I always love when I can recommend great new books to my friends.  Twist of Fate: The Miracle Colt and His Friends is a wonderful book by Missouri author Chris Stuckenschneider and illustrator Kevin Belford.  You may remember the story a few years ago of a truckload of horses that overturned on I-44 in Missouri as it headed to a slaughterhouse in Illinois.  One of the suviving horses later gave

Missouri parents and caregivers have joined in book discussions all over the state this spring! READ from the START programs have been held in locations including the Mother to Mother program at Dexter Regional Healthcare Foundation,  Kornerstone in Shell Knob, many Head Start Centers and Parents as Teachers group meetings, and several public libraries.  In fact, we have presented 50 RFTS

Two of our Read First! communities are finishing up a month of activities designed to encourage parents to read to young children, and two more communities are gearing up for Read First! in November.  It has been exciting to see how the towns are promoting family reading through book give-aways, special preschool story times at the library, Read First! displays in storefronts, an ad on the screen

On Thursday night I had the honor of attending Friendship Day in Tarkio, one of our Read First! communities.  The local committee used the annual celebration to spread the word about upcoming Read First! events in Tarkio.   Parents signed up for READ from the START programs that will be held in September.  Kids received free books.  Everyone seemed to enjoy the free food and fun and the weather

Check out this interesting article by Kendal Rautzhan for the Daily Item about the value of dads reading to their children, especially their sons!  Rautzhan reiterated what our fellow blogger, Mike, just said about the importance of children hearing and seeing their dads or other signifigant males reading.   The article makes some excellent suggestions about books that both dad and child will

I was reading the blog of a children's author and noticed that she is a proud new grandmother.  The baby is only a few days old and the author commented that she had already read to the baby!  It really is never to early to get started reading to a child.  Family reading can be a rich tradition in a family.   When my own daughter was very small, we had a wonderful snuggly tradition of building a

I was so happy to learn today that First Book is making Doreen Cronin's CLICK CLACK MOO available in its First Book Marketplace for the deeply discounted price of $1.82.  If you are not familiar with First Book, visit http://www.fbmarketplace.org/servlet/StoreFront to find out how organizations that serve children from low income families can purchase excellent children's books.  Cronin is one of

This is one of the coolest ideas I have heard in a long time!  My sister recently was invited to attend a baby shower where the guests were encouraged to help the new parents start their new baby's library.  The invitation suggested giving the new family a favorite children's classic along with sharing a memory about the book. 

I think if I were attending this shower, it would be difficult to

For those of you who are lovers of children's books, take a look at this review of two books that explore the history of children's literature and its impact on us.