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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If you have a reluctant reader at home, you may want to introduce them to comic books. Comic books?! Yes, when they’re quality books for emerging and reluctant readers from the likes of TOON Books.

TOON Books are high-quality comic books designed for children four-years-old and older. Each of their books are designed to offer newly-emerging readers comics they can read themselves. Also, each TOON book has been vetted by educators to ensure that the language and the narratives will nurture young minds.

TOON Books also feature original stories and characters created by veteran children’s book authors, renowned cartoonists and new talents, all applying their skills to help children discover the magic of reading.

Many TOON Books to choose from

Jack and the Box is the perfect book for beginning readers. It’s full of simple sight words and wonderful illustrations. It was written and illustrated by Art Spiegelman, who won a Pulizer Prize in 1992 for his book, Maus: A Survivor’s Tale. Spiegelman claims he learned how to read from looking at comics and “trying to figure out if Batman was a Good Guy or a Bad Guy.” He even let his children learn to read from his old, very valuable collection of old comic books. Jack and the Box is recommended for children in grades K-2.

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This month, Global Wonders introduces an educational DVD series that encourages children to share, compare and discover the cultures of their family, friends and the world. Designed for children ages two to seven years, the DVDs engage children with stories of fun-filled play dates where everyday activities are transformed into moments of wonder and discovery. The characters as they sample food, play games, learn vocabulary words and experience a variety of cultural holidays, music and traditions.

Global Wonders was created by Rashmi Turner, a working mother and former executive at The Walt Disney Company who previously led educational productions, product development for media lines of businesses, marketing, and communications, for The Baby Einstein Company.

Learning about world cultures

With Global Wonders, children can gain a more enlightened view of the world around them. It’s also a great way to start a dialogue about different cultures if your children are the type who ask embarrassing questions like, “Why does that lady have a red dot on her head?” or “Why do those people have dark skin and talk funny?”

My children know people from India, France, Sweden, Mexico, China, Taiwan and Napal. We enjoy shopping at Asian markets and Mexican carnicerias, and frequently dine out at restaurants that serve Vietnamese pho, Chinese dim sum, Pad Thai, Japanese sushi and Baja Mexican seafood dishes.  So learning about other cultures isn’t new to our children at all though as parents, we do get our fair share of embarrassing questions.

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Do you remember Liberty Mutual’s commercials based on the concept of “pay-it-forward” – someone who sees another person participating in an act of kindness and is inspired to do the same for a stranger? Not surprisingly, Liberty Mutual received an overwhelming reaction from viewers. In response they created an entire website called The Responsibility Project. It’s a wonderful resource for parents to help them talk with their kids about personal responsibility in a meaningful way.

It’s also a social networking site. You can create a profile, save your favorite films and blog posts in one place, and share your own responsibility story.

My responsibility story

Teaching children responsibility is tough especially when it doesn’t come naturally to your child.

I’ll never forget the time that Nathan came back visiting from the neighborhood school playground with his grandmother. He couldn’t wait to show me the treasure that he found. Was it a cool rock or a pretty wild flower? No, it was a three-ring binder filled with dozen of pages manga-style cartoons that some grade schooler had patiently drawn. Nathan brought it home thinking that he could keep it.

“Nathan, that belongs to someone else, someone who spent a lot of time drawing those cartoons,” I explained. “It’s not something to keep. It doesn’t belong to you. If you don’t return it, they’ll be very sad that they lost it.”

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