Princess and Caveman - Heroes!

I have a new favorite princess, Harriet the Invincible.  She is sturdy.  She is stalwart.  She is strong!  She is small and slow-ish.  She is a HAMSTER!! And she rides a battle quail.  I'm in awe.

I just read Ratpunzel, which is the third book in the series. Now I have to get the first two and find out why Harriet was working at a slight disadvantage in Book 3. 

The reading level is about grade 4 but the interest level is higher, through grade 7.  Harriet will appeal to kids who like a lot of action of the more-fun-than-fierce kind.  The dialogue is clever and punny and sometimes appears in speech bubbles.  That's important.  Those little illustrations move the action forward so don't just skip them.

In Ratpunzel,  Harriet's friend Wilbur, needs help in rescuing his pet hydra's kidnapped egg.  The plot gets a bit scrambled but, not to worry.  Harriet's excellent sword wielding skills and warrior instincts keep things moving along.  There's a tower, a princess-to-be-rescued, a witch, hidden passages and spells and slapstick swordplay until the satisfying conclusion.  

Then there's Lug.  He is a prehistoric hero, saving his clan from imprisonment and destruction, one ice age worry at a time.  In the second book in the series, Lug: Blast from the North by David Zeltser, Lug and his friends rescue a stranger who lives on a quickly moving glacier.  He seems soooo friendly.  Lug doesn't warm up to Blast as quickly as his friends do.  (See what I did there?) And Lug is right!  BTW, Lug has a sword, too, but his is made of ice! 

This series will appeal to the same set of readers.  The abundance of black and white illustrations, silly dialogue, middle school age insecurities and jealousies, and treachery cleverly deflected should keep young adventure seekers happy.

You Can Be a Hero

This year's Summer Reading Club theme is "Every Hero Has a Story".  And most libraries are using Superheroes to bring in kids.  It's such a kid friendly theme!

Not all heroes are super heroes.  Every one of us can be a hero - at least, sometime.  Doing the small things like smiling at someone who smiles at you - even when you feel grumpy - can feel heroic sometimes.

On Wednesday, I will tell stories about Every Day Heroes at a local library.  The audiences there are usually fairly young, so telling historic stories of heroes of the past may not work.  I want the children to see that simple things - telling the truth, picking up trash, being kind - can make the world a better place.

I decided to search for "simple ways to change the world" online and I got a lot of things like:
1. Be present.
2. Be grateful.
3. Be kind to yourself.

Hmmm, explaining gratitude to a 4-year-old is hard.  And these kids are as present as anyone can be.

But one simple action, Plant something, caught my attention.

So here are my 5 Simple Ways to Change the World:
1.  Keep your own space clean and neat.  (I don't follow this advice very well myself.)
    The world space belongs to us all so this includes your house and your neighborhood.
2.  Speak the truth.  Hmmm, this is never as easy as it seems.  People use their words so cleverly.  Use YOUR words for good.
3.  Smile.  Yep.  That.
4.  Plant something.  Grow something.  In a can on the windowsill - caring for a living thing is good   
for you and the plant will clean the air around it.
5.  Keep the peace.  It is so tempting to be hurtful when we feel down or when someone is hurtful to us.  If we can't find a way to bring peace to our attacker, we should just walk away from them.  I am talking about every day attacks, not life threatening events.

There you go.  Johnny Appleseed, Wangari Maathai, Elzeard Bouffier are all heroes who planted trees.   I think at least one of them should make it into my program.  I'll let you know how it goes.