Birds of a Feather by Vanita Oelschlager

Rating: WORTHY!

From an advance review copy for which I thank the publisher.

This is described as "A Book of Idioms and Silly Pictures" and it certainly is! It takes some phrases that are so commonly used that people don't even think about them anymore, and takes them quite literally, so the dog, for example, really is barking up the wrong tree and the cat is quite happy about that! Ants in your pants doesn't make anyone happy, and goosebumps are just embarrassing!

I've enjoyed nearly all of the Vanita Oelschlager books that I've read, so I was happy to see this one available for review and I didn't regret it. It was fun, engaging, amusingly illustrated, and goofy enough to be entertaining as well as a little bit educational. I commend it as a worthy read.

I Came From The Water by Vanita Oelschlager

Rating: WORTHY!

From an advance review copy for which I thank the publisher.

This is an odd book because it comes from a personal account by the author of meeting the young boy who is the subject of this story. Told to her through a translator, it makes a great tale of survival during the Hurricane, named Jeanne, which hit Haiti in September 2004 causing serious flooding and other issues in the city of Gonaïves, which is tucked under the south coast of the northern promontory of Haiti.

The problem is that I have no way of telling if this is true, and neither does the boy. This is the story he told, but there's no way of learning now how well he remembers it, or even whether it may have been augmented by suggestion or by his own imagination over the years. While I have a good opinion of this author and have positively reviewed many of her books, I have to express doubts here. She makes no mention of interviewing anyone who might have recalled finding this boy, which to me calls the reliability of the story into question.

Everyone loves an inspirational story, but all I can say in this case is that it sounds highly improbable, and while it may be true, presenting it as a modern Moses story based on a child's hearsay alone is taking things too far for my taste. Children's minds and memory being as malleable as they are, I have to doubt this and frankly wonder about the motive of a writer who presents a story like this. Because of all these doubts and misgivings, I cannot rate this as a worthy read.

Sing Freedom! by Vanita Oelschlager, Mike DeSantis

Rating: WORTHY!

From an advance review copy for which I thank the publisher.

Here's another from the Oelschlager oeuvre, this time illustrated by DeSantis. The story is a true one: of the singing victory of the Estonians over the overbearing Soviet Union as it was known back then (but it was really all Russia). Estonia (called Eesti in Estonian) is one of the Baltic states, and it sits between the other two (Lithuania and Latvia) and the sliver of Baltic sea that separates Estonia from Finland. After World War 2 (like one wasn't more than enough), Russia began subsuming the smaller European nations along its border, and trying to grind them under its heels into subservience.

Estonia was one of the 14 such nations that resented this and always sought to recover its own identity and freedom. They did this in many ways, but in part, it was achieved through a five-yearly festival of song, where they rebelled by singing a nationalist Estonian song, which the Russians did not like. The Estonians would not give up and in the end, they found their freedom during Mikhail Gorbachev's reign.

This book tells a colorful and enjoyable story about this great and peaceful success, and is well worth reading.

Bonyo Bonyo by Vanita Oelschlager, Kristin Blackwood, Mike Blanc

Rating: WORTHY!

From an advance review copy for which I thank the publisher.

This begins a stretch of some seventeen children's non-fiction books I shall be reviewing! Deep breath and off we go!

I've had a lot of success with Oelschlager's books, and this was no exception: it was a lot of fun, as well as informative, and interesting book, beautifully illustrated by Blackwood and Blanc. It's a mini-biography of a young boy who was living in Kenya in Eastern Africa, a country lying just below what's known as the horn of Africa. The boy's name is Bonyo Bonyo, and he loved to go to school That's not a given in Africa. Even if you can find a school, you may have to pay to go there.

These school fees may be cheap compared with what a paid education in the US costs, but people are impoverished there, and even what we consider to be a trivial amount in the US can be an insurmountable obstacle in the so-called third world. This is why we can do a lot by contributing even a little to charities which help with people in such situations. Bonyo had a hard time, and had to travel a long way to get his education, but he was determined.

He did so well in school that he got a chance to go to a college in the USA. All he needed was the airfare! Yikes. That was hard to come by, but through work and donations from friends and well-wishers, he eventually achieved his dream and became a doctor, and now he runs a clinic on his home town and also a practice in the USA. Spoiled as we are for good food, clean water, and a free education in the west, it's easy to forget that others are not so fortunate. It's sad that our millionaire president is too selfish and simple to grasp this. This book is an important reminder to those of us who are open to an education.

The book mentions a college in Texas, not a college in Ohio. While I can find no confirmation of the Texas college attendance, I did find an article online that lists the college he attended in Ohio as an osteopathic college. Such is not exactly a complete medical education. Osteopathy can provide some knowledge of human physiology, but it has only a limited application: to bone and muscle health. It's really not a lot of use for the great diversity inherent in practicing general medicine. In a way, it's a bit like chiropractic (and I could tell you a sorry tale about that!), but at least it wasn't homeopathy! However, that's not so important in a children's story because the take-home message here is one of enduring and triumphing, of courage and persistence, which Bonyo exhibited in spectacular fashion. On that basis I commend this as a worthy read.

Don't Dangle Your Participle by Vanita Oelschlager, Mike DeSantis

Rating: WORTHY!

This is from an advance review copy for which I thank the publisher.

Vanita Oelschlager taught school for two decades and now teaches children via books! I've favorably reviewed at least two of hers before: A Tale of Two Daddies and A Tale of Two Mommies. This one is precisely one of those teaching books - aimed at something that's really quite important for any writer who doesn't want to look like a complete goofball! Or perhaps more accurately, an incomplete goofball?! I've noticed errors of the type demonstrated here in published books which I've reviewed, so no one is free of this pitfall.

I can never think of 'dangling participle' without thinking of Tim Curry in the Sylvester Stallone comedy movie Oscar. He plays a speech therapist, Doctor Pool...oh wait! I need to re-arrange that sentence! Curry plays a speech therapist, Doctor pool, who is being employed by Stallone's gangster character, "Snaps" Provolone, who is trying to go legit. At one point, Connie, Snaps's henchman, says, "Congratulations Doc! Will there be a honeymoon following?" and Dr Pool replies, "Watch it there Connie, you've got a dangling participle!" which Connie completely misinterprets of course.

That movie didn't do so well, although I love it, but there's nothing naughty or risqué in this book. Using examples of everyday children's activities: going to the zoo, eating ice cream (hopefully not an everyday activity!), skateboarding and so on, we get to see the error and then the correction, supported by some amusing and colorful illustrations by Mike DeSantis and there's even a page at the end showing how to draw and color a lion! I liked this book and think it well worth sharing with your children.

Porcupette Finds a Family by Vanita Oelschlager

Title: Porcupette Finds a Family
Author: Vanita Oelschlager
Publisher: Vanita Books
Rating: WORTHY!

Illustrated by Mike Blanc.

Contrary to what might be a popular perception, porcupines are rodents (the third largest after the capybara and the beaver) which aren't confined to North America. They also exist in southern Europe, Africa, India and elsewhere.

This is an intelligently-constructed story which is aimed at helping adopted children to understand that though they were not born into their family, it doesn't mean they're not family, and it doesn't mean that they're not loved as family. Employing the prickly porcupine as a teaching-tool is an inspired idea!

In the story, Porcupette's mom disappears one night while out searching for food, and poor Porcupette is left without a family. After giving up waiting for mom to return, Porcupette sets out in search of her one wintry day. Unable to discover what happened to her, he ends up adopted by a bear family after sneaking into their warn den to escape the chilly night air.

Porcupette proves to be as prickly in personality as his growing protective coat renders him in reality, and he begins inadvertently risking precipitation the very thing he fears - rejection by his adoptive family. Tension spikes and it becomes more than he can bear, so he decides to leave home once again in search of happiness and family.

What he didn’t expect is the behavior of momma bear and her two cubs, and so he learns a useful lesson and finds a family he can call home. I think this is a cute story about round holes and square quills, and useful as a teaching tool. It strikes me that this is not only of utility if you have an adopted child, but also if you want your children to learn about adoption and how it works, to give them a greater understanding of the children they may meet.

Even in nature, one species has been known to adopt another. There's a show on Netflix: Animal Odd Couples, which amply demonstrates this: the goat leading the blind horse, the deer which adopted a dog, the dog which adopted a deer, the cheetah and the dog best friend, the duck and the tortoise, the coyote and the lion. These aren't fairy tales, but real life. I'm sure you can find a score of them on You Tube.

I recommend this book.

Knees: The mixed up world of a boy with dyslexia by Vanita Oelschlager

Title: Knees: The mixed up world of a boy with dyslexia
Author: Vanita Oelschlager
Publisher: Vanita Books
Rating: WARTY!

Illustrated by Joe Rossi.

Knees is a young children's book about dyslexia, an often misunderstood condition which affects how a child perceives the written word. It can cause problems other than the ability to read text, and so it’s important to understand the condition, and how it can be helped. Normally that would be sufficient for me to rate this book positively, but I had some issues with it as I’ll point out in this review. Having dyslexia does not meet the sufferer is dumb, or lazy and somehow deficient.

In this story, young Louis has dyslexia and finds it annoying, frustrating, and debilitating. This book looks at the different ways it can present itself, all seemingly aimed at tripping up Louis in his everyday school activities.

In the course of following Louis through his day, we learn to understand what's going on, and how to deal with it. It’s not the end of the world. It is an interesting way-station on his way through the world: a challenge to be met, tackled, and overcome, thereby building confidence not just in his ability to read, but also in his ability to successfully face challenges without giving up.

The most important thing Louis learns is that he's not alone - neither in his condition, nor in finding help for it. He also learns that many other people have experienced these same difficulties and overcome them. Some of these people are well-known, and may surprise you. Unfortunately I was not able to independently confirm that any of the people depicted in the sample images on my blog (Thomas Edison, Albert Einstein, John F Kennedy, George Washington) actually were dyslexic. Wikipiedia doesn't mention either 'dyslexia' or 'dyslexic' on any of their pages, so I can't tell if it's merely an urban legend which the author is passing on, or if all four of them were, in fact, sufferers.

My biggest disappointment was in the conclusion which the book drew, which seemed to me to be poorly arrived at. It seems to suggest that although he was not academically outstanding, Louis could excel at sports, namely basketball. That seemed to me to be entirely the wrong way to go in this particular book.

Not that there's a problem with sports! Exercise is, after all, vitally important and does more than keep your muscles toned. It can also help brain function, which certainly wouldn’t harm someone in Louis's situation, but in a way it felt like a cop-out - like poor Louis was being told that since he was struggling with academic work, take the easy way out and play a sport. Maybe you'll get a scholarship. I'm sure this isn't what the author intended, but it's still there.

It’s for this reason that I can’t recommend this particular one. Maybe you'll see it differently, and I confess that I was torn about how to rate this. For me, though, playing the basketball card felt like too much of a cop-out, and it seemed to contradict what had come before.

By all means, if a child is good at a sport, let them go for it, but education is and should be primarily about academic excellence. Tossing sport into the pot in this way seemed to create a dichotomy - like it's one or the other. It isn’t, and many athletes have handsomely demonstrated this by demonstrating academic achievement, as have many academics in showing sporting success.

I'm glad that sports was mentioned, but saddened that it seemed like this was offered rather like it was Louis's ticket to success, which meant his academic performance wasn't so important after all. I tend to rate children's books positively because the ones I choose to read and review offer something to be thrilled with, but I can’t do that in this case because I felt it sends the wrong message - or at least risks sending the wrong one. You are welcome to disagree!

Carrot by Vanita Oelschlager

Rating: WORTHY!

From an advance review copy for which I thank the publisher.

Yes, it's Vanita Oelschlager again, with Kristin Blackwood at the richly colorful paint brush and today's topic is Carrot is a cat. I'll bet you'll never guess what color she is.... She has a great life, inexplicably chasing mice, but also tending to one who has the flu. She loves her home and family, and the opportunities for a fish dinner at Finney's(!). I had a cat of the same hue, named Ginger. Still no idea what color she was?

One day Carrot sees a luxury yacht (probably pronounced Mangrove-Throat-Wobbler - and if you get that reference, you probably like flying circuses....) cruise by, and espies a gorgeous white fluffy cat on the deck playing with a toy mouse. The cat's name is Buffy. No word of whether she fights vampire cats.

This sight is a bit too much for Carrot, who now finds her days occupied not with having fun and tasty snacks, but with thoughts of what her own life would be like if she had the opportunities and life-style enjoyed by Buffy. She daydreams her time away in idle imaginings.

Being a practical cat - a practi-cat, no doubt - Carrot soon realizes the futility of her day-dreaming. She begins to understand that not all is not well in Buffy-world. Buffy doesn't have a host of family legs to rub against. She doesn't have real organic USDA grade A-1 mice to chase, nor does she have yummy snacks from Finney's. She leads a rather sad and isolated life, surrounded by fish but none to eat.

Carrot rather quickly and quite fully realizes what she would lose, and she re-values her own life, deciding that the catnip isn't always greener on the other side of the mouse. This is a great story for kids who might sometimes wish they had been born someone else, or who might look enviously at the life others lead. We cannot always control what happens to us, but we can control how we feel about it and how much we take or lose out of each day that we have. Worthy of a look for cat lovers and their children!

Postcards From a War by Vanita Oelschlager

Rating: WORTHY!

From an advance review copy for which I thank the publisher.

I've become a big fan of Vanita Oeschlanger. She writes unusual and charming children's books, all of which seem to have some purpose other than simply being something pretty to look at and something to read to your kids. This story is slightly misnamed since it takes place immediately after a war, but it's based on a real person who went abroad and sent home illustrated letters for his kids, and that's used as a framework to write an assuring and realistic story for a modern kid whose mom has gone abroad to a war zone.

It's wonderfully written in clear and unequivocal language and it pulls no punches, and nicely illustrated by Wilfrid Bauknight. It speaks intelligently and warmly, and it offers as much reassurance as something as uncertain as this situation can give. Col. Wilfrid Bauknight went to the Philippines to rebuild bridges and so on after Japan had surrendered. He was gone for only six months, but naturally his wife and children missed him, so he wrote back to them often and created hilarious drawings to illustrate his journey and activities.

Depicted here as a grandfather talking to his grandson about war and family absences, we get the story of his own life away as he relates it to his grandson's fears and difficulties. I love the way the grandfather speaks of his grandson's generation as being tasked to find better ways to resolve difficulties than war. I share that sentiment, but let's get started now, let's not wait for the kids to grow up and get to it!

Apart from the great illustrations, one of the finest things about this book is that all net profits benefit the Fisher House foundation (the link is on my blog), which is dedicated to meeting the needs of the nation's service members, veterans and their families. I recommend this story.

A Tale of Two Mommies by Vanita Oelschlager

Title: A Tale of Two Mommies
Author: Vanita Oelschlager
Publisher: Vanita Books
Rating: WORTHY!

DISCLOSURE: Unlike the majority of reviews in this blog, I've neither bought this book nor borrowed it from the library. This is a "galley" copy ebook, supplied by Net Galley. I'm not receiving (nor will I expect to receive or accept) remuneration for this review. The chance to read a new book is often enough reward aplenty!

Illustrated by Kristin Blackwood (no website found) and Mike Blanc.

This review is pretty much the same as the one I wrote for A Tale of Two Daddies, but it's different because the two books are not the same. They do cover similar ground, however.

I didn't know who she was a couple of days ago, but I'm rapidly becoming a big fan of author Vanita Oelschlager. She has written many books, but the ones I'll talk about today are aimed at children specifically those aged four to eight years, which is a bit outside the range of my own kids, but no so far away that I don't remember them well at those ages.

The stories are all short and they're aimed at teaching. The lesson may be dealing with a personal problem, or a problem in the family and following the story may help a child see a way through their own dilemma with the help of mom or dad, or a guardian or close relative - whoever is willing to pitch in. The net profit from these books goes straight to a deserving charity, not into an author's pocket, which is an amazingly generous thing to do.

This particular story is becoming more and more important in the US as the nation slowly catches up with the rest of the civilized world and finally starts treating gay couples just ads they've treated hetero couples. The only problem here is that there aren't many of them, so a kid who has two parents of the same gender may well feel a little unusual when friends start talking about mommy and daddy.

It's a serious and important issue, but this book doesn't get bogged down by being grim and preachy. It takes an almost breathless approach to the kinds of questions which other kids might have, and the style and pace is a perfect fit to how incredibly energetic young kids are. You know, if you can invent a way to tap some of that childhood energy and re-distribute it to parents and other older folk, you'll be a guaranteed billionaire and a hero to parents everywhere.

So in this book, which is nicely and colorfully illustrated, a young boy (whose name isn't revealed) has two moms. He also happens to be a different race from either of his moms and I love that this isn't even an issue here. I wait and hope for the day when same-gender parents isn't, either.

As in the other volume, a couple of kids are bugging him with a host of questions about who does what if bothparents are girls. Puleeze! The good-natured boy answers with the same measure of poise and equanimity which the girl employed in the companion volume, and he answers smartly and sensibly.

As I said before, this isn't rocket science after all, it's parenting. Parents have different skills and behaviors regardless of what gender they are. It's no big deal as long as we deal with it like adults! I recommend this book regardless of whether parents are gay, hetero, single, plural or guardians. As I said in the other review, it's all good as long as it's love.

A Tale of Two Daddies by Vanita Oelschlager

Title: A Tale of Two Daddies
Author: Vanita Oelschlager
Publisher: Vanita Books
Rating: WORTHY!

DISCLOSURE: Unlike the majority of reviews in this blog, I've neither bought this book nor borrowed it from the library. This is a "galley" copy ebook, supplied by Net Galley. I'm not receiving (nor will I expect to receive or accept) remuneration for this review. The chance to read a new book is often enough reward aplenty!

Illustrated by Kristin Blackwood (no website found) and Mike Blanc.

This review is pretty much the same as the one I wrote for A Tale of Two Mommies, but it's different because the two books are not the same. They do cover similar ground, however.

I didn't know who she was a couple of days ago, but I'm rapidly becoming a big fan of author Vanita Oelschlager. She has written many books, but the ones I'll talk about today are aimed at children specifically those aged four to eight years, which is a bit outside the range of my own kids, but no so far away that I don't remember them well at those ages.

The stories are all short and they're aimed at teaching. The lesson may be dealing with a personal problem, or a problem in the family and following the story may help a child see a way through their own dilemma with the help of mom or dad, or a guardian or close relative - whoever is willing to pitch in. The net profit from these books goes straight to a deserving charity, not into an author's pocket, which is an amazingly generous thing to do.

This particular story is becoming more and more important in the US as the nation slowly catches up with the rest of the civilized world and finally starts treating gay couples just ads they've treated hetero couples. The only problem here is that there aren't many of them, so a kid who has two parents of the same gender may well feel a little unusual when friends start talking about mommy and daddy.

It's a serious and important issue, but this book doesn't get bogged down by being grim and preachy. It takes an almost breathless approach, with colorful and very active illustrations to the kinds of questions which other kids might have, and the style and pace is a perfect fit to how incredibly energetic young kids are. You know, if you can invent a way to tap some of that childhood energy and re-distribute it to parents and other older folk, you'll be a guaranteed billionaire and a hero to parents everywhere.

So in this book, a young girl (whose name isn't revealed) has two dads, and a kid is bugging her something chronic with question after question about who does what if they're both guys. The charming girl answers with poise and equanimity and answers with neither hesitation nor exaggeration. And her answers are smart and make sense. This isn't rocket science! It's parenting. Parents have different skills and behaviors regardless of what gender they are. It;s no big deal as long as we deal with it like adults! I recommend this book regardless of whether parents are gay, hetero, single, plural or guardians. It's all good as long as it's love.