Category Archives: book giveaway

Perfect Picture Book Friday: SONIA AND THE SUPER DUPER DISASTER Plus Giveaway

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Happy Perfect Picture Book Friday, dear friends! Today’s featured book is very special – it launches in just a few days, on July 24th…and I think kids are going to love it! And author Rachel Funez is also very special – and generous…she’s offering a giveaway of a copy of SONIA AND THE SUPER DUPER DISASTER, so make sure you leave a comment for a chance to win.

SONIA AND THE SUPER SUPER DISASTER

Written by Rachel Funez

Illustrated by Kelly Kennedy

Published by Free Spirit Press

Ages: 4-9

Themes: Learning Disorders, Anxiety, Superheroes

Synopsis: From Amazon:
Sonia’s adventure-filled story with worry-fighting gadgets helps kids learn how to cope when it feels like everything is going wrong.

When Sonia forgets Mom’s birthday, she’s determined to whip up a super surprise and become Mom’s hero. But her ADHD foils her best-laid plans, and her anxiety multiplies as the chaos grows. Sonia has to use all her coping skills to find a new recipe for success and become her own superhero.

Celebrating the individual strengths and special qualities of neurodivergent children, Sonia helps children with ADHD and anxiety recognize how their bodies feel when they become anxious and gives them tools to calm down with her worry-fighting gadgets. Activate Breath Blasters! Stellar Self-Talk! Senses Scanner!

A section at the back of the book includes more information on Sonia’s worry-fighting gadgets for kids and tips and reminders for caring adults.

Why I Love This Book:
1. I love books where kids can connect with the characters and relate to what they are experiencing.
2. I love books that provide hands-on actionable methods for coping with anxiety and big emotions.
3. I love books where the art is such an integral part of the story.

RELATED ACTIVITIES

Photo courtesy: https://modpodgerocksblog.com/superhero-crafts/

Check out these 40 superhero crafts: https://modpodgerocksblog.com/superhero-crafts/

It’s always fun to get to know a little bit about the creators of the books we love:

Rachel Funez was born in the United States, spent most of her childhood living in Latin America, and is now an attorney raising multicultural children in Peru with her Honduran American husband. Rachel knows exactly what it’s like to have ADHD and anxiety. She still uses her Breath Blasters, Stellar Self-Talk, Senses Scanner, and other tools to get through lots of tough and scary moments. She wishes she could hug every kid who is struggling with overwhelming feelings, but she will settle for creating stories that celebrate children with special brains and help them cope with their big emotions in productive ways. When Rachel isn’t writing or working, she enjoys walking her bearded collie, playing board games with her family, dancing like nobody’s watching, and cuddling up on rainy afternoons with a hot beverage and a good book. You can learn more about Rachel by checking out her website at rachelfunez.com.

Kelly Kennedy is an artist and a children’s book writer and illustrator. He is best known for illustrating the Dr. Seuss book Maybe You Should Fly a Jet! Maybe You Should Be a Vet! and as a longtime contributor to Highlights magazines. He has also worked for various animation studios, such as Nickelodeon, where he directed and created the award-winning short film The Baseball Card Shop. When he’s not drawing, Kelly is usually in the garage working on his vintage cars or fixing up his old house. Kelly lives and works in the sleepy little town of Los Angeles. He often lies about his height. He is 6’5″.

And, dear friends, we can be superheroes too! We can help new books like SONIA AND THE SUPER DUPER DISASTER succeed by doing one or more of these things:
Buying them
Reviewing them
Placing them on our Goodreads Want to Read Shelf
Telling friends about them
Asking our local library to purchase copies for their collection

Please make sure you leave a comment and share the post on your social media for more chances in the giveaway hat.

Happy Book Birthday: HOW TO EAT A MANGO Plus Giveaway

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Are you ready to blow out the candles and enjoy a yummy piece of cake? I hope so, because we are celebrating a book birthday today of HOW TO EAT A MANGO, written by Paola Santos and illustrated by Juliana Perdomo and published by Neal Porter Books! And guess what? Author Paola stopped by to chat with us…and she’s offering a giveaway of a copy of this gorgeous new book (USA addresses only) – so please make sure you leave a comment and SHARE the post on your social media for extra tickets in the giveaway hat.

What a gorgeous cover!!! Engaging and inviting…kids will definitely want to grab this one from the library shelves!

Here’s a little bit about the book from the Amazon sales page:
Abuelita teaches Carmencita that you can’t rush mango-eating: it takes five steps to appreciate the gift and feel the love.

Carmencita doesn’t want to help Abuelita pick mangoes; she doesn’t even like them! They’re messy, they get stuck in her teeth, and it’s a chore to throw out the rotten ones.

But Abuelita adores mangoes, and patiently, she teaches Carmencita the right way to eat them. Together, they listen to the tree’s leaves, feel its branches and roots above and below, and smell and feel the sweet, smooth fruits. Each step is a meditation on everything Mamá Earth has given, and in the Earth’s love, Carmencita feels the love of her Mami, her Papi, her little brother Carlitos, and of course, Abuelita.

When they finally bite in, the juice running down their arms, Carmencita understands. The mangoes are more than just mangoes… and she’s ready for another!

Inspired by her own childhood in Venezuela, Paola Santos’s mango-sweet story is a grounding, life-affirming take on gratitude for nature’s gifts and connection with family and culture. Juliana Perdomo’s cheery artwork brings Carmencita, Abuelita, and their mango tree to life with all the warmth of golden fruit under the sun.

Simultaneously released in Spanish as Cómo se come un mango.

And now we get to welcome Paola to Picture Books Help Kids Soar!

ME: Hello, Paola. Thanks so much for stopping by! We always want to know what inspired an author to write a particular story. Can you tell us about why you wrote HOW TO EAT A MANGO?

PAOLA: Thank you for helping me celebrate the book launch, Vivian. The inspiration for “How to Eat a Mango” came from my abuelita and my deep connection to my Venezuelan roots. I remember her in the backyard, fully immersed in eating a mango, her delight like a poem in motion. Despite initially disliking mangoes, I loved watching her savor every bite. In Venezuela, the matriarchal presence is crucial, and my abuelita, though not as sweet as the grandmother in my book, was a strong, bustling figure in our home. The ripe mangoes often meant work for me, but they also brought moments of community as neighbors took bags of them. Today, mangoes evoke nostalgia for my family and homeland, knowing I may never relive those cherished moments or see my country as it once was.

Thank you so much, Paola! This is a book that will help many children feel seen.


Here’s a little bit about Paola:
Paola Santos is a children’s book author born and raised in Venezuela. After moving to Canada, she found the courage to share the words and stories that had long been enclosed in her imagination. Her stories are now woven with her culture, experience in a new country, hope, happiness, and diversity. Paola holds a bachelor’s and a master’s degree in Literature and Children’s Literature and Reading Promotion. She is the author of How to Eat a Mango / Cómo see come un mango (Neal Porter Books / Holiday House), 2024, and the forthcoming picture book A House in My Barrio (Henry Holt / Macmillan), 2026. She lives in Edmonton.

And here are ways to connect with her and find out more about her books:
Website: www.paolasantos.com
Twitter and Instagram: @pgsantosb
Twitter: https://x.com/pgsantosb
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/pgsantosb/

And here’s a super cool graphic with info about upcoming book launch events:

Please make sure you leave a comment for a chance to win a copy of HOW TO EAT A MANGO. And please share the post widely to help folks find out about this wonderful new book!

What else can you do to help new books success?
Buy the book
Review the book
Place the book on your Goodreads Want to Read Shelf

I hope you all have a wonderful week!! Thank you for spending your precious time with us.

Happy Book Birthday: AVA LIN: BEST FRIEND Plus Giveaway

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Hurray! So glad you stopped by! Today’s a very special day because it’s the book birthday of AVA LIN: BEST FRIEND, a brand-new chapter book in a brand new chapter book series. And it’s written and illustrated by someone who holds a very special place in my heart. Vicky Fang approached me back in 2016, right after the first #50PreciousWords, and offered to design a logo for the contest. And then, when I added the challenge for kids in 2018, she created the logo for that as well. And now, when it’s HER book birthday, SHE’S giving the gift…a copy of AVA LIN to one lucky blog follower. Our kid lit community is the BEST!

Take a good look at this engaging cover! I love so much about it – especially the notations that tell us what things are most important to Ava Lin. So many kids will relate to loving tiny treasures…and having a special notebook.

And lucky us…Vicky stopped by to share some thoughts about the path to publication for this book.
ME: Welcome, dear Vicky! Thank you for popping in. It was so good to see you at NCTE in Ohio last year. I love how our paths intersect every now and then.

VICKY: Thank you for having me on to talk about my new chapter book series, Ava Lin! Ava Lin is about a 6-year-old girl navigating school, family, and friends—with a knack for getting herself into (and out of) sticky situations. I wanted to write something intensely funny that featured a Chinese American girl, and I hope that young readers find these books both relatable and hilarious!

Okay, a funny story on the path to publication for this book… 

In Book 1, there is a scene where Ava goes to a Chinese restaurant with family friends and another kid puts something gross in her bubble tea. Final art for the book was done, ARCs were in progress, when I did a presentation at my kids’ school and they all said, “ Do you mean boba?” I panicked! I’m familiar with both terms, but I typically call it “bubble tea” and wondered if that was a dated term that wouldn’t resonate with kids! I went down a long and frantic rabbit hole to find out if kids call it “bubble tea” or “boba” or gosh maybe also, “boba tea”, these days. I roped in my editor who kindly did a quick mockup of the book with “bubble tea” replaced with “boba” throughout and helping me weigh the options.

AVA LIN: BEST FRIENDS written & illustrated by Vicky Fang

It turns out, “bubble tea” vs “boba” is a regional thing, and I must have picked up “bubble tea” from my time in New York way back when and passed it along to my kids, while most kids in California say “boba.” Lately, “boba” seems to be gaining traction, though “bubble tea” is still pretty common. Trader Joe’s has a “boba” product, Google maps lists “bubble tea” shops, etc… can you feel the depths of my rabbit hole?? In the end, we decided to stick with “bubble tea” because that’s what my kids and I call it and my editor felt the term was appropriately descriptive for all kids to understand, especially with illustrations.

Phew! All that to say, when a book is getting ready to launch, I have these little panic moments often! It’s hard to let your book baby out into the world. I’m so grateful for my critique partners and my agent and my editors who are so understanding and help me survive the path to launch.

If you do read AVA LIN (and I hope you do!), rest assured that I had a similar panic about the term “pupu platter” and please laugh with me as you read it.

​​You can order AVA LIN anywhere books are sold, but if you order from my favorite indie bookstore: Linden Tree Books,

Thank you so much for having me, Vivian! For anyone in the SF bay area, come join me for my launch on Sunday, June 9 at 11am at Linden Tree books!

Thank you so much, Vicky…and thank you everyone, for spending your precious time with us! Please remember to leave a comment for a chance to win a copy of AVA LIN. And remember that our support helps books get noticed. You can buy the book, review the book, put the book on your Goodreads Want to Read shelf, tell friends about the book (by sharing the post on social media), and you can ask your local library to purchase copies for their collection.
I hope you all have a wonderful week!