiction. Although he began writing short stories for adults, he eventually migrated to writing children's books. His debut work is an early chapter book titled The Enchanted River Race. His next release is a picture book, The Boy Who Couldn't Cry Wolf.

Outside of writing, Caldric enjoys hiking, gardening, and playing a variety of string instruments. Caldric currently resides in California.

About the book

Six-year-old Byron Woodward is a werewolf who can’t howl. Determined not to embarrass himself after being chosen to lead a full-moon ceremony, he embarks on a mission to learn how to howl. He learns a lot about howling during his journey, but more importantly, he learns a valuable lesson about believing in himself.

Kids Spotlight: Tiger and the Dove trilogy by Rebecca Hazell

The Grip of God (Book One)

The Grip of God is the first novel in an epic historical trilogy, The Tiger and the Dove. Set in the thirteenth century, its heroine, Sofia, is a young princess of Kievan Rus. She begins her story by recounting her capture in battle and life of slavery to a young army captain in the Mongol armies that are flooding Europe. Not only is her life shattered, it is threatened by the bitter rivalries in her new master's powerful family, and shadowed by the leader of the Mongol invasion, Batu Khan, Genghis Khan's grandson. How will she learn to survive in a world of total war, much less rediscover the love she once took for granted? Always seeking to escape and menaced by outer enemies and inner turmoil, where can she find safe haven even if she can break free? Clear eyed and intelligent, Sofia could be a character from The Game of Thrones, but she refuses to believe that life is solely about the strong dominating the weak or about taking endless revenge. Her story is based on actual historical events, which haunt her destiny. Like an intelligent Forrest Gump, she reflects her times. But as she matures, she learns to reflect on them as well, and to transcend their fetters. In doing so, she recreates a lost era for us, her readers.

Solomon's Bride (Book Two)

Solomon's Bride is the dramatic sequel to The Grip of God. Sofia, the heroine, a former princess from Kievan Rus' was enslaved by a Mongol nobleman and then taken as a concubine by the leader of the Mongol invasions, Batu Khan, grandson of Genghis Khan. Now, having fled the Mongols with a price on her head, Sofia escapes into Persia and what she believes will be safety, only to fall into the clutches of the Assassins, who seek to disrupt the Mongol empire. In a world at war, both outer and inner, the second phase of her adventures unfolds. Can she ever find safe haven, much less the lost love and family that was almost destroyed by the Mongols?

 

 

 

 

 

Consolamentum (Book Three)

In the finale of Sofia's memoir, Consolamentum, both dramatic and poignant, her dreams of home are shattered when her own family betrays her. Raising her child on her own, mourning the loss of her beloved knight, and building a trading empire, she seeks safe haven for her child and herself. Her quest takes her from Antioch to Constantinople to Venice. A surprise reunion in Venice leads her to France where she runs afoul of the newly established Holy Inquisition, possibly the greatest challenge she has yet faced. Can a woman so marked by oppression, betrayal, and danger ever find her safe haven, much less genuine happiness?

About the Author

Rebecca Hazell is a an award winning artist, author and educator. She has written, illustrated and published four non-fiction children’s books, created best selling educational filmstrips, designed educational craft kits for children and even created award winning needlepoint canvases. She is a senior teacher in the Shambhala Buddhist lineage, and she holds an honours BA from the University of California at Santa Cruz in Russian and Chinese history.

Rebecca lived for many years in the San Francisco Bay Area. In 1988 she and her family moved to Halifax, Nova Scotia, and in 2006 she and her husband moved to Vancouver Island. They live near their two adult children in the beautiful Cowichan Valley.

Visit Rebecca via: Website | Goodreads | Facebook

To win all three books in Rebecca Hazell’s The Tiger and the Dove trilogy (eBook and print, two winners), please complete the Rafflecopter giveaway form below. Ebook giveaway is open internationally. Print book giveaway is open to U.S./Canada.

Giveaway ends at 11:59pm on December 14th. You must be 18 or older to enter. Winners will be chosen via Rafflecopter on December 17th and notified via email. Winners have 48 hours to claim prize or new winner is chosen.

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Book Spotlight: Mom Made Us Write This In The Summer by Ali Maier

Book Summary

A sister and brother, forced to write in the summer, and share ONE journal? Ugh.

This is exactly what happens to 10-year-old twins Maggie and Max Pruitt. When Mom comes up with a plan for them to keep a summer journal, Maggie and Max can’t believe it. Worse yet, they have to share!

Through their writing, Maggie and Max find out they have very different (and hilarious) views about growing up, family and life - a conclusion they only discovered because, as Max and Maggie say, “Mom Made Us Write This.”

Mom Made Us Write This In The Summer is a journal-style book that inspires kids to read and write, and captures the essence of sibling relationships. Anyone with a brother or sister will identify with the fun and struggles that Max and Maggie experience this summer! From a trip to the zoo to the annual check-up at the docs – read all about the life adventures of Maggie & Max. 

Mom Made Us Write This In The Summer is recommended for 2nd – 6th grade students.

Parents, kids, and teachers will love this book. Parents will welcome the emphasis on strong family relationships. Teachers will appreciate the classroom extension opportunities. Kids will enjoy the laughs, lessons and the “me too!” connection.

“Positive, creative and fun for classrooms and families!”
-Mrs. Jane Jagielo, 4th Grade Teacher

The series also includes Mom Made Us Write This: Write Your Own Shared Journal and Mom Made Us Write This Family Quiz Book. 

Series: Max and Maggie Journal
Paperback: 208 pages
Publisher: Erie Island Media; 1st edition (October 15, 2013)

About the Author

Ali Maier was born in Johnstown, PA. In high school she spent a lot of time with children, working as a summer camp counselor for many years, volunteering to teach Sunday school at church, working in the local day-care center, and working as a kindergarten aide.  

She went to John Carroll University and earned a BA in Elementary Education. Throughout college, Ali worked at a local toy store then worked in product development at a company making art and craft kits for kids.  

Eventually Ali left her job to work full time with her husband, Mark, at their marketing company.  When her children were born, she worked from home.  

Ali lives in a Cleveland suburb with her husband and two children. She loves to read, write and spend time with her family.  

Ali chose to write the Mom Made Us Write This series to encourage young readers to do something she loves – to read! Ali wanted to write a book series that would allow readers to laugh and encourage them to write and share their own stories.

You can connect with Ali via: Website | Twitter | Facebook | Goodreads