The Monster of the Fall by Daria Aran

Rating: WORTHY!

This is a colorful, fun, and interesting picture book for young children, with minimal text. I positively reviewed Sharee by the same author in May 2015. This is a different story altogether from that one, and still a winner. The Monster of the Fall isn't such a bad character after all, Mischievous, yes, but serving a useful function, climbing trees and shaking down the dead leaves, messing people's hair by making the wind blow.

I think this would be a fun book to read and a fun game to play as you read. Your child can climb onto the couch to imitate climbing a tree, and blow some pieces of tissue paper around to simulate the falling leaves. Or maybe you even have some real fallen leaves in the yard. In the bathtub at bedtime, she can make it rain, and make thunder noises while you flick the light on and off to simulate lightning. I think that would be a fun game. But whether you do all that, or simply sit quietly with a nice cup of cocoa, your child tucked in bed, and you reading this quietly, it doesn't matter. the point is to read! I recommend this as a great excuse to sit down with a cup of cocoa.

Sharee by Daria Aran

Title: Sharee
Author: Daria Aran (no website found)
Publisher: Amazon
Rating: WORTHY!

Today is evidently children's self-help day on my blog and this is the second young children's story aimed at getting them motivated and giving them ideas. Sharee is an alien who not only lives on a sun, but who lives on a sun which has a skateboard track running around it like the rings of Saturn, but not like the rings of Neptune, which are frankly just weird, or of Uranus, which are hardly any better. This gas giants, I tell you! What jokers they are, full of gas and fury, signifying weirdness.

So, Sharee decides to organize a party and knows exactly what has to be done. The problem is, no one shows up! What went wrong? Yes folks, this is a mystery story and Sharee isn't going to give up until he figures it all out. He sits up all night wondering where in the sun everyone is, and then first thing in the morning, it dawns on him! Actually I may have made up that last bit, but he does figure it out and finally he gets to party down and make new friends.

I recommend this as a good idea to get kids thinking about how to make friends, and more importantly, how to keep them. This is a discussion which you can have with your children long after you've read through the book with them.