Children are life's most important asset

Yesterday in my local newspaper, I saw a photograph of 10 Cub Scouts on a field trip. I looked at their smiling faces, body posture and the look in their eyes. These boys were full of hope and dreams, optimism and goodness.

All children are good and all children are full of hope and dreams and optimism unless someone takes that away from them, and that's something I cannot comprehend. Why would anyone ever hurt a child?

What happens in childhood has a great deal to do with who that person becomes as an adolescent and adult. Give all children the best possible tools you know how. Give them unconditional love, help them to feel good about themselves, and care for them with tenderness, honesty, and compassion. Help them to see the wonders of life and its possibilities. Every person deserves that, and it begins in childhood.

Books to Borrow

The following book is available at many public libraries.

"Read To Your Bunny" written and illustrated by Rosemary Wells, Scholastic Press, 28 pages

Read aloud: birth to age 3. Read yourself: age 5 and older.

Written for parents as much as it is written for toddlers, this outstanding little book is a must for every child's home library. Simplistic yet quite powerful, author/illustrator Rosemary Wells sums up the importance of reading to your child every day for 20 minutes.

Suggesting several times and place where adults can read to their children, "Read To Your Bunny" emphasizes the endless pleasures this one single activity can bring. And by making this commitment, before you know it, your child will be reading to you and loving every minute of it.

Beautifully illustrated with those famous Rosemary Wells' bunnies and colors that dance off each page, this selection is truly a gem of a book.

Librarian's Choice

Library: Douglas County Public Library, 1625 Library Lane, Minden

Library Director: Linda Deacy

Youth Services Librarian: Kathy Echavarria

Choices this week: "Noisy Outlaws, Unfriendly Blobs, and Some Other Things That Aren't as Scary, Maybe, Depending On How You Feel About Lost Lands, Stray Telephones,..." by McSweeney; "Read a Rhyme, Write a Rhyme" by Jack Prelutsky; "Lost Treasure of Emerald Eye" by Geronimo Stilton

Books to Buy

The following books are available at favorite bookstores.

"The Turning" by Gloria Whelan, HarperCollins, 2006, 214 pages, $15.99 hardcover

Read aloud: age 9Ð10 and older. Read yourself: age 10 and older.

It is the spring of 1991, and Tatiana is a teenager in Leningrad and a ballerina with the Kirov Ballet Corps. Tatiana dreams of being chosen to go with her ballet troupe on their upcoming Paris tour, and while she is there, she plans to defect from the Soviet Union. It would be a bold move and would mean that Tatiana would never see her family or her homeland again. But her country is struggling for democracy, and when she becomes entangled with that cause, Tatiana must make the most difficult decision of her young life.

Beautifully written, this riveting novel will appeal especially to older girls.

"Just in Case" by Judith Viorst, illustrated by Diana Cain Bluthenthal, Atheneum, 2006, 33 pages, $15.95 hardcover

Read aloud: age 3Ð7. Read yourself: age 7 and older.

Charlie likes to be ready, just in case. The way Charlie sees it, you never know when it might rain so hard that the rain might come inside his house and make the furniture float. Or what if all the food stores are closed for a very long time and there's nothing left to eat except old dirty socks? Not a problem - Charlie is ready for these possibilities and many more, just in case.

Charlie likes to be prepared at all times for every possible scenario he can think of. But as Charlie finds out, sometimes not being ready can be even better!

A tribute to a child's imagination and the fun that spontaneity can bring, this hilarious, fun book will connect with worrywarts and free-spirited children alike.

-- Kendal Rautzhan writes and lectures on children's literature. She can be e-mailed at kendal@sunlink.net.