Earth Day Reading for Kids

Title: Trouble on Earth Day

Author: Kathy Stemke

Illustrator: Kurt Wilchen

Published by Wild Plains Press

ISBN: 978-1-936021-36-9

Genre: Children's Lit

Reviewed by Karen Cioffi

As a proponent of conservation and the environment, I love children’s books that approach this topic in an engaging and entertaining format. Trouble on Earth Day by Kathy Stemke does just that.

 

The story begins with the main character, Shelby the squirrel, winning the Earth Day poster contest; the young reader is quickly brought into the focus of the story, our environment. Shelby’s poster has “Rethink, Reuse, and Recycle” boldly and colorfully written on it.

 

As the story progresses, Shelby and her parents discuss the different ways individuals and families can conserve, such as using old clothing for a quilt.

 

It also delves into the effects of deforestation. When Shelby hears the cries of a “little bird,” she searches until she finds it, then asks the bird what’s wrong. The bird explains, “The workman cut down my tree and my nest. I found a new tree, but I can only find twigs to make a new home.”

Using ingenuity and what she learned from her parents, Shelby helps the bird build a new nest using recyclable items from her home. Trouble on Earth Day will quickly heave children asking about the environment and looking around their homes for items that can be recycled.

Adding to the invitingness of this delightful story are amazing full page illustrations by Kurt Wilchen. Each page has vivid and bold illustrations that will surely grab and hold a young reader’s attention. Along with all this, Stemke includes pages and pages of activities, and additional information about conservation and the environment, all to help children better understand the story’s theme. It even includes a song titled “The Fuzzy Squirrel” that children can sing to with the music from “I’m a Little Teapot.”

Some of the activities and information include in Educator’s Edition:

• Reading comprehension activities
• Original topic related lyrics that children can sing to the melody of classic favorites
• Discussion topics, such as Why Trees are Important and What Things Can be Reused
• Games, including the Going Green Game
• Recycling activities, such as making napkin rings using recycled toilet paper rolls, recycling old CDs to make ornaments, and how to recycle old crayons
• Dolch Sight Word activity page

My favorite information page in Trouble on Earth Day briefly explains what went on before the first Earth Day in April 1970, what the focus of Earth day is, and why it’s so important.

 

Learning how each of us can take steps to protect our environment is important for children and adults alike. It will take all our efforts to help improve the environment for a healthier tomorrow. Trouble on Earth Day is a great start for children.

 

~Reviewer Karen Cioffi is a published author, ghostwriter, and editor for 4RV Publishing. For writing and marketing information, and to find out more about Karen and her books, visit: http://karencioffiwritingandmarketing.com. While there, be sure to sign-up for her newsletter, A Writer’s World.

Learn more about the author, Kathy Stemke. She is an award-winning author, educator, and freelance writer. Her Trouble on Earth Day and Sh Sh Sh Let the Baby Sleep earned the Children's Literary Classics Seal of Approval.  Sign up for her free monthly newsletter, Movement and Rhythm: http://educationtipster.blogspot.com/

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The New Book Review is blogged by Carolyn Howard-Johnson, author of the multi award-winning HowToDoItFrugally series of books for writers. It is a free service offered to those who want to encourage the reading of books they love. That includes authors who want to share their favorite reviews, reviewers who'd like to see their reviews get more exposure, and readers who want to shout out praise of books they've read. Please see submission guidelines on the left of this page. Reviews and essays are indexed by genre, reviewer names, and review sites. Writers will find the search engine handy for gleaning the names of small publishers. Find other writer-related blogs at Sharing with Writers and The Frugal, Smart and Tuned-In Editor. As a courtesy to the author, please tweet and retweet this post using this little green retweet widget :

Franky the Flamingo Must Find Water in Florida's Environment

Title: Franky The Thirsty Flamingo
Author: Wanda Luthman
Illustrator: Mara Reitsma
Available on Amazon
Genre: Fiction: Children's/Biology/Environment


The environment! A passion of mine. How could I not love this story of a young flamingo who must learn the ways of the world, including what to drink. This slender book tells about his difficulty in finding proper water to drink. Encouraging and positive, his story is told in perfectly metered rhyme that will appeal to any child. It would make a wonderful addition to the gift shops at libraries and national monuments and parks where flamingoes abound.

I also appreciate how the illustrator let her topic influence her color choices. She helps make the book sing Florida and Sunshine.


More About the Author

Wanda Luthman has her Masters of Arts in both dental Health Counseling and Guidance Counseling from Rollins College, Winter Park, Florida. She is an award-winning author who with five books to her credit and a member of Florida's Writers' Association.

More About this Blog

The New Book Review is blogged by Carolyn Howard-Johnson, author of the multi award-winning HowToDoItFrugally series of books for writers. Authors, readers, publishers, and reviewers may republish their favorite reviews of books they want to share with others. That includes authors who want to share their favorite reviews, reviewers who'd like to see their reviews get more exposure, and readers who want to shout out praise of books they've read and love. Please see submission guidelines on the left of this page and in a tab at the top of this blog's home page. Reviews and essays are indexed by genre, reviewer names, and review sites so it may be used a resource for most anyone in the publishing industry. Writers will find the search engine handy for gleaning the names of small publishers. Find other writer-related blogs at Sharing with Writers and The Frugal, Smart and Tuned-In Editor. #TheFrugalbookPromoter, #CarolynHowardJohnson, #TheNewBookReview, #TheFrugalEditor, #SharingwithWriters, #reading #BookReviews #GreatBkReviews #BookMarketing

Celebrate Earth Day. Give a Book to a Kid

Because Kathy Stemke is an author who has written about Earth Day for Children, I asked her to share with my New Book Review Readers. Her essay will be interesting to all. Her book will be the perfect gift for any child who is destined to grow up in this world.  Keep scrolling for ways to celebrate Earth Day and ways to share with a child.

 

The History of Earth Day

 

 By Kathy Stemke, author of  Trouble on Earth Day

The height of hippie and flower-child culture in the United States, 1970 brought the death of Jimi Hendrix, the last Beatles album, and Simon & Garfunkel’s “Bridge Over Troubled Water”. Protest was the order of the day, but saving the planet was not the cause. War raged in Vietnam, and students nationwide increasingly opposed it.

At the time, Americans were slurping leaded gas through massive V8 sedans. Industry belched out smoke and sludge with little fear of legal consequences or bad press. Air pollution was commonly accepted as the smell of prosperity.

The idea of Earth Day came to the founder Gaylord Nelson, then a U.S. Senator from Wisconsin, after witnessing the ravages of the 1969 massive oil spill in Santa Barbara, California.

Senator Gaylord Nelson said, “At a conference in Seattle in September 1969, I announced that in the spring of 1970 there would be a nationwide grassroots demonstration on behalf of the environment and invited everyone to participate. The wire services carried the story from coast to coast. The response was electric. It took off like gangbusters. Telegrams, letters, and telephone inquiries poured in from all across the country. The American people finally had a forum to express its concern about what was happening to the land, rivers, lakes, and air - and they did so with spectacular exuberance.”

As a result, on the 22nd of April, 20 million Americans took to the streets, parks, and auditoriums to demonstrate for a healthy, sustainable environment in massive coast-to-coast rallies. Thousands of colleges and universities organized protests against the deterioration of the environment. Groups that had been fighting against oil spills, polluting factories and power plants, raw sewage, toxic dumps, pesticides, freeways, the loss of wilderness, and the extinction of wildlife suddenly realized they shared common values.

Earth Day 1970 achieved a rare political alignment, enlisting support from Republicans and Democrats, rich and poor, city slickers and farmers, tycoons and labor leaders. The first Earth Day led to the creation of the United States Environmental Protection Agency and the passage of the Clean Air, Clean Water, and Endangered Species Acts.

In time, Earth Day went global, mobilizing 200 million people in 141 countries and lifting environmental issues onto the world stage. Earth Day 1990 gave a huge boost to recycling efforts worldwide and helped pave the way for the 1992 United Nations Earth Summit in Rio de Janeiro. It also prompted President Bill Clinton to award Senator Nelson the Presidential Medal of Freedom (1995) -- the highest honor given to civilians in the United States -- for his role as Earth Day founder.

With Earth Day Approaching on April 22nd it's time to focus on educating our children about conservation. Troubleon Earth Day would be a great resource for this purpose and a super addition to any school or home library.

Learning how each of us can take steps to protect our environment is important for children and adults alike. It will take all our efforts to help improve the environment for a healthier tomorrow. Trouble on Earth Day is a great start for children.

Here’s an excerpt from the resource section
of Trouble on Earth Day:

A-Z Let’s Go Green

Arrange a wildlife refuge in your backyard with a birdbath, nest building project, bird feeder, and plants that attract birds and other animals.

Bicycle instead of using a car.

Create posters about caring for the earth.

Don’t leave water running when brushing your teeth or bathing.

Eat organic foods.

Feed the birds.

Grow a flower or vegetable garden.

Hold on to your helium balloons that can hurt animals when they fall to the ground.

Insulate near doors and windows.

Join with your friends to clean up the neighborhood.

Keep stuff in a box until you can reuse it.

Light your home with compact fluorescent bulbs.

Make scratchpads with old paper.

Nurture the soil with coffee grinds, eggshells and other compost.

Omit aerosols because they damage the ozone layer.

Plant a tree.

Quit wasting food.

Reduce, Reuse, Recycle!

Stop throwing out old toys. Donate them instead.

Turn off the lights.

Use paper on both sides.

Visit a recycling center to see all the things that can be recycled.

Write a letter to the newspaper encouraging your neighbors to recycle.

eXercise your body while collecting tin cans.

Yell, “I love the Earth!”

Zero in on helping the earth!

Trouble on Earth Day is available at a discounted price on my blog: http://educationtipster.blogspot.com and through Amazon, B & N, and other online stores.

Sh Sh Sh Let the Baby Sleep is available through the publisher, http://guardianangelpublishing.com/shshsh.htm and through Amazon, B & N, and other online stores.

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The New Book Review is blogged by Carolyn Howard-Johnson, author of the multi award-winning HowToDoItFrugally series of books for writers. It is a free service offered to those who want to encourage the reading of books they love. That includes authors who want to share their favorite reviews, reviewers who'd like to see their reviews get more exposure, and readers who want to shout out praise of books they've read. Please see submission guidelines on the left of this page. Reviews and essays are indexed by genre, reviewer names, and review sites. Writers will find the search engine handy for gleaning the names of small publishers. Find other writer-related blogs at Sharing with Writers and The Frugal, Smart and Tuned-In Editor. As a courtesy to the author, please tweet and retweet this post using this little green retweet widget :

Stewart L. Utdall Pens Book on Environment

Title: The Quiet Crisis
Author: Stewart L. Udall
Categories: Environmentalism, Nonfiction
ISBN:B0011UH0S8

Reviewed by Taylor Smith

To my way of thinking one of the greatest tragedies of modern American politics has been the increasing polarization on a wide range of issues which focuses more on who is right rather than what is right and in the public interest. Nowhere is this truer than in the realm of environmental policies. We endlessly debate issues which have grave importance for the future only paying heed to the demagogy of the left or right and ignore the true moral, historical and scientific issues at hand.

The author of this book is Stewart L. Udall, a distant cousin a couple times removed from me on my father’s side. He was a Democrat (I know! I have relatives who are donkeys!), and JFK’s Secretary of the Interior. This book has had a profound impact on the way that many Americans think and feel about the environment. For this reason I am writing a review of it by itself rather than with a companion book like usual for my blog. I think it is important enough that it needs to be considered on its own.

The book chronicles the history of the United States from the perspective of the land. The first period is the era of contact between Native Americans and the European settlers and the contrast between their respective views of the land. To the Natives the land was something owned by everybody in the same way as the ocean, air, sky and stars were the property of no single individual. To the Europeans, however, land ownership was the entire basis of their society and, for the English especially, the entire reason for their being in America.

This land ownership, however, was fundamentally at odds with the Native concept (and indeed the older medieval concept of land ownership in Europe) which stressed the claim of future generations on the land and allowed for the use, but not abuse, of the resources available from the land. I could elaborate on the late medieval/early modern shift in concepts about ownership, but I will spare all of you this lesson for now!

This new concept of land ownership was coupled with a new idea arising from the sheer size and overwhelming wildness of the American continent which Udall calls the “myth of superabundance.” In short the idea is that there are so many buffalo, beaver and deer, so much fertile soil and forests and so many mineral deposits that conserving them was counterproductive and uncompetitive. The final critical element added to this mix was the rugged individualism which helped to create the essential elements of American democracy but also contributed to a lack of civic mindedness among some classes. Thus the few who made massive fortunes at the public expense were often seen as good examples rather than the pillagers of the future that they were.

Gradually some people began to see that this system was unsustainable and ethically lacking. Diverse characters like Davie Crockett, Ralph Waldo Emerson, Daniel Boone, and other began to see the effect on the land that our unthinking policies were having. Eventually as we began to have massive extinctions on our own soil (there were more than five billion passenger pigeons in the United States at the beginning of the nineteenth century, but shortly before the start of the twentieth century the last surviving member of the species died in a zoo in Ohio), and people like Audubon and other conservationists and scientists began to take action. Eventually people like Teddy Roosevelt were able to make political gains in breaking up the Iron Triangles (a political science term for the relationship between business, regulation agencies and congressional committees which all deal with a particular subject and often scratch each others backs) which had allowed so much of this legal pillaging to happen.

Now as a country we have made a good start, but there is still a lot to do. The balance between using resources and preserving land is a delicate one (one person quoted in the book says that the boundaries between the workshop and the temple of nature is inevitably going to be a contentious issue) and has not been fully resolved. However the scientists, politicians, farmers, hunters, activist, philanthropists, and voters of the last century have done some wonderful things to try and help preserve for us large areas of wilderness.

Now we have challenges involving overcrowding, littering, pollution, and a lack of planning- all brought on because we still lack a sense of reverence for nature and our environment. As the author put it:

"The quiet crisis demands a rethinking of land attitudes, deeper involvement by leaders of business and government, and methods of making conservation decisions which put a premium on foresight. With the acumen of our scientists we can achieve optimum development of resources that will let us pluck the fruits of science without harming the tree of life. Once we decide that our surroundings need not always be subordinated to payrolls and profits based on short-term considerations, there is hope that we can both reap the bounty of the land and preserve an inspiriting environment."

I wish that we would all take a step back and reevaluate our opinions and activities in light of an increased respect for the earth and for the future generations that are going to inherit it. Maybe this is all a little too utopian and impractical, but if we are only thinking about here and now how can we claim to be any better than the people who came before us? It is easy to be critical of the slaughter of the buffalo as a short-sighted policy, but are we any better? I’ll let you decide that for yourself.
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The New Book Review is blogged by Carolyn Howard-Johnson, author of the multi award-winning HowToDoItFrugally series of books for writers. It is a free service offered to those who want to encourage the reading of books they love. That includes authors who want to share their favorite reviews, reviewers who'd like to see their reviews get more exposure, and readers who want to shout out praise of books they've loved. Please see submission guidelines on the left of this page. Reviews and essays are indexed by author names, reviewer names, and review sites. Writers will find the index handy for gleaning the names of small publishers. Find other writer-related blogs at Sharing with Writers and The Frugal, Smart and Tuned-In Editor.

REVIEW OF: DESIGN FOR YOUR MIND: LEARN HOW TO RENOVATE YOUR HOME TO RECHARGE YOUR LIFE

Design For Your Mind:  ITLE OF YOUR BOOK: Design For Your Mind: How a Family Caregiver and Mental Health Therapist Renovated Her Home to Recharge Her Life – and Didn’t Break the Bank

TITLE OF YOUR BOOK DESIGN FOR YOUR MIND: HOW A FAMILY CAREGIVER AND MENTAL HEALTH THERAPIST RENOVATED HER HOME TO RECHARGE HER LIFE – AND DIDN’T BREAK THE BANK

AUTHOR OF BOOK's NAME Annie Guest

AUTHOR'S EMAIL ADDRESS annieguestdesign@gmail.com

AUTHOR'S FAVORITE LINKS: https://www.annieguestdesignforyourmind.com/

ASSURANCE TO SATISFY COPYRIGHT LAW: 

 X I am the reviewer and give TNBR permission to print this review.

REVIEWER’S BYLINE: Abigail Adams

ITHE REVIEW:

  Design For Your Mind is an inspiring tale of how someone can cope with the loss of their parents and sorting out the possessions that they have left behind. In the case of Annie Guest, the author of this book, she inherited her parents’ house and renovated it to be a suitable home for its new occupant—which was Annie herself. The book tells not only how she did this, but how she was able to rediscover herself in the process.

As a mental health therapist, Annie understands how the environment in which we live can affect our mental health. She shows how it is possible to retain the precious family memories which we acquire as we grow up in our family home, and then put our own contemporary stamp on the home to make it habitable for ourselves—and how to do all of this in a cost-effective way!

Design For Your Mind is in part a practical manual on interior design, and Annie lays out the process in a clear and easy manner. The book systematically goes through each room in her house and outlines what methods she applied to renovate these rooms. Readers will find these methods readily applicable to their own homes.

Annie has given her own name to the type of design she describes in Design For Your Mind: “Benessent Design.” Annie explains that the term “Benessent” comes from the Latin phrase for well-being, bene essere. What she means by Benessent Design is the design of rooms and furnishings that can meet “the emotional and intellectual needs of real people, so they have what they need to thrive as whole human beings.” For Annie, the “four pillars” of an enriched environment are good nutrition, high-quality sleep, regular aerobic exercise, and social support.

Annie takes us step-by-step through her quest to renovate her parents’ home and make it her own. Her methods and explanations are easy-to-follow, meaning you do not need to be a qualified interior decorator or a certified mental health therapist in order to get to grips with Design For Your Mind. Her Benessent Design theory provides the framework for why all of the steps she took were taken, and the “before” and “after” pictures give a clear visual illustration of what steps she is discussing throughout.

As well as her underlying theory and her practical steps, Annie makes the book personal with a great store of heartwarming family anecdotes. This helps to make Annie’s book very relatable, as many of us will be able to identify with the sort of tales she has to tell, or recognize ourselves within them. It ties in nicely with her theme of blending old memories and traditions with new innovations that help to make a home truly your own.

The blend of sound theory, practical steps, and personal anecdotes all help to make Design For Your Mind a terrific, practical book from which we can learn a lot about interior design, and about ourselves. Very highly recommended.

This review was originally published at Story Circle Book Reviews. The link to the original review is https://www.storycircle.org/book_review/design-for-your-mind-how-a-family-caregiver-and-mental-health-therapist-renovated-her-home-to-recharge-her-life-and-didnt-break-the-bank/.

MORE ABOUT THE REVIEWER: 

I’m Abigail, and I’m a big book lover who is interested in all genres.

REVIEWER'S TWITTER MONIKER: @AAdams22700

ABOUT THE AUTHOR WHOSE BOOK IS BEING REVIEWED: Annie Guest had a varied career in book publishing, advertising, and law, before she took another jump to work as a mental health therapist and publish her first book. In DESIGN FOR YOUR MIND, Annie combines her passion for people and their potential with her love for interior design and her appreciation for the design choices that support mental health.

AUTHOR  IMAGES: 

Cover of Design For Your Mind by Annie Guest

Profile Photo of Annie Guest, author of Design For Your Mind

AUTHOR'S EMAIL ADDRESS annieguestdesign@gmail.com

AUTHOR'S FAVORITE LINKS: https://www.annieguestdesignforyourmind.com/

ADD THIS ASSURANCE TO SATISFY COPYRIGHT LAW: 

 I am the reviewer and give TNBR permission to print this review.

REVIEWER’S BYLINE: Abigail Adams

INCLUDE THE THE REVIEW ITSELF, of course!

Design For Your Mind is an inspiring tale of how someone can cope with the loss of their parents and sorting out the possessions that they have left behind. In the case of Annie Guest, the author of this book, she inherited her parents’ house and renovated it to be a suitable home for its new occupant—which was Annie herself. The book tells not only how she did this, but how she was able to rediscover herself in the process.

As a mental health therapist, Annie understands how the environment in which we live can affect our mental health. She shows how it is possible to retain the precious family memories which we acquire as we grow up in our family home, and then put our own contemporary stamp on the home to make it habitable for ourselves—and how to do all of this in a cost-effective way!

Design For Your Mind is in part a practical manual on interior design, and Annie lays out the process in a clear and easy manner. The book systematically goes through each room in her house and outlines what methods she applied to renovate these rooms. Readers will find these methods readily applicable to their own homes.

Annie has given her own name to the type of design she describes in Design For Your Mind: “Benessent Design.” Annie explains that the term “Benessent” comes from the Latin phrase for well-being, bene essere. What she means by Benessent Design is the design of rooms and furnishings that can meet “the emotional and intellectual needs of real people, so they have what they need to thrive as whole human beings.” For Annie, the “four pillars” of an enriched environment are good nutrition, high-quality sleep, regular aerobic exercise, and social support.

Annie takes us step-by-step through her quest to renovate her parents’ home and make it her own. Her methods and explanations are easy-to-follow, meaning you do not need to be a qualified interior decorator or a certified mental health therapist in order to get to grips with Design For Your Mind. Her Benessent Design theory provides the framework for why all of the steps she took were taken, and the “before” and “after” pictures give a clear visual illustration of what steps she is discussing throughout.

As well as her underlying theory and her practical steps, Annie makes the book personal with a great store of heartwarming family anecdotes. This helps to make Annie’s book very relatable, as many of us will be able to identify with the sort of tales she has to tell, or recognize ourselves within them. It ties in nicely with her theme of blending old memories and traditions with new innovations that help to make a home truly your own.

The blend of sound theory, practical steps, and personal anecdotes all help to make Design For Your Mind a terrific, practical book from which we can learn a lot about interior design, and about ourselves. Very highly recommended.

This review was originally published at Story Circle Book Reviews. The link to the original review is https://www.storycircle.org/book_review/design-for-your-mind-how-a-family-caregiver-and-mental-health-therapist-renovated-her-home-to-recharge-her-life-and-didnt-break-the-bank/.

MORE ABOUT THE REVIEWER: I’m Abigail, and I’m a big book lover who is interested in all genres.
REVIEWER'S TWITTER MONIKER: @AAdams22700

ABOUT THE AUTHOR WHOSE BOOK IS BEING REVIEWED: Annie Guest had a varied career in book publishing, advertising, and law, before she took another jump to work as a mental health therapist and publish her first book. In DESIGN FOR YOUR MIND, Annie combines her passion for people and their potential with her love for interior design and her appreciation for the design choices that support mental health.

AUTHORProfile Photo of Annie Guest, author of Design For Your Mind

More About #TheNewBookReview Blog The New Book Review is blogged by Carolyn Howard-Johnson, author of the multi award-winning HowToDoItFrugally series of books for writers. Authors, readers, publishers, and reviewers may republish their favorite reviews of books they want to share with others. That includes authors who want to share their favorite reviews, reviewers who'd like to see their reviews get more exposure, and readers who want to shout out praise of books they've read and love. Please see submission guidelines in a tab at the top of this blog's home page or go directly to the submission guidelines at http://bit.ly/ThePlacetoRecycleBookReviews or to the guideline tab at the top of the home page of this blog. Authors and publishers who do not yet have reviews or want more may use Lois W. Stern's #AuthorsHelpingAuthors service for requesting reviews. Find her guidelines in the right column of this blog home page (a silver and gold badge and threee silver-gray circles beneath it. Carolyn Wilhelm is our IT expert, an award-winning author and veteran educator, she also contributes reviews and posts on other topics related to books. Reviews, interviews, and articles on this blog are indexed by genre, reviewers' names, and review sites so #TheNewBookReview may be used as a resource for most anyone in the publishing industry. As an example, writers will find this blog's search engine handy for gleaning the names of small publishers. Find other writer-related blogs at Sharing with Writers and The Frugal, Smart and Tuned-In Editor. #TheFrugalbookPromoter, #CarolynHowardJohnson, #TheNewBookReview, #TheFrugalEditor, #SharingwithWriters, #reading #BookReviews #GreatBkReviews #BookMarketing HowToDoItFrugally http://bit.ly/ThePlacetoRecycleBookReviews. Pre-format the post editor for each new post. Cancel Save Post published

5-Stars for “Rarity from the Hollow”by Robert Eggleton

 Title: Rarity from the Hollow

• Author: Robert Eggleton
• Web site link: www.lacydawnadventures.com   
• Genre: Adult Social Science Fiction
• ISBN: 9781907133060;190713306
• Purchase at Amazon

Reviewed by Martha Fox originally for her Two Cents Worth 

At first I didn’t know how or where to begin to categorize this story. Two sitcoms, “The Beverly Hillbillies” and “Third Rock from the Sun”, come to mind.  It’s clearly in the Sci-Fa genre, a mixture of science fiction and fantasy, always effective for establishing an environment ripe for just about anything to happen. I must say that once I got past the first third of the book, which could be a bit troubling due to the horrific living conditions and home environment of the young heroine, Lacy Dawn, that I laughed–a lot.

The author’s style is unconventional, which I consistently admire, at least when it works, which it did. Written in an omniscient viewpoint, it took a little while to get used to the inner dialog of all the characters. Each individual’s spoken statements were typically followed by an italicized blurb of what they were really thinking. While at first it was confusing, it was nonetheless effective in getting to know the characters.

The story itself is definitely unique as well. It centers around a young girl named Lacy Dawn who lives in poverty in a dysfunctional and abusive rural environment. This is not ever expressed in a horribly graphic manner and does a great job of setting the tone and setting, though there were times I was worried about whether it would get worse. Much to my relief, it didn’t. Her father, Dwayne, is a Gulf War vet with a severe case of PTSD. Her mother, Jenny, continually reminds her daughter (as well as herself) that Dwayne “used to be a good man.” Their neighbor, Tom, is a good friend of the family with a “secret garden” that he pays Lacy Dawn to tend.  The produce involved is not so much mystical as illegal, given that its marijuana.  Needless to say, numerous joints are rolled in the course of the story.

Lacy Dawn believes that it’s a child’s responsibility to fix one’s parents. This is certainly different than the usual practice to blame one’s parents. She’s not only highly intelligent, but has been chosen to save the Universe, a task for which she is being groomed by DotCom, an android who has arrived from elsewhere in the cosmos and lives in his spaceship on a nearby hill. At first it was difficult for me to figure out whether DotCom as well as Lacy Dawn’s conversations with the trees and her deceased friend, Faith, plus her ability to float “Roundabout” to visit her spacey friend, were simply part of a child’s vivid imagination. Either way, it was believable and contributed to the mood of the story.

I don’t want to get into spoiler territory so won’t say anything further about the basic story, other than to say that the remainder is entertaining. It’s loaded with plenty of raw humor along with interstellar jaunts to strange new worlds populated with numerous aliens. The characters were definitely well fleshed-out by their hilarious inner dialogs, reaction to various situations, and crude honesty.

Underlying all this, however, at a deeper level, is a rather sad, even tragic, commentary on our society. The fact that such situations exist is no secret. Otherwise, the story would not have been so believable. Neither is there any magical or interstellar entity out there to rescue those caught in the trap of poverty, need and abuse. So often the thought patterns of those living in such conditions revolve around sexual satisfaction, a good cannabis harvest, and whether the food stamps will last until the end of the month.

My only criticism of the story itself, at least at the superficial level, is that toward the middle it felt a bit disjointed. The plot broke down somewhat with too many “shopping trips” to “The Mall” where momentum was lost. The ending, while satisfying, was slightly less than I’d hoped for.

Thus, you may wonder why I awarded this story five stars. That’s because it made me think. Very few stories I’ve read recently manage to do that. There’s sufficient symbolism to place this story soundly in the literature category. What better disguise for difficult topics than humor?

There’s Lacy Dawn, the child who’s been exposed to and seen things no ten year old should, who has genius potential and wise beyond her years. Fixing her parents versus blaming them, what a concept. Then there’s DotCom, the android from another world, who’s there to help Lacy Dawn achieve her destiny, yet he begins to evolve and become a bit too human under the influence of people who would best be described, albeit rudely, as white trash.

The materialism of The Mall, principles of capitalism, what constitutes a celebrity or inspires human motivation to excel or achieve can all be found lurking beneath a raw and sometimes vulgar look at the human condition. Even the ending holds a powerful message when looked upon more deeply. Who’s really in charge and is it a higher or lower lifeform? The answer to that is definitely politically incorrect, a term invented to cover up that which will ultimately destroy civilization if we continue to yield to its misguided allure.

If you want a cleverly orchestrated story saturated with sci-fi and fantasy and packaged with plenty of crude, bathroom humor, you’ll enjoy this book tremendously. If you can’t deal with coarse language, don’t even bother. If you enjoy reading stories at a deeper level and analyzing what they’re really trying to say, you’ll likewise enjoy it, probably even more. Brilliant satires such as this are genius works of literature in the same class as Orwell’s “Animal Farm.” I can picture American Lit professors sometime in the distant future placing this masterpiece on their reading list.

MORE ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Two more purchase links: 

                        http://www.amazon.co.uk/Rarity-Hollow-Robert-Eggleton-ebook/dp/B007JDI508

                  http://www.doghornpublishing.com/wordpress/books/rarity-from-the-hollow

Learn more about and follow Eggleston at https://twitter.com/roberteggleton1 

MORE ABOUT THIS BLOG

 The New Book Review is blogged by Carolyn Howard-Johnson, author of the multi award-winning HowToDoItFrugally series of books for writers. Of particular interest to readers of this blog is her most recent How to Get Great Book Reviews Frugally and Ethically (http://bit.ly/GreatBkReviews ) that covers 325 jam-packed pages covering everithing from Amazon vine to writing reviews for profit and promotion. Reviewers will have a special interest in the chapter on how to make reviewing pay, either as way to market their own books or as a career path--ethically!

This blog is a free service offered to those who want to encourage the reading of books they love. That includes authors who want to share their favorite reviews, reviewers who'd like to see their reviews get more exposure, and readers who want to shout out praise of books they've read. Please see submission guidelines on the left of this page. Reviews and essays are indexed by genre, reviewer names, and review sites. Writers will find the search engine handy for gleaning the names of small publishers. Find other writer-related blogs at Sharing with Writers and The Frugal, Smart and Tuned-In Editor.