read. laugh. write. repeat.

Are you interested in entering our 2012 Writing Contest? For details and prize information, send an email to  info@storybuildersbooks.com Prizes, deadlines and more information coming soon.

Want a great book? Go to www.Storybuildersbooks.com

Last year’s winner:

THE BIG PROBLEM

BY TEAGHAN, age 9

Once there was a penguin named Bubbles. He loved bubble gum, but what he loved to do is blow bubbles with bubble gum. Bubbles has a best friend named Josh and he never minded Bubble’s problem until this day. That day, Bubbles went to school and was chewing gum. He blew a huge bubble and it got all over his friend Josh. Josh said, “Why did you do that, Bubbles?” “I’m so sorry,” said Bubbles. The next day, Josh took him to the doctor to get rid of his bubble problem. As they felt the warm breeze when they walked in the office, Bubbles had tears going down his face because he was scared. Josh told him, “It will be fine.” He conquered his fear and they entered the room. “Hello” said Dr. Penguin. “You must be Bubbles.” “Yes, that’s me,” he said. “Well,  your friend Josh told me about your problem and if you take this Bubble Gum flavored medicine every day you’ll be sure to be better with it,” he said. “Yummy,” said Bubbles. “I’ll take it!” Every single day Bubbles took the medicine. After a while, Bubbles wanted to blow bubbles MORE! He ran to Josh’s house. “JOSH! JOSH! JOSH!” Bubbles yelled. “What?” he exclaimed. “I don’t think the medicine is working.” “Why not?” asked Josh. “I feel like I want to blow even more bubbles than usual.” “OH, great,” said Josh. “Well I guess I’ll have to bring you to see Dr. Penguin again.” So Josh took Bubbles to see Dr. Penguin. “Well, Bubbles, I bet the problem is the flavor,” said Dr. Penguin. “What flavor?” asked Bubbles. “The bubble gum flavor. I guess I will have to give you grape,” said Dr. Penguin. “Either that or sour lemon.” “I’ll take the grape,” Bubbles aid. Bubbles took a dose and it tasted HORRIBLE, but the feeling of chewing bubble gum was gone! He didn’t want to blow any more bubbles either.  Bubbles was so happy! He was glad that he didn’t have to blow bubbles any more. When Bubbles came home, Mamma and Papa Penguin were so proud of him.

When my daughter was 9, we read “The Care and Keeping of You: The Body Book for Girls” (American Girl Library). We read it at night while she was cozy in her bed and the dim light made it less embarrassing for us. On several nights, that was the book she wanted to read TOGETHER, and I was stunned at the ease of our puberty talk.

My misstep is that I assumed this talk was a one-time deal. I brought the topic up again recently, but my daughter, now two years old, clearly did not want to go there again. In hindsight, I realize that The Talk should actually be a series of tender conversations that grow as your child grows.

Here are some helpful links to get you started and keep the conversations going:

Check out Amy Lang’s Birds + Bees + Kids: http://www.birdsandbeesandkids.com/

“The birds and the bees can be tough to talk about, but with a little information, skills, some careful thought and planning, it’s possible to have comfortable and effective sex talks with your kids that don’t make either of you nuts!”

Melissa Taylor, an educator and author of Imagination Soup, says, “Don’t forget that another part of a child’s puberty education is the mis-education at recess.”

http://imaginationsoup.net/2011/08/why-you-must-talk-about-puberty/?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+ImaginationSoup+%28Imagination+Soup%29

GUILTY

I’ve tried to teach my daughters about compassion, but nothing seems to hit home unless I introduce a baby rabbit or puppy  into the lesson.

“Be nice to that old man,” I’ll say, but they are dumbfounded until I add, ”He has a hungry puppy at home that he needs to feed.”

 Never before have these lessons been so important in our home. I tore my rotator cuff while ice skating with my 8-year-old (see photo) and my husband is on crutches with a broken foot, which happened a week after my injury while he was playing soccer in the basement with the same daughter. The timing of these painful injuries couldn’t be worse. Our daughters are oblivious to our need to be left alone.

To help them understand our foul moods, I found a helpful article online entitled, “How to Approach an Injured Animal”, which I have tailored to my situation. Feel free to use it when your kids compromise your independence by putting you in a sling or crutches.

1.) Assess the situation and secure the area first. An injured mom is scared and will try to escape. She can bite, claw or scratch you so approach with caution. MY ADVICE: Let mom escape.

2.) Think of your safety first and then your mom or dad before you approach them. You do not want to be injured yourself in the process of giving help. MY ADVICE: Get out of the way! Can’t you see your dad is on crutches?

3.) Observe the mom or dad for signs of extreme fear or aggression –  baring teeth, raised hair, growling, ears flattened against the head. MY ADVICE: Do not interrupt any staring. Daddy’s pain meds are kicking in.

4.) Find something soft to muzzle the injured mom or dad. MY ADVICE: Don’t you dare. Just back slowly away and hand us the remote.

5.)  Approach the injured mom slowly with steady movements. Speak in a soothing voice to calm and reassure them. MY ADVICE: It sounds nice on paper but this will never happen.

4.) Do not look the injured mom in her eyes as this can be interpreted by some moms as a threat. MY ADVICE: I know what you’re going to ask and the answer is no or get it yourself.

5.) Make sure the mom welcomes your approach. MY ADVICE: Do not ever during the course of the healing process ask, “Will you play Polly Pockets with me?”

6.) Continue talking to the mom. MY ADVICE: N0. No talking. At all. Nothing. Silence.

7.) Lift it up with one arm around its chest and the other arm supporting the rump and hind legs and put in the trunk of your car and bring it to the nearest vet. MY ADVICE: I’d like to see you try.

We have a passel of lost pens in our home. Some of them hail from faraway places that we’ve never been to, or tout people we’ve never voted for let alone met, or promote drugs that we’ve never been prescribed.

This should explain why we were using a pen emblazoned with VIAGRA on it during the 57th Street Children’s Book Fair in Chicago last weekend, where hundreds of our little customers and their parents picked it up to sign our email list. Or glanced at it in horror. Please accept our apology.

Certainly, you can sympathize. Go through your home now and I know you’ll find something from a lobster shack in Maine that you’ve never been to.

I didn’t realize the faux pas until a mom handed me the pen and said it wasn’t working. (Just put your own joke here.)

So I quickly took it from her hand, hid my horror at the site of the VIAGRA label, and handed her another pen.

After she left, I sighed and looked at the replacement pen, which was labeled GUINNESS.

No, not as in Book of World Records.

Most of us have driven past an injured animal on a roadway and wished there was something we could do to help. But how many of us would actually stop?

Here’s a woman’s amazing story, and how her act of kindness for a suffering cat brought her an unexpected reward.

Sally Geer was driving to work on  country road in southern Michigan when she saw a cat crouched beside the road. As she drove by, she realized that something was terribly wrong with the cat’s face. She turned her car around to get a closer look. The injury was horrific: The cat’s eyes had bulged out of her head, presumably from being hit by a car.

I was recently reminded that life imitates art, and that I am decidedly more juvenile than I had thought.

The “art” being our first book, Spies Inc., in which a middle-school boy is sent on a spy mission by bully Biff Vermin to steal a top-secret cupcake frosting recipe from The Lunch Lady. I won’t give away the entire plot because YOU CAN BUY IT HERE WWW.STORYBUILDERSBOOKS.COM,  but here’s an excerpt: 

All the kids in school knew about the frosting, but none of us had actually tasted it. The Lunch Lady used it only on cupcakes that went to grown-ups. “I’m going to be a famous TV chef some day, geekhead, and that frosting will be my claim to fame,” Biff said, scowling.

 After promising to have the recipe by the end of the day, the boy sneaks into the school kitchen, where he dons a disguise and tries to swipe a tray of cupcakes out of the school.

Now, fast forward to a small-town shop in northern Michigan called The Cherry Hut. Here is the actual text message exchange between me and my neighbor, Margaret, who is also an adult and who, like me, has  dismissed Botox in favor of exclamation points.

MARGARET: I smell the cookies baking!!!!!! Sweeeeeet!

ME: Get the batter recipe!!!!

MARGARET: I will beg after I get my cookie or they won’t sell them to me.

ME: Say this: “I can taste butter, right? Or is it lard?”

MARGARET: Yes…good line…and cherries?

ME: We already know there are cherries, pecans and white chocolate. JUST GET THE RECIPE!!!!!

I added that last sentence for effect, but suffice it to say, another summer has ended without the recipe for the best cookie on earth that we have aptly named Lard-Butt Cookies. That’s a combined 7 trips to the Hut, and 7 conversations with the owners (actually 8 if you include last winter’s phone call when I inquired about them mailing me the cookies.)

Stop judging me. I know you wannabe Iron Chefs are saying I should just recreate the recipe at home from scratch. I know plenty more are saying we should just ask for the recipe. Duh? Then what am I supposed to talk to my neighbors about all winter? The weather?

Margaret still has one more chance. Her family will stop at The Cherry Hut on their way home at the end of this week. Here’s what I plan to text her:

ME: OMG!!!! Don’t forget to get the recipe!!! Those cookies are so, like, AWESOME!!!! Do you really think they use lard???? I will totally freak. Isn’t that pig fat???

I feel younger already.