Customer Reviews

Reflections from a Mud Puddle: Helping Children Cope and Grow

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It is a joy to come across this useful little volume of selected prose and poetry with charming black and white illustrations. The selections are well-written and engaging for any elementary or middle-school student. Themes related to challenges that children (or adults!) confront and surmount are both heartening and useful--as discussion-starters, writing prompts, or accessible avenues to boosting a child's self-confidence and morale. Marcella Anderson is a well-known authority on bibiliotherapy, with years of experience in using books and stories to help hospitalized children cope with the serious problems and discomfort they must confront. Thus this book is particularly useful for adults working with any sick or handicapped child; nonetheless, I can see innumerable ways it could be used effectively at home or with regular school classes, children dealing with academic or social challenges, or simply to impart good, solid illustrations of some of the most important personal lessons for any youngster to absorb.

I teach Character Education to 40 classrooms in an elementary school. This book is a real find for me!!! I make copies of the pictures for the overhead and read the stories and poems to the students. Class discussion is always lively, because this book is about children in real life and the moral choices they frequently have to make. I highly recommend it for bedtime stories, and for all children who read with their parents. You can get your point across by example.