Title: Earclaw and Eddie

Author: Daniel Jude Miller

Genre: Children’s Books

Age Group: Children (although this could be useful for adults too)

Rating: 5 stars

Purchase: Amazon

Review copy provided by Encahnted Book Promotions in exchange for an honest review.

Eddie is just a regular guy trying to get by in his boring life, when out of nowhere he finds himself underneath a very unwelcome visitor. Earclaw is the unwelcome visitor and exists as nothing more than a crushing weight on Eddie’s head. Faced with this permanent guest, Eddie must learn to endure, accept and possibly trick Earclaw in leaving once and for all.

In Earclaw and Eddie, Eddie is just a regular guy until one day, he gets a visit from Earclaw, a purple, huge monster that nestles around his ears and won’t let go. No matter what Eddie does, Earclaw is there. At work, during dates, while brushing his teeth, even while he’s trying to get to sleep.

Earclaw is not just a monster – as we learn throughout the book. He also stands for emotional pain, and in a way that hardly any children’s book I’ve read manages to do, this book shows the reader an actual message: sometimes, we have emotional pain, and no matter what we do we can’t let go of it. We have to learn to live with it. We have to learn to live with the monsters.

This book is unique. In a whimsical, charming way, with gorgeous illustrations (seriously, I couldn’t stop looking at them over and over again) author Daniel Jude Miller tells his young and old readers alike a very important message.

Title: A Different Kind of Safari
Author: Helen Hipp
Genre: Children’s Books
Age Group: Children
Rating: 4 stars
Purchase: Amazon
Review copy provided by Enchanted Book Promotions in exchange for an honest review.

Has a book ever changed your life? Not just inspired you but helped you to see you’re life differently? In a tale that celebrates differences “A Different Kind of Safari”  addressing the many questions life asks by offering up lighthearted, ever-changing perspectives that transform personal challenges into opportunities. Engaging and fun young children begin to figure out how they are the same and different from other people, and how they feel about the differences. Full of fun and enjoyable teachable moments that move children and allow them to make personal connections with the characters handling of similar fears, interests, and concerns that they experience.

A Different Kind of Safari is certainly, like the title suggests, quite different. Ray is a young boy who is on safari with his family, visiting Africa, when he runs into a pink hippo named Rosie. The hippo tells him a few things about herself, like how she always used to cover herself up, and how she wasn’t happy with herself, things that Ray can easily relate to. Ray doesn’t look different, but he is. He has trouble talking to other kids his age. Sometimes he feels lonely and sad.

Rosie decides to help him, and together they travel the Mara River, while they search for a way to make Ray happy. Along the way, Ray learns more about the other animals through stories and through meeting them, and at the same time, he learns more about life.

This isn’t just a kids book. It is, in fact, a great and inspiring read about a young boy who struggles to be happy – something all, or most of us, can relate to. It’s told through stories with animals in a way that kids can easily understand, but the message is an important one, and not always easy to get across, although this book manages just fine.

The illustrations are absolutely gorgeous, and that alone would make it worth reading. It offers slightly more than other children’s books, providing insight in difficult themes in a light-hearted way instead of just telling a story.