I don’t know why we bother with thick repetitive self-help books, when children’s books can give us all we need with beautiful pictures, simple messages and heartwarming characters all at once.
I Can Be Anything – Don’t Tell Me I Can’t : By: Diane Dillon
I Can Be Anything! Don’t Tell Me I Can’t
This book was such a surprise because it captured that inner critic in us so well.
Don’t we all know that voice? Sometimes nasty, other times discouraging, but also quite ready to remind you that it’s there. Over time, we do try to overcome its influence, and try to rationalize with it, but still it rears its head every now and then. Evolutionarily, it may have saved us from trying to leap across high-ledged craigs better suited for mountain goats, but in our modern world, it simply tries to save us from failures. It is an important feature but only when called upon.
The book captures it so well.
If you’d like to be an artist, the voice would ask you what you would do if you simply didn’t have the talent for it.
If you’d like to be an astronaut, an archaeologist, a president, it has something to say for every aspiration.
You don’t know what you want to be do you? Said the voice.
But I’m always with you, you know. Said the voice. No matter what you do.
You are a beautiful beginning
By: Nina Laden Illustrated by Kelsey Garrity Riley
You Are a Beautiful Beginning: Laden, Nina, Garrity-Riley, Kelsey: 9781250311832: Amazon.com: Books
Another beautiful book on the beauty of embracing You. As a child I found the message to be You very confusing. How could you know who You were? Were You a doctor, engineer, lawyer, or were You a leader, or were You a friend?
It all got increasingly complex when people kept telling you to be this or that, or like him or her, how could you just be You? Was it enough?
It’s not about being cold, it’s about finding the warmth in the cold, or how it isn’t about losing, but about playing.
Simple messages with beautiful pictures. Every couplet in the book isn’t particularly life changing, but the book feels like a lovely reminder on what we strive to be.
Isabella: Artist Extraordinaire – By Jennifer FosBerry, Illustrated by Mike Litwin
If we have to decide what separates humanity from the remaining species on this planet, I think the paradoxical nature of time and how we choose to occupy it must be the deciding factor. Most other creatures raise their young, spend time procuring their food, and spend the rest in seeming companionship of their fellow creatures. But humanity seems to be the only species where we want to be efficient about time, and also try and figure out how best to occupy it. Knowing how to be happy with yourself, your imagination, and using your time well has to be one of the greatest gifts to receive from the muses.
In this book, Isabella has a day off from school, and her parents are giving her options on how to occupy it, saying that if she cannot decide on something, she may well have nothing to do but to stare at a starry sky.
A day at the lake, or the park? A horse rodeo?
But then, Isabella shows them that all the inspiration she needs she gets from her own work on her art gallery.
It is, of course, a beautifully illustrated book and the book shows the inspirations behind each of the images in the book.
There were quite a few other books – I wish I could write them all up, but even more, I wish you all have an equally exciting time in your library looking through these marvels.
Nourish-n-Cherish 