Mardi Gras, also known as Fat Tuesday (Mardi Gras is French for “Fat Tuesday”) is the last day of feasting before Lent begins on Ash Wednesday. This year Mardi Gras is on February 24 – that’s this week!

In celebration of Mardi Gras, you may want to see if your local library carries Mardi Gras children’s books. One book you’d want to look for is King Cake for Cassius. It’s the story of Mardi Gras told by Cassius, a boxer (a dog – not a person):

The book begins with children discussing what they’re going to “be” for Mardi Gras. Cassius overhears that one of the children is unaware of the Mardi Gras tradition. She then explains that carnival season begins with the epiphany and ends with Mardi Gras. The dog also explains many of the traditions and terms associated with Mardi Gras including King Cake parties, parades, krewes and doubloons. She shares the name of her favorite parade which happens to be a dog parade named the Krewe of Barkus. The story concludes with Cassius stating that she’s going to be a wizard for Mardi Gras this year and asking “what are you going to be for Mardi Gras?”

The book contains a list of children’s Mardi Gras activities including a recipe for King Cake, instructions on how to make a shoe box float, and how to have a mini-parade.

If you can’t find it, no worry, because I have a recipe for King Cake from the National Honey Board for you.

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With much glee from the kids, we received our copy of Madagascar – Escape 2 Africa, Nathan and Lucie immediately popped the movie into the DVD player. We started to move it, move it as our friends from the first movie – King Julien, Zuba, Alex, Marty, Melman, and Gloria – prepared to head home to Manhattan in a rickety aircraft piloted by the manic, completely-out-of-their-bird-brains penguin cadre. 

When they crash land in the African savannah, it’s time for a crash course in survival.  Now the four friends far from home must answer a question of the heart when Alex finds his long lost parents, Marty joins a herd of his wild brethren, Gloria finds romance with a hippo Casanova who appreciates her curves, and Melman has one last chance at his truest desire.

With King Julien’s manic musical antics, penguins in labor talks with the local primate union, and the little old lady leading a “Lost” group of tourists, this movie is a hoot. There’s funny stuff for both the kids and the parents that will have the entire family laughing out loud.

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Today’s WOW! Women on Writing Blog Tour guest post comes from Kim Hix, author of No One is Perfect and YOU are a Great Kid, a lovely book written about Zack, a young boy who struggles daily with ever changing moods. He tries to understand why he gets very sad, upset, discouraged and angry in response to what most would consider insignificant events. Zack often feels different, left out, and isolated due to his moods. This book will touch the heart of anyone who has a special child in their life who struggles with any degree of emotional, behavioral, or psychiatric disorder.

Even if you don’t have a child with a behavioral problems, you’ll enjoy No One is Perfect and YOU are a Great Kid for the story and the terrific illustrations by Lee Dillingham. Since we all know kids like Zack, this book can be a used as a conversation starter with your child, too. I’m giving my copy to our school’s counselor and you may want to send a copy to your school’s counselor, your pediatrician, or anyone who works with special needs kids.

You can learn more about Kim at her website Intense Kids, Great Kids.

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My son, Nathan, had eating aversions as a toddler, and didn’t like crunchy or dry foods. This was due to the severe reflux and low muscle tone he had as a baby. (Nathan was a preemie, born seven weeks early and weighing only 3 lbs. 11 oz. Hard to believe he’s over 80 pounds and turns nine-years-old this week.)

Nathan would gag and potentially vomit up anything that wasn’t slimy, squishy or creamy. He soon refused to eat crackers, cereal and even cookies. Instead, Nathan preferred foods like noodles, pudding, canned peaches, cantaloupe, small pieces of cheese, flan and yogurt. The lack of variety in his diet, and the fact that he was still barely in the 10th percentile at age two, were the reason I gave him toddler formula or Pediasure to drink between meals.

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There was one summer a few years back when it seemed that Mary Poppins was constantly being placed in the DVD player by one of the children. That summer we all fell in love with Julie Andrews as Mary and Dick Van Dyke as Bert. We were always singing songs like “A Spoonful of Sugar,” “Let’s Go Fly a Kite,” Supercalifragilisticexpialidocious,” and “Something about Mary.” Plus, I swear those wonderful animated penguins must be the grandfathers of the ones in Madagascar.

As an adult you have to wonder about the crazy Banks family. Mom is so busy being a suffragette that she’s ignoring the children, who are running all over London. Dad is no better since he’s entirely too wrapped up in his career and constantly firing the help. Then there’s the nutty neighbors shooting cannons and the nanny lets the children hang out with chimney sweeps and gives them a “tonic” to get them to sleep at night. And what’s going on with Mary and Bert anyway, wink, wink, nudge, nudge, say no more indeed! Sounds like a Victorian version of Cops, and I’m not so sure Super Nanny would approve. Then again she’s no Julie Andrews.

Mary Poppins, based on the popular children’s stories by P.L. Travers, is in my opinion, is one of the best Disney films of all time. Just set the DVD player to “Repeat” please and the speakers up loud, it’s that good!

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Recently released just in time for Chinese New Year comes one of China’s top grossing family films and Disney’s first Chinese language film, The Secret of the Magic Gourd. It’s the story of a young boy, Raymond, a daydreamer whose vivid imagination has made him an outcast at school.

On a solo fishing trip, Raymond reels in the mysterious Magic Gourd, who offers to make all his wishes come true. When each of Raymond’s seemingly simple wishes backfires, creating unintentionally hilarious consequences for the boy, he realizes that “there’s no such thing as an unearned reward,” but with a little hard work, he can create his own kind of magic and achieve his dreams.

If you love Chinese children’s folk tales, you’ll enjoy it since the movie is based on the Chinese children’s novel, The Secret of the Magic Gourd. In addition to the English soundtrack, Mandarin and Cantonese soundtracks are also available on the same DVD – great practice for all of you learning Mandarin or Cantonese!

High School Musical’s Corbin Bleu’s does the voice for the character of Bailey the Gourd. If that doesn’t get your reluctant tween to watch the movie, I don’t know what will.

My children enjoyed watching The Secret of the Magic Gourd. They have cousins who live in Hong Kong, and I know they’d love it, too.

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