Customer Reviews

50 Awesome Ways Kids Can Help Animals: Fun and Easy Ways to Be a Kind Kid (Alex Toys)

5 star:		(8)
4 star:		(2)
3 star:		(1)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(1)

 

 

As the mother of two young kids, I picked up a copy of 50 Awesome Ways Kids Can Help Animals to help me guide my children into becoming compassionate adults. This book has helped me talk to my kids about what happens to animals without scaring them, because, let's face it, what happens to animals before and during slaughter is frightening to most adults, let alone to children. It's a great book full of fun facts that kids enjoy learning and it teaches kids to view animals not as objects, but as living, feeling beings that deserve our respect.

As an expert in learning--I have a doctorate in Applied Linguistics--I highly recommend a new book for children, 50 AWESOME WAYS KIDS CAN HELP ANIMALS, by Ingrid Newkirk. It is a great way to educate children--and everyone else--about our nonhuman friends.

As a linguist, I especially enjoyed Chapter 36, "Critter Chatter," which begins:

"Words we say, hear, and read have a powerful effect on us and how we see others. Sometimes people develop bad feelings about animals simply from the words they use."

After September 11, I spent entire days writing to politicians I saw on television who said things like: "We're gonna find the animals who did this," as if animals would ever plot and execute something like coordinated attacks using commercial jets. And you know something? After a couple of months, the language our politicians used changed dramatically.

Newkirk raises a rare topic that, for me, is at the heart of our problems with animals: We refer to them as things. "The dog was hungry, so I fed it." When we're comfortable using language that defines animals as objects, it's much easier to accept treating them as objects. Newkirk suggests not only using the language of individuals (him and her), but asking other people to adopt it, too.

I urge every parent and child to read 50 AWESOME WAYS KIDS CAN HELP ANIMALS. It's like one-stop shopping for raising a compassionate child, and being a compassionate adult.

I bought this book for my niece, but I haven't given it to her yet because I wanted to read it first and see if I thought it was something she'd like. After reading most of it, I can say wholeheartedly that it is the perfect book for any child who cares about animals.

The book is very easy to read, broken up with short chapters, lots of bulleted facts, quizzes, and boxes. The best thing about the book is that it takes kids' passion for animals and channels it into constructive ways they can help. For example, volunteering at the animal shelter, which is one of the book's suggestions, is a great way for kids to help animals and also helps educate them about important issues like spaying and neutering and being a responsible animal guardian.

The book covers a lot of ground and will probably inspire some animated dinner table conversations, but I think it's a great way to make kids feel like they are active members of society who can make a difference.

PETA president and cofounder Ingrid Newkirk brings a new version of her book KIDS CAN SAVE THE ANIMALS! to bookshelves in the fall of 2006. This renamed edition has been updated to reflect changes and additional resources since the original publishing date in 1991.

The fifty ways to help animals in this book range from providing clean dishes for furry friends to ways to legally protesting unfair animal practices. Politely refusing gifts made of parts from endangered animals, keeping a journal of interactions with the family dog, vegetarian/vegan recipes (unless you're allergic to soy, as I happen to be), and website links are other useful features in this book.

Other information in this book is debatable, depending on what side of the fence you fall on. Animals that many people consider pests, Newkirk encourages keeping safe. The classic example is the debate over hunting deer and chasing Canada geese from public golf courses. It would have been helpful to see her response to the argument supporting the use of hunting due to a lack of natural predators (also due to human influence).

Overall, for kids and parents who are fans of PETA and choose vegetarian/vegan lifestyles, this is a good book. For animal lovers who happen to eat meat and feel PETA goes too far, this still is not a bad book, although they will find many of the suggestions over the top, even intrusive--such as animal lovers slipping animal rights flyers in restaurant menus and into the pockets of fur coats at retailers.

As with any cause, it is important for parents to have an understanding of what their children's passions may be. It is just as important for parents to help kids keep a fair and healthy perspective regarding their beliefs.

Reviewed by Christina Wantz Fixemer
10/26/2006

I came across this book while browsing at the bookstore and bought a copy for my stepdaughter, who is a big animal lover. What a great resource! It's full of fun facts about animals, easy activities that kids can do on their own (or with a little adult supervision), quotes from kids' favorite celebrities, quizzes, puzzles, and lots more. This might be just the thing to get kids to put down the video games and pick up a book! I'll definitely be buying copies for all of the young people on my Christmas list.

This is a nice book for children or young teens. It gives good ideas on helping children be more aware of protecting animals, in a format that kids can easily digest. It helps a child to be environmentally responsible. The author of this book recommends activism, which is more than helping animals on an individual level. That is a small subtheme in some of the sections. Another subtheme is encouraging children to think about becoming vegetarian. If you are going to be kind to animals, why eat the others? If you are trying to encourage a child to become a vegetarian, this might be a good book.

The concept of the book is great as are most of the suggestions. However, my family does not have any pets (as per the parental unit) and my sister and brother were looking for some more practical ways we could help animals. I wish I had known that so many tips involved things you do with your own pet. Not only that, but we don't have neighbors with pets, so it would have been nice to see tips for people in those situations. I feel like the book is written more for the typical suburban family than an inner city family such as mine. I gave the book three stars because I liked the tips, they just were not very practial for me.

In addition to giving animal advocacy a scientific boost in the nineteenth century, Charles Darwin promoted the notion that compassion for all creatures could be taught - instilled in children with the hope that ensuing generations would come to regard kindness toward animals as part of public consciousness. He may not have called it "humane education," but that's certainly what he had in mind. Likewise, this is the theme of Ingrid Newkirk's "50 Awesome Ways Kids Can Help Animals: Fun and Easy Ways to Be a Kind Kid." Originally published in 1991 as "Kids Can Save the Animals!: 101 Easy Things to Do," this renamed edition has been expanded and updated, but its message hasn't changed: we're never too young to learn respect for all life.

No, it doesn't seem Newkirk has cut her suggestions in half; indeed, there are probably hundreds of ideas here to benefit animals, the planet and human health. That's right: it's a vegan guidebook for the younger set. Organized into 50 very short chapters and written in a fun style sure to appeal to its target audience, the book goes beyond teaching kids how to merely be kind to animals, aiming for the higher goal of educating readers in virtually every aspect of vegan living, from cruelty-free diet and dress to speciesist language and animal activism - certainly no surprise coming from the president and co-founder of PETA. It's also chock-o-block with animal facts, jokes, vegan recipes, resources and quotes from celebrities kids will know.

What is likely to engage young readers as much as the lighthearted tone that never talks down to them is how the author incorporates a child's interest in animals with their love of games, toys, riddles and trivia, encouraging imagination and creativity. One chapter, for example, focuses on the virtually universal appeal stickers have for children, suggesting that kids append stickers with animal-rights messages onto letters, bikes, notebooks, skateboards and more. The many topics covered in "50 Awesome Ways Kids Can Help Animals" will also likely inspire countless persuasive essays, school projects and class speeches, thus disseminating its message to an even broader audience.

My only quibbles with the book concern domestic rabbits. These animals are very popular with kids, and Newkirk could have taken the opportunity to advise children and their parents to learn more about the misunderstood rabbit before bringing one home from a shelter or having one in class. Also, I was disappointed that she didn't make more of a case for keeping these animals indoors; though she notes that rabbits love to be inside, she describes an ideal backyard hutch, rather than explaining how to keep a bunny in the house, safe and as part of the family.

If we are to have any hope of a world in which animals are treated with compassion and respect, handing down a legacy of kindness is both our best course of action and an ethical obligation. Moreover, in an age when violent perpetrators seem to be getting younger, and such violence is presaged by childhood abuse of animals, raising empathetic children has become more than a parental hope, it's now a societal necessity. "50 Awesome Ways Kids Can Help Animals" is a step in the right direction, teaching a generation of kids what being humane is all about. I think Darwin would be proud.

Mark Hawthorne, author of Striking at the Roots: A Practical Guide to Animal Activism

I loved this book. I bought it with my 7 year old daughter in mind. She's been trying to go veg for a while and this was written in a format that she can understand.

I bought this book for a young friend who loves animals, and even though I'm almost 34, I enjoyed reading it too! I learned a few fun facts about animals and picked up some tips that hadn't ever occurred to me before. The book has something for every kid who cares about animals--advice on finding cruelty-free products, packing easy and healthy vegetarian lunches and snacks, being nicer to dogs, cats, and other companion animals, and tips on writing letters and educational school projects about animals. There are plenty of silly jokes that made me smile in spite of myself. The book makes a great gift, and all teachers and parents who want to raise compassionate, empathetic kids should buy it and read it with their children.