As adults, we are well aware of the health implications of being overweight, and unfortunately, these problems are being experienced by more children and young adults than ever. Perhaps as equally damaging are the mental health effects felt by young people whose obesity becomes the target for ridicule and shame. The Fat Boy Chronicles is a fictionalized account of an overweight teenager, inspired by real life and written by two high school teachers, Diane Lang and Michael Buchanan. It certainly packs a punch in depicting the anguish that can be experienced by ostracization and torment. When Jimmy starts high school in a new neighborhood school, he hopes that his middle school memories of being pegged "Not-So-Slim-Jimmy" will be just memories, but unfortunately his weight continues to attract constant teasing, or more appropriately labeled abuse, by his ...
Category Archives: Dawn
Children’s Classics Award Winners– July
Welcome to the first installment in our Children's Classics Award Winners Challenge! From now through December, we'll be asking you to share your love for those children's books that have been honored by the powers that be with the shiny stickers that indicate outstanding writing and illustrations. In my family, this past month has involved extended out-of-town visiting for me and the kids (to be away from our house which is under some serious DIY renovations), which translated into zero trips to the library and a whole lot of exploring the scads of books on our own shelves. I found it to be a lovely experience discovering how many award winners we're fortunate to have in our collection. For July, I'd like to focus on a few picture books that my four and two year ...
Free to a Good Home
At the opening of Eve Marie Mont's debut novel, Free to a Good Home, we meet Noelle, and on this Christmas, she is a newly divorced thirty-three year old veterinary tech, very unsure of what comes next. Unfortunately, her ex can still make her heart race, even though she knows that his being gay made the relationship more than unworkable. She's also still reeling from the discovery that she cannot conceive a child, another turn in life that she was completely unprepared for. With all of that on her mind, she's certainly not imagining a new beginning right around the corner. As readers, though, we know that the next year as chronicled in the novel, will hold lots of ups and downs, hopefully with the storybook happy ending. If you're looking for a summer novel ...
The One That I Want
To some, the label "chick lit" carries a negative or condescending connotation, bringing to mind a light and fluffy fare. This isn't how I personally view the label, as I use it. For me, the "chick lit" label fits when the subject and characters reach out to women, often with contemporary settings and situations that many female readers can easily relate to. I offer this genre classification with less judgment than some, and more emphasis on the intended reading audience. That being said, The One That I Want, a new novel by Allison Winn Scotch will undoubtedly be shelved at bookstores among other well-known female authors offering stories about women for women. The novel opens by introducing Tilly Farmer, a thirty-two year old guidance counselor, living in the same town in which she was born and ...
Weird & Wonderful
Children's literature has had an unarguably interesting history, and it's no doubt that today's popular books for kids often have little resemblance to their ancestors from days gone by. When I think of old school literature, Goodnight Moon and Pat the Bunny come to mind- modest and gentle books from a simpler time. But that image was shattered as I read Welleran Poltarnees' new book Weird & Wonderful: Discoveries from the Mysterious World of Forgotten Children's Books. Honestly, I'm still a little flabbergasted after reading this book once straight through, and flipping back through it several times in the last few days. Odd, bizarre and just plain weird are most definitely words that can be used to describe the illustrations and texts from the late 19th and early 20th centuries that Poltarnees has collected and ...
Eat! Move! Play!
With childhood obesity on the rise and in the news on a daily basis, along side nonstop advertisements for junk food and a growing sedentary lifestyle for families, there's no denying the fact that more parents are concerned about their children's health than ever before. In response to the growing interest in these topics, the well established group Weight Watchers has recently released Eat! Move! Play! A Parent's Guide for Raising Healthy, Happy Kids. Part lifestyle advice, part workbook, and part recipe guide, Eat! Move! Play! is a fabulous comprehensive guide for families trying to be conscious of how they stay healthy in their eating and exercise habits. This book includes information and thought-provoking sections on the contemporary challenges to healthy living. Solid advice and points to consider when making personal decisions are ...
Once Upon a Time in the Kitchen
Over the last decade or so, I've amassed a sizable collection of children's books, for which I'm truly grateful. While most tend to be the standard picture book fare, a small part of the collection is made up of cookbooks written for use with young children. With the release of Carol Odell's book Once Upon a Time in the Kitchen: Recipes and Tales from Classic Children's Stories, I've added a unique and standout item to this part of the collection. As the title makes evident, this book isn't merely a series of recipes for children to enjoy, but instead offers excerpts from twenty-one pieces of classic children's literature, along with a related recipe for families to make as an accompaniment to the reading. When one opts to read a little Winnie-the-Pooh, what better to snack on than ...
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Jennifer Donovan
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