Glamour Girl From the Stars by Carlton Scott

As a young girl – I was always taller than everyone my age. That makes a person very self conscious and we all want to fit in – especially as a child in school. The height “issue” has always been a part of my life and I finally got to a point where I accepted it when I was working with a group of people who were all my height – and taller

So – I could definitely relate to PleeDee the Glamour Girl from the Stars. Can’t relate to the intergalactic part – but wanting to fit in and wanting to feel good about herself.

She is a girl that hears about the Miss Universe pageant and being an intergalactic girl – she thinks that there will be young girls from all parts of the universe. That seems like a logical assumption.

PleeDee borrows her father’s flying saucer – a girl has to have transportation to get to the Miss Universe pageant. She overshoots 2010 in her enthusiasm and ends up meeting dinosaurs, so after making a few adjustments, she reached 2010. Since she’s come so far, she visits various places on earth, including: Las Vegas with the glitz and Elvis impersonators, she gets away from Area 51 by heading to Hawaii with the sandy beaches and surfer dudes, she visits the Great Wall of China, visits the coliseum in Rome, and even stops off for some spaghetti.

Eventually she reaches Los Angeles, California and she is surprised to see that all the people in the competition are “only tall hungry females”. This is quite a sight for a young girl who is 3’2″ and wears size ten shoes. Looking around at the people in the pageant, she realizes she is a winner too – “or at least number two!”

As she gets back in her father’s flying saucer to go home, she understands that “when little girls live up to their potential, wherever they are, they’ll shine brightly with confidence, no matter how near or far.”

She learned a valuable lesson that all young girls and boys – and older boys and girls need to learn that they don’t have to look like everyone else to be special. Living up to their potential and excelling in their own lives is a great way to feel good about themselves.

This 3’2″ girl with green skin and size 10 shoes feels like a winner at the Miss Universe pageant, she sets a great example of children of all ages, shapes, genders, backgrounds and many other things that make us different from other people.

How can you help the children in your life feel better about themselves, to see they don’t have to look like everyone else and to understand who they are on the inside is even more important than how they look? Maybe PleeDee’s story will help them start to understand they “are a winner – or at least they are number two” — and that’s a good thing

The Power of Your Child’s Imagination by Charlotte Reznick PhD

The Power of Your Child’s Imagination by Charlotte Reznick PhD

(How to Transform Stress and Anxiety into Joy and Success)

We all know children that have things that we consider behavioral issues, some have bedwetting issues, trouble sleeping, headaches and stomachaches, anxiety and fear, trouble dealing with divorce of their parents and/or loss, anger frustration, problems in school, a hard time concentrating, arguments with siblings and schoolmates and much more. Frequently parents turn to medication or discipline – but how often do these things actually work?

I am a big fan of any alternative treatment options – so when Dr Reznick contacted me about doing a virtual tour with us to promote her book, I was very excited. As soon as I saw her press kit – I emailed several friends with children to tell them about this book.

To get an idea of the topics that are covered in The Power of Your Child’s Imagination – check out the table of contents.

Part One – The Tools

Chapter 1 – The Way Out Is Through the Inside

Chapter 2 – How to Get from here to There

Chapter 3 – The Benefits of Artistic Expression

Chapter 4 – Grown-Ups Need Tools, Too

Part Two – Putting the Tools to Work

Chapter 5 – Everyone Deserves to be Happy

Chapter 6 – When Life is Making Your Child Sick

Chapter 7 – The Bogeyman and Other Scary Stuff

Chapter 8 – Bedtime

Chapter 9 – Why Does Everyone Keep Leaving

Chapter 10 – When Good Kids Do Bad Things

Chapter 11 – Go For the Gold – Celebrate the Bronze

Chapter 12 – Can’t We All Just Get Along?

In the first part of the book, Charlotte Reznick shares her tools on how to help your child not only survive in a stressful  and difficult world – but it can help them to thrive – without drugs. Learn what tools she recommends – help your child learn to be creative and to use their imagination to the full. I love the technology that we have, but too many children and adults don’t show a lot of creativity. As a child and adult, I loved being creative and have always used my imagination – maybe too much.

Some of the conditions and ailments that these tools can help you with, include: stress induced headaches and stomachaches, bed wetting, inability to sleep, problems as school, problems with siblings, trouble concentrating, frustration ,anger issues, dealing with death or divorce, panic attacks, social anxiety, and much more.

Dr Reznick shares each tool – explains the details of each tool, explains how to prepare your child, provides notes to help you through the process with additional notes and she provides variations of each tool that you can use. She explains how children use each tool and gives troubleshooting tips. The book provides all of these details for each tool.

How many of these things does your children face on a regular basis? What would you give to find a drug free way to help them? The answer is here. After you read Part One and learn about the tools that Dr Reznick uses, move to Part Two and learn how she uses these tools to help the situations listed above.

I love the title of Chapter 5 – Everyone Deserves to be Happy. That is so true and we especially want our children to be happy and to help them move forward in life on the right foot.

In each chapter in Part Two – you see the instructions on how to put the tools to work, but that is just the beginning.  I love to see unique features in non-fiction and Dr Reznick provides these. She provides: quick tips to help you and your child, backtrack alerts and detailed “how to” instructions. While I appreciate all these elements, the backtrack alerts are wonderful – Dr Reznick gives you things to look for to see if you child is losing ground. This is wonderful and I think very beneficial because we all know how hard it can be to see changes in a person when we are around them all the time, but these are additional red flags to watch for and to understand there is a problem.

I think any parent, advisor, counselor, aunt, uncle etc who loves and helps children needs a copy of this book – and they need to read and use it. In closing, I have to share this quote from an 11 year old boy – to me, this proves this young man understands. He said, “The only way to love yourself is to believe and believe in yourself”.

Freckleface Strawberry by Julianne Moore

I was so excited about being asked to work on the promotional campaign for Julianne Moore’s new book – Freckleface Strawberry and the Dodgeball Bully.

One of the obvious reasons is because I’ve heard great things about Julianne Moore.

Another reason is that I’ve had a great friend since we were about 7 or 8 who has red hair and I remember that he hated it while we were growing up. Now he has a daughter with beautiful red hair.

The other reason is because I’ve had people pick on me for years for an unusual name (real name, not pen name), I’ve always been tall and have been 6’1 since I was 13 and I had braces for years. So, I can understand the tough time Freckleface has.

I think its great that Julianne has used her childhood experiences in a way that will help children deal with the things that make them different. Hopefully this story can also help other children understand that they should not pick on people just because they are different. We’re all different from one another – we’re so much better off if we appreciate the differences, but it seems that is hard for some people.

One rainy morning – Freckleface goes to Early Bird at her school. She loves Early Bird – but Windy Pants Patrick is also there and he’s a bully. He picks on all the children – what will Freckleface Strawberry do?

Come along with Freckleface and see what she does in the face of a school bully.

I highly recommend this book for parents and their children. It give parents or other important adults a great opportunity to help children talk about how to deal with bullies and people who pick on them. Its also a great chance to teach children tolerance and caring about others.

LeUyen Pham is back to illustrate this second book in the Freckleface Strawberry series.

Frankie the Walk ‘n Roll Dog by Barbara Techel

I have to start by saying this book is absolutely adorable. Don’t get me wrong, that doesn’t mean its filled with fluff. But, the “heroine” is a sweet little weiner dog. We learn about Frankie and how she came to live with her humans. Wouldn’t we all like to hear what our pets think about the first time they met us? Frankie is a friendly dog who loves her humans and makes friends at a variety of places, including the local farmer’s market.

The author, Barbara Gail Techel, shows us how the relationship between Frankie and her humans develops and one day, they leave town on a vacation. While they are out of town, Frankie and Kylie stay at the kennel and even though they miss the rest of their family, they are doing all right. One evening, Frankie gets a little rambunctious and she lands hard on the cement floor. She can’t feel her back legs, but she feels stabbing pains in her back. The caretaker at the kennel takes Frankie to the vet and her family come back from their vacation when they hear about the accident.

Frankie has surgery, recovery and rehabilitation to get her back legs moving again. Even though Frankie feels better and gets back to being herself, but her back legs are not moving. Her mother finds a cart with wheels that allows Frankie to get around.

The later portion of the book is inspiring and deals with perceptions and concerns for anyone who is disabled. This is written in a simple fashion and contains beautiful pictures, but the points being made will benefit a reader and animal lover of any age. Any pet owner with a disabled pet should definitely check into the cart mentioned in this book. It is a wonderful way for an animal without the use of their hind legs to get around.

I highly recommend this book for anyone who wants to meet an inspiring and unique heroine and who loves animals.

For more information, visit www.joyfulpaws.com
For information about the cart used by Frankie – visit www.eddieswheels.com

Nikki Leigh
www.nikkileigh.com/promo.htm