Children's Playground Week 13-An Interview with Jennifer Garden

Today, we will give highlight to work of a famous blogger in our community, let’s welcome Jennifer Garden and her lovely Children’s Books…She has two books published and her third book is cooking and will be done soon…instead of digging deep to her particular books, let’s hear what she has to say about publishing as children’s author of 6 years…

Bio:  Author and Editor-in-Chief of My Light Magazine-Jennifer Gladen, she also does Book Reviews on Children’s Playground at Bluebell Books, To have your book reviewed, please send an e-mail with your book, info and contact information to jennifer_gladen5@msn.com

Why do you decide to get published?

I have always loved writing for children and always knew this is something I wanted to do. Once my children were born and I was home with them for a while (I have 3 children and 2 of them have chronic medical problems) I decided to pursue my writing.

What kind of books do you have out there?

I have two published books : A Star in the Night and Teresa’s Shadow.  My third one, Angel Donor, is being illustrated and should be out shortly.  All three are children’s picture books. 

Angel Donor is a special book about a young girl in need of a liver transplant. When my own daughter was going through this situation herself, I tried to prepare her by reading about it, but we couldn’t find anything out there.

Teresa’s Shadow - Every child once in a while expresses a fear at bedtime. Some fear the dark. Some fear the possibilities of monsters. Some, fear both!

One night at bedtime Teresa discovers Corky, a furry visitor, in her room. Corky is no ordinary monster. In fact he seems just as scared as Teresa. Teresa soon realizes she must help Corky get home. But how can she when she’s afraid of the dark and Corky is afraid of the light?

A Star in the Night: Geared for children 5-12, this is a Christmas story about the true meaning of Christmas. Is it all about the shopping, gifts, cookies and parties? Or is there something more David is missing?

As taken from the book's blurb: "David makes his way home on Christmas Eve and sees this is no ordinary night. Accompanied by a shimmering star and some tough decisions, David encounters three experiences that will change his view of Christmas forever. Join David on his wondrous journey home."

How long have you been writing?

I have been writing for over 6 years.

Do you have previous publishing experiences?

Yes. In addition to my picture books, I have written poems,articles and stories for publications such as Once Upon a Time, Stories for Children, Voices for the Unborn. I also write for a column on Catholic Mom. In addition I started my own Catholic magazine for children.

What is the reason you choose the host of your publishing? 


I chose Guardian Angel Publishing because I Iike the books they publish and I respect the authors who have had their work published there.

Which part of the book do you believe is most charming to readers? Please include 2 or 3 poems in your book. For fiction, please pick out a paragraph to share.

Here is a paragraph from A Star in the Night :

A longhaired man with a beard clung to the curb

inches away from the crowd of holiday shoppers.

Softball sized holes engulfed his white clothes. The

man spotted David and limped closer to him. A chill

ran down David’s back. He knew he shouldn’t talk to

strangers, and this one smelled terrible!

Do you have any hints on how to get published?

Keep at it. It may take several rejections before your first publication.  If you stick with it and accept any advice from an editor, you will succeed. Remember, it takes time.

Check out Jennifer’s Books from Links Below: She is a gem writer for today’s children!

A Star in the Night at Amazon

Teresa's Shadow at  Amazon:

To read her and know more about her books, please visit:

Her Blog: http://jgladen.blogspot.com/

Her Book Site:http://a-star-in-the-night.blogspot.com/

Five Little Monkeys Jumping on the Bed

Five Little Monkeys Jumping on the Bed

A Book Review by Jennifer Gladen

If you have a children's book you'd like me to review, please send an e-mail to jennifer_gladen5@msn.com. Include a PDF version of your book, if available, publisher info, your bio and any links, trailers and websites pertaining to your book.

Book Information

No More Monkey's Jumping on the Bed by Eileen Christelow
Publisher: HMH Books (March 23, 1998)
ISBN-10: 0395900239
ISBN-13: 978-0395900239

Book Review

No More Monkeys Jumping on the Bed is  a fun story . Based on the popular song by the same title, this book is sure to bring about laughs with the little ones. Starting out at bed time, we watch as the monkeys get ready for bed. But they aren't sleepy. Before we know it, they are jumping on the bed instead of sleeping in the bed. One by one, the monkeys fall off the bed and are ordered by the doctor, "No more monkeys jumping on the bed!"

As a teacher in an Infant Room at a child care center, I recomend this book. Right from the beginning, my infants and young toddlers were captivated by the story. They participated, echoed, and laughed all through the book. No matter how many times we read this at Circle Time, the children leave the story full of chuckles.

This is a great book packed with fun. Look for it on http://www.amazon.com/ or your local bookstore.



One Pelican at a Time

A children's book review by Author and Editor-in-Chief of My Light Magazine Jennifer Gladen. 

To have your book reviewed by Jennifer Gladen, send an e-mail to jennifer_gladen5@msn.com for more information.

One Pelican at a Time

by Nancy Stewart
Illustrated by Samantha Bell

Hardcover ISBN: 978-1-61633-138-2; 1616331380
Paperback ISBN: 978-1-61633-139-9; 1616331399
eBook ISBN: 978-1-61633-140-5; 1616331402

Blurb

 Bella and Britt love living by the beach. When they find oil washing to shore from a gulf spill, they want to help but are told there is nothing for kids to do. But when their old friend, the crooked beak pelican, becomes covered with oil, they help save his life by their quick thinking and action.

Review:

One Pelican at a Time by Nancy Stewart is an inspiring story about two friends, a crooked beaked pelican, and an oil spill. Bella and Britt discover the damage an oil spill caused in the Gulf of Mexico one afternoon. With a sense of urgency, the girls look for a way to help save the beach and the animals, but are told there's not much a child can do. 

However, when their old friend, the crooked beaked pelican gets harmed by the oil, the girls knew they had to do something. With some smart, quick, thinking they find help for the pelican and in the process learn the many steps it takes to fix a big problem like an oil spill. 

Author Nancy Stewart handled this big issue with great style. In addition to the story, she offers resources for more information on the event of an oil spill. Illustrator Samantha Bell's artwork complimented the story well with colorful, bright, and realistic illustrations.

One Pelican at a Time is an all around great book.

Get a taste for yourself in the trailer below:

 

Where to get One Pelican at a Time:
Guardian Angel Publishing
Amazon
Barnes and Noble


About Nancy Stewart:
After having been an elementary school teacher, a consultant with New Options Inc. in New York City, and a university professor of education, Nancy now writes children’s books full time. She, her husband, and three sons lived in London for eight years where she was a consultant to several universities, including Cambridge.

Nancy travels extensively through out the world, most particularly Africa. She is the US chair of a charity in Lamu, Kenya, that places girls in intermediate schools to allow them to further their education. She and her family live in St. Louis and Clearwater Beach, Florida. Nancy is the author of two other Bella books, Bella Saves the Beach and Sea Turtle Summer. Both will be published by Guardian Angel Publishing. Visit Nancy at http://www.nancystewartbooks.com/ as well as her blog at http://www.nancystewartbooks.blogspot.com/

About Samantha Bell

Samantha Bell lives in the upstate of South Carolina with her husband, four children, and lots of animals. She’s a homeschooling mom by day and a writer and illustrator by night. Her poems, stories, articles, and illustrations have been published both online and in print. Please view her online portfolio at
http://www.samantha-bell.com/ as well as her art lessons for children at http://www.art-made-easy.com/

The little Prince

(May 25) Children's book review by Paroma

The Little Prince

Antoine de Saint-Exupéry was an aviator. He was also an artist of boa constrictors eating elephants. He tried drawing this in two ways. First he drew a great big boa constrictor, swollen with the elephant he had just eaten. The adults around him smiled and told him it was a very nice picture of a hat.

He then drew a boa constrictor, swollen with an elephant inside but made it transparent so that the silly adults could understand what he had drawn. They saw it and began worrying for him.

                            

He gave up drawing boa constrictors eating elephants and thus a very promising future in the arts was squashed. He became an aviator. 

But as he flew over a desert one day, he had the great good fortune to crash into it miles from civilization and then spend a few days in the company of the very magnificent, Little Prince. 

The Prince owned a planet. Really, it was an asteroid (B-612), but the Prince preferred that it be called a planet. It had three volcanoes and a rose. The prince spent all his day uprooting baobab trees from his soil, because if they were allowed to grow up then they would overrun his little planet (which was the size of a house) and then crumble it to dust. So you, understand how important it was to keep them from taking root. 

Of his three volcanoes, one was dormant. The prince used the other two to keep warm and cook his food. One day his rose found her way to his planet and then persuaded him to take care of her. She was beautiful, vain and selfish but he loved her. She appeared not to care.

The prince then decided that he would visit other planets to see how others lived. 

He met many adults and thought them odd, peculiar and silly. He sympathised with a lamp-lighter who diligently lit his single lamp even though days and nights followed each other too swiftly for him to rest.

The prince finally came to earth.

When our aviator meets the little prince, he asks the drawing of a sheep from him. The aviator can't really draw sheep very well, since the only thing he ever drew was a boa constrictor eating an elephant. He tried, but the prince was not satisfied by his attempts. Finally, the aviator drew him a box with tiny holes and told him that the sheep was inside. The prince nodded. Yes, that will do. The sheep was to help him keep the baobabs from becoming unruly by eating them.

The prince then told the pilot about his adventures.

 They say this book is for children. Perhaps it is. That is why I am putting it up here, so that children may know of it and read it and come to love it as I have. I didn't read it as a child, but if I had I think I would have loved it differently. I might not have understood many of the deeper ideas embedded in this simple prose, but then again...maybe I would have understood something I can't possibly understand now.

Children often do, you know.

I would consider any human's education incomplete, their understanding only half formed and their thoughts dipping only the shallowest ponds if they have not read this book. This is a review and a recommendation, not just for children but for the adults who still remember how much bigger the world seemed to them in their childhood. There is something to learn from that.

Our first Children's Playground Book Review

Welcome to Children'sPlayground. Today, we have our first children's book review. Because I recently reviewed the book, Signs of Trouble by Janet A Collins, and I thoroughly enjoyed it, I wanted to share the reveiw here. If you have a published children's book you'd like me to review, please contact me at jennifer_gladen5@msn.com and I will send you more information.

Visit my blog at http://www.jgladen.blogspot.com/ or my website at http://www.jengladen.com/

Now, on to the review!

 Children's Playground

 A book review by Jennifer Gladen

 Signs of Trouble by Janet Ann Collins

Illustrated by Jack Foster

Print ISBN 13: 978-1-61633-111-5; 1616331119
eBook ISBN 13: 978-1-61633-112-2; 1616331127

Blurb:

Children with learning disabilities get separated from their Special Education class on a field trip and use what they’ve learned to get reunited with them. The included activities can help children learn safety rules, understanding of people with special needs, basic reading skills, and creative writing skills.


Review:

Signs of Trouble is an adventurous story about two girls, a special ed student and her partner,  who get separated from their group. With a communication mix-up and a trip to the bathroom, the girls discover they are...gulp...lost!

During this edge-of -the-seat story,  we follow the characters as they face a real life test on what to do if you are lost.  Do they go with that strange lady who offered to help them find their group? Do they go looking for their group? Should they try to find the group meeting place on their own?

With some quick thinking and a creative solution,  the girls find a way to draw attention to themselves and get the help they needed.

This is a delightfully written story that all children can relate to. I loved at the end of the book there are a large variety of academic activities. More fascinating fun with author Janet A Collins!

Where to get Signs of Trouble:
Guardian Angel Publishing
Amazon

About Janet A Collins:

Janet Ann Collins is a retired teacher who used to work at California School for the Deaf, Was a substitute teacher in many Special Education classes, and raised three foster sons with special needs in addition to her birth daughter.


She was a freelance feature writer for a newspaper in the San Francisco Bay Area, is a columnist for the Antique Auction Explorer and her work has appeared in dozens of other publications. Collins is the author of two other books with Guardian Angel Publishing, The Peril of the Sinister Scientist and Secret Service Saint.

About Jack Foster:
Jack Foster, children’s book illustrator, has illustrated more books for Guardian Angel Publishing, SHOO CAT!, Klutzy Kantor.
You can see more of Jack’s work and leave him a comment at www.jacktoon.blogspot.com