Month: December 2016

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MARIA’S BEADS

C. T. MARKEE

SUMMARY

Verónica pushes through the other seventh grade kids in our breezeway, speaking over the noise, “María! What’s wrong with Hannah?”

What does she want? Like she suddenly cares about Hannah, cares that the nurse sent her home, cares that her eyes were glassy, her face swollen and her whole body sagging. I begged Hannah to stay home, but she wouldn’t listen.

Thus begins a multicultural novel set in Salinas, California, in which 12-year-old María Cortez discovers her inner strength and uses it to save her best friend, Hannah, a Caucasian girl who lives next door. As the story unfolds, a presumed enemy becomes a friend, a mysterious old women, a curandera, becomes her mentor, she learns why the space on her birth certificate for father is blank, she discovers her Huichol roots and in the end she choses a life career.

A DIFFERENT KIND OF READ (REVIEW)

When I started reading María’s Beads, I thought I knew a lot about Hispanic culture, I was pleasantly surprised to know that I didn’t. I loved the storytelling aspect of María’s Beads, and the way in which certain things were presented in the story. What certain things you ask? You know I can’t tell you, that would spoil the story for you.

I can tell you that she used the same method of an important historical figure to solve the problem of Hannah’s illness. What, you want more information about this historical figure and what she did? Really! So you can be mad at me later for giving away the story. Lets go on.

The UNIQUE thing about María’s Beads is the power Maria receives from the beads and from her lessons with La Curandera. María’s Beads is also an ETHNIC read because Maria learns that her Hispanic roots are a mix of Huichol and Brazilian.

RECOMMENDATION

I really, really liked this wonderful, amazing, historical story for Middle Grade Readers 10 – 12 and Young Adults to age 14.

BUY IT HERE: Amazon  Kindle  Website

71hvoqtrnfl-_sy200_BIO:     One evening my wife told me the story of her 13-year-old best friend who lived next door to where she grew up in Salinas, California. One day, she contracted kidney disease, her parents refused medical intervention and the girl died. I was struck by the emotional impact of such an event on a pre-teen. It propelled my wife out of a near-poverty existence and into a life-time career as a medical professional, impacting hundreds of patients. This book is my attempt to capture that motivation for pre-teen girls without the death.

Charles is coordinator and meeting moderator for the Sonoma County Society of Children’s Book Writers and Illustrators (SCBWI).  He has published three middle-grade novels as well as work in three literary anthologies, Tiny-Lights literary website and the Santa Rosa Press democrat newspaper. He was co-editor of the Redwood Writers 2012 anthology, Call of the Wild, and is an active member of the Redwood Writers a branch of the California Writer’s Club (CWC).

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OKI AND HARLO
FAIRYTALE FRIENDS

CAS MESTEROM

 

SUMMARY

Oki, a little orphaned goat meets Harlo, a shooting star, who falls to earth and ends up in the field where Oki is asleep. They become instant best friends and together they go on a quest to find Oki’s momma.

On their adventure, the little friends encounter wise old, Mr. Owl, Wobbly, the chicken, and a little girl named Ellie and her family.

Enter a world where children can safely go and learn about making friends, being honest, and believing in dreams, as well as healthy eating and the REAL purpose of rainbows!

“Oki and Harlo, fairytale friends” is the first ever draw freely e-book.
The story invites the readers to make their own illustrations. There are free-draw pages that have clear instructions on what to draw.

“Oki and Harlo, fairytale friends” is written for children aged 5 to 10 years, but is suitable for older children and adult kids too! It is a fun fairytale to read to your children and it is equally fun for children who are discovering the world of reading and imagination.

A DIFFERENT KIND OF READ (REVIEW)

Life is good for Oki as he plays in the pasture with his mother and the other farm animals. Yes, life is good until that faithful day, that farmer Barbic takes his mother away. His mother tells him not to be alarmed because she is only going to the farm and she’ll see him later. But, when winter ends and the other animals return from the farm, his mother is nowhere to be found.

He is sad, especially since Mrs. Sheep who cared for him during the winter months, now has her own family to care for. That night, as he struggles to fall asleep, he hears a noise not far away. It turns out to be Harlo, a star who has just fallen from Heaven.

After meeting and greeting each other, the two become fast friends and Harlo offer’s to help Oki find his mother. Thus the adventure begins as the two set out the next morning. Of course they had a little guidance from the—oh, you’ll have to find that out for yourself.

The UNIQUE thing about Oki and Harlo, Fairytale Friends is that it’s interactive. That means YOU CAN WRITE IN THE BOOK! EXCITTTTING!

RECOMMENDATION

Oki and Harlo Fairytale Friends is a bedtime story written in the form of a chapter book for First Time Readers (1-8), but I feel that the interactive part will also appeal to Middle Grade Readers through age 10.

BUY IT HERE: Amazon

BIO: Cas Mesterom is a Dutch born author, poet, model and actor. Although Dutch is his native language, he feels more at ease writing his ideas to life in English.

Oki and Harlo is his first children’s book, and has taken seventeen years to breath life into the characters so that they live in print.