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This YA paranormal mystery/romance is a page-turner all the way. Told in the present tense, the action always feels immediate. The author captures Amelia’s grief over her mother, self-doubt over her paranormal abilities, and conflicting pulls of love for both the dead Matthew and the living Kip.

Short Stories of Heaven is a wonderful resource for children and their families who are dealing with loss and terminal illness, as well as people who are looking for a way to explain the afterlife to children.

Muza Ulasowski, my wonderful collaborator, has created a fabulous FB page for our picture book, “The Sea Cat Dreams”! Muza’s wonderfully life like illustrations have perfectly captured  the story in a way I could never have envisaged! She has truly captured the story’s essence!  Here are some samples:

The story is about coping with life impacting change something that can happen planned [as in a house move] or completely unplanned [as with a natural disaster, accident, death etc]. Coping with change, as child/family psychologists and counselors all say, is something that has a profound impact, especially on the young. As with grief, adults are often too preoccupied with the change and its ramifications to be able to take in how the children, who are being impacted by change, are managing or not managing in the new setting/situation.

The cat in the story moves, accidently, from one environment & family on a farm, to another very different one, aboard a fishing boat.  He is then impacted further by the loss of a master he has come to love. But this is not the end. He moves through his life’s dramatic changes; firstly, by grieving, something we need to encourage each other and especially children, to do. He then reaches out to, shares with and cares for others also affected by loss, in this case, the fisherman’s widow. He gradually accepts his new life situation, not for a moment forgetting what has happened, but treasuring the wonderful memories he has.

The process of grieving must be acknowledged and the grieving child/adult be allowed to express their grief or sense of loss at the change in their lives and encouraged to do so.  Let them talk, let them share as much as they need to. Highlight the  constructive aspects, positive elements, e.g, wonderful memories of a dead friend, relative or pet. If the impacting change has involved a move – be it to a different school, to another suburb, another state, another country – encourage  the keeping of contacts where possible, assist with the making of new contacts and the sharing of the process of moving and resettling, especially any humorous incidents.

The hope in writing this book, was to help children talk about their own stories of life changing events and to recognise, that whilst change is not always pleasant, we can become stronger for it and be better able to reach out and empathise with others experiencing its many faceted impact on their own lives.

See it here: http://utales.com/books/the-sea-cat-dreams

 4 Stars
Farfalla: A Story of Loss and Hope
Vanita Oelschlager
Vanita Books
978-0-9832904-0-7
No. Pages: 42    Ages: 4 to 8

From Publisher’s Website: Farfalla (the Italian word for “butterfly”) is a unique look at the death of an unborn child. The story is told from the perspective of young Beetle who, with his mother, meets a crowd of caterpillars in the garden they all frequent. Soon they become friends and he watches in awe as the caterpillars weave themselves into cocoons. A special one catches his attention and Beetle “adopts” it by making all sorts of plans of what they will do together when it hatches.

. . . . . . .

 Little Beetle meets a caterpillar and they play together in the garden. Then one day, the caterpillar is not around and Little Beetle cannot find him. Little Beetle is upset until his mother has him look up toward the sky. There in the trees are cocoons. Mother Beetle explains to her son how the caterpillars will soon become butterflies. Little Beetle patiently waits for the butterflies to emerge.

While Little Beetle waits, he sees one cocoon and decides to adopt it. While waiting for his new friend to open into a butterfly, Little Beetle tells the cocoon what fun they will have. Soon the butterflies begin to emerge from their cocoons—but not Little Beetle’s adopted friend. Little Beetle checks each day to see if the cocoon has blossomed into a butterfly. He has named the still unborn butterfly Farfalla. All the cocoons have opened except Farfalla. She has died. Mother Beetle explains death to her son, telling him that Farfalla has gone.

. . . . . . . .Butterflies that are not not born go to live

. . . . . . . .with all the other butterflies who die and

. . . . . . . . fly up in the sky with the stars and the moon

Farfalla is a sensitive story about a delicate situation—the death of an unborn child. I like the use of cocoons and butterflies as “the baby in mommy’s tummy.” With the cocoon, the child can see the caterpillar lying in his cocoon. The unborn butterfly goes up to the stars and the moon; unborn children go up into the sky to heaven. This is a wonderful way to make this subject accessible for the youngest minds.

The illustrations are beautiful, with oversized objects, and color from edge to edge.  The pages are lively, until the cocoon has died. At this point, the illustrations become darker, as if night has fallen. I think the black background represents Little Beetle’s grief and confusion. Once he says goodbye to Farfalla, who waves from high in the sky, the background returns to the bright blue of the clear sky. Little Beetle has accepted Farfalla’s death.

Children excitedly await the birth of a new brother or sister and then, for whatever reason, the baby does not survive birth. Young children often do not have the ability to understand the concept of death—of someone leaving and never, ever returning. Three, four and five-year-old children do not see death as a permanent state of being.

Cartoons help reinforce the idea of non-permanence of death when the character “dies” in one episode, only to come back to “life” in the next, or even the same, cartoon. The Tom and Jerry cartoons and the Roadrunner and Coyote are good examples of cartoons that reinforce children’s idea of death as temporary.

Toddlers understand that something is “all gone,” such as their dinner. Yet, that dinner returns each night. Not until age ten, do most kids firmly grasp that death is permanent and can happen to anyone. Farfalla helps parents talk to their young children about the death of not only an unborn child, which is the intent of the author, but also the death of anyone, or anything.

Vanita Books tend to have messages but they are not preachy in any way. Vanita Books tell great stories that are fun and lively. Children will love and treasure these books, and Farfalla is no exception. The illustrations in Vanita Books are gorgeous and interestng. They capture the mood of the story.

Farfalla is a sensitive story with profound meaning. I recommend this to anyone who must explain death to a young child. While the cocoon represents a child in the womb, Farfalla can help explain any death to a young child. The main thing for a child to take away is the person, or pet, went to heaven and are happy there, just as Farfalla is with the stars and the moon, happily looking down upon Little Beetle.

Farfalla: A Story of Loss and Hope.

Author: Vanita Oelschlager   website
Illustrator: Kristin Blackwood   website   blog
Publisher: Vanita Books    website
Release Date: September 1, 2012
ISBN: 978-0-9832904-0-7 (hardback)
Ooooo 978-0-9832904-3-8 (paperback)
Number of Pages: 42
Ages: 4 to 8 
 . . . . . . . . . 

The set up, which I thought would only take an hour, stretched to all morning. Coordinating the set up of an exhibition this size with so many ‘exhibitors’ had Michelle Richards, the Brisbane Central Library’s exhibition coordinator, running a million directions at once, advising as to ‘how [it was something new to a lot of us], finding stands and  suggesting modes of  display, and generally guiding us all through to ‘VOILA!’ – one  fascinating and very varied exhibition!

But there was more – not just the glass cases to set up, but hanging around to do the hanging!  this was not as straightforward as it sounds. We had to somehow attach our paintings to fine dangling wires and – here’s the worst part GET THEM TO SIT $#@*# STRAIGHT!

By Shana Burg, for The Children’s Book Review
Published: July 28, 2012

Shana Burg is the author of A Thousand Never Evers (Random House, 2008) and Laugh with the Moon (Random House, 2012). Both novels are for tween, teen, and adult readers. In a starred review, Publishers Weekly wrote, “Gripping. Delivers an emotional wallop.” Kirkus Reviews calls Laugh with the Moon “A vivid work of art.” 

Laugh with the Moon tells the story of a 13-year-old girl from Massachusetts whose father brings her to live in the bush in Malawi, Africa after the death of her mother.

Laugh with the Moon (Random House, 2012) grew out of one of the greatest adventures of my life. One week I was a graduate student studying public policy at the Harvard’s Kennedy School in Massachusetts. The next, I found myself in a Land Rover tooling through the bush in Central Africa with my driver, translator, and new friend Norman Mbalazo.

I went to Malawi under the guidance of a professor to investigate whether the girls in Malawi’s primary schools had the same access to learning materials like teachers, books, and pencils as the boys did. “I’m not qualified to do that!” I told my professor. But she convinced me that what was really needed was “a fresh pair of eyes.” Her eyes were tired. She had been visiting Malawi for many, many years.

Image courtesy of Shana Burg.

So there I was, in the African jungle, with Norman and my fresh pair of eyes, slowly being transformed by the people I met in this tiny, landlocked country that is one of the poorest on earth. What I saw in the rural schools fascinated me. Yes, sometimes there were 200 students packed into a single classroom sitting on the floor. Yes, often there were roosters walking around inside the schools. And yes, many of the students learned outside in the middle of the rainy season, which meant that whenever the rains came, class was over for the day.

Image courtesy of Shana Burg.

But with my fresh pair of eyes, I also saw the amazing ways that students and teachers were dealing with the cards they’d been dealt. Teachers taught students the alphabet by having them make letters out of termite hill mud, and draw with sticks in the dirt.

In some schools, older students helped teach younger students as the adult teachers roamed from room to room. If a teacher did not

Hickem, Catherine. (2012). Heaven in Her Arms: Why God Chose Mary to Raise His Son and What It Means for You. Nashville, TN: Thomas Nelson. ISBN 978-1-4002-0036-8.

What do we know of Mary?

 What we know of Mary’s family is that she is of the house of David; it is from her lineage Jesus fulfilled the prophecy. Given the archeological ruins of the various places thought to have been living quarters for their family, it is likely the home was a room out from which sleeping quarters (cells) branched. As Mary and her mother Anne would be busy maintaining the household, with young Mary working at her mother’s command, it is likely Anne would be nearby or in the same room during the Annunciation. Thus Mary would not have had a scandalous secret to later share with her parents but, rather, a miraculous supernatural experience, the salvific meaning of which her Holy parents would understand and possibly even witnessed.

 Mary and Joseph were betrothed, not engaged. They were already married, likely in the form of a marriage contract, but the marriage had not yet been “consummated”. This is why he was going to divorce her when he learned of the pregnancy. If it were a mere engagement, he would have broken it off without too much scandal.

 Married but not yet joined with her husband, her mother would prepare her by teaching her all that she needed to know. This is further reason to assume that Mary would be working diligently under her mother’s eye when the Annunciation took place.

 We know that her cousin Elizabeth’s pregnancy was kept in secret for five months, and not made known until the sixth month when the Angel Gabriel proclaimed it to Mary. We know Mary then rushed to be at her elderly cousin’s side for three months (the remaining duration of Elizabeth’s pregnancy), and that this rushing appeared to be in response to Elizabeth’s pregnancy (to congratulate her), not an attempt to hide Mary’s pregnancy. Note how all of this is connected to Elizabeth’s pregnancy rather than Mary’s circumstances. As Mary was married to Joseph, he likely would have been informed of the trip. Had the intent been to hide Mary, she would have remained with Elizabeth until Jesus was born, not returned to her family after the first trimester, which is just about the time that her pregnancy was visible and obvious.

 So we these misconceptions clarified, we can put Mary’s example within an even deeper context and more fully relate to her experience. We can imagine living in a faith-filled family who raises their child in strict accordance of God’s word. The extended family members may not understand, and certainly their community will not, so Mary, Anne and Joachim, and Joseph face extreme scandal as well as possible action from Jewish authorities. But they faced this together steep in conversation with God, providing a model for today’s family.

 Although sometimes scriptural interpretations are flavored with modern-day eye, overall this book will be more than just a quick read for a young mother (or new bride, or teen aspiring to overcome the challenges of American culture, or single parent losing her mind). It is a heartwarming reflection with many examples that open up conversation with God. As an experienced psychotherapist, the author’s examples are spot on and easy to relate to. We do not need to have had the same experiences to empathize, reflect, and pursue meaning; we see it around us in everyday life. As such, a reflective look upon these examples can help one overcome an impasse in their own relationship with God and also open the reader up to self-knowledge as Hi