Disclosure: I was sent a copy of this book in exchange for an honest review. All opinions are my own. Can you believe today is the first day of summer? Our spring was very strange with the pandemic. I expect our summer to be strange too. I know I found myself needing things to help me relax. I turned to coloring. You may remember I use to do a weekly coloring book review on Fridays called Relaxing Friday. I stopped due to the number of coloring books I had and I wasn't getting any. However that changes today. Since I was scheduled to participate with the MKB Read Around the World Summer Series yesterday this is a relaxing Saturday post. Today I get to share with you a perfect summertime coloring book and it is brand new!! It was released this week!! It is Zendoodle Colorscapes: Secrets of the Sea artwork by Deborah Muller.
Disclosure: I was sent a copy of this book in exchange for an honest review. All opinions are my own. The Multicultural Kid Blogs' Read Around the World Summer Series started this week and today we are sharing a young adult novel that is written by a German author and takes place in Switzerland. Be sure to follow the entire series all summer. I will be sharing the book recommendations on my Facebook page. In general Mondays will be books for younger kids, Wednesdays will be middle grade books and Fridays will be young adult but some may get switched around. The book we are sharing is A Castle in the Clouds by Kerstin Gier and translated by Romy Fursland.
Disclosure: I was sent digital copies of these books in exchange for an honest review. All opinions are my own. This week for our Black Lives Matter Series, I am going to share two people who are not on my list but who I found some relatively new picture books about. Last week I shared Mary Eliza Mahoney, the first trained black woman. Today I am sharing books about Gwendolyn Brooks, the first black person to win the Pulitzer Prize in Poetry, and August Wilson, a black playwright who won two Pulitzer Prizes and a Tony Award.
Disclosure: I was sent a copy of these books in exchange for an honest review. All opinions are my own. Is school out where you live? Hazel finished last week. Of course it wasn't a big celebration with the state just starting to re-open. But we have started to think about summer. Although I don't see too many trips to the beach this year even when we are at Cape Cod. But reading about them is always fun. Today I am sharing two books about life near water--a lake and the ocean. Do you go to any body of water every summer? Are you going this year?
With our nation looking at racial relationships right now I wanted to take time to look at black lives. As I read the Facebook posts and articles and think about everything that is going on, I think about my life, my white privilege and how I have brought Hazel up. One of my biggest regrets happened years ago when I didn't say anything to a young black girl at a Macy's around Christmas time. She saw a black holiday Barbie and said something like pretty and then saw the white one and said something along the lines of prettier. I wanted to tell her no the white one is not prettier, but I got scared. What would the mother think of a white stranger talking to her young daughter? Would I scare the girl? My friend finished her transaction and we walked away. I was the only the adult who heard the young girl and by not saying anything I let that poor girl go on believing white was prettier than black which is so not true. This has weighed heavily on my mind for decades now. This has been stirred up again.
