story continues from yesterday
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continues tomorrow, but if you don’t want to wait you can read the whole story here 🙂
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#vegan story, #vegan children’s story, #vegan children’s book, #vegan picture book
story continues from yesterday
******
continues tomorrow, but if you don’t want to wait that long you can read the whole story here 🙂
***********************************
#vegan children’s story, #vegan children’s book, #vegan picture book
We haven’t added anything new to the 2 and up page for ages, so we thought we’d do it now 🙂
With the permission of Honestly Books, we are delighted to share with you How Many Friends Could A Bibbolybob Make If A Bibbolybob Came To Earth? by Edward Benn and Juliet Mahoney.
The story will continue tomorrow, but if you don’t want to wait that long you can read it the whole thing here
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#vegan children’s story, #vegan children’s book, #vegan counting book, #vegan picture book
Continued from yesterday:
*****
“Come in boys and take off your coats, dinner will be ready in twenty minutes.”
Auntie Joan smiled as she waved to Mum and Dad and closed the front door. Luke and Jared sat down quietly in the living room and looked at their hands. Auntie Joan disappeared into the kitchen and nothing happened for three or four minutes until the front door slammed. Uncle Brian was home from work. He burst into the living room loudly.
“Hello boys! I forgot you were coming! Ready for a re-match Jared?”
Jared grinned shyly.
“Yeah,” he said.
“Great. We’ll set up after dinner. Hey, where’s Amelia? She must be in her room. Why don’t you go and see what she’s up to? We’ll call you when dinner’s ready.”
The boys looked at each other uncomfortably and then quietly did as they were told. They knocked on Amelia’s door and entered when she said ‘come in’. Their six year old cousin was dressed in a pink tutu with pink tights and wire-framed white lace wings on her back. She had a pink plastic tiara on her head. She was bent over a colouring book, colouring butterflies.
“Hello,” she said, without looking up.
“Hello,” said Luke.
“Alright?” said Jared.
Jared sat down on the bed and picked up two of Amelia’s soft toys.
“Ah, pink pony! Today you will fight blue dolphin to the death! And whoever wins will fight yellow kitten to the death!” he said in a fake evil voice while making the toys wrestle.
“Stop it! You’ll spoil them,” said Amelia.
Jared laughed and continued tormenting her. Luke shook his head at his brother’s predictably boring behaviour and browsed Amelia’s bookshelves. Colouring books, colouring books, colouring books. He wondered how she hadn’t got tired of them. He took one from the shelf at random and flicked through it. It was full of pictures of sea creatures and shells and seaweed. Under each one was its name and a brief description. Amelia had coloured it in very neatly, Luke had to admit, and she’d ended up with a full colour encyclopedia of the sea. He picked out another one – it was about birds. Every other page had a drawing of a different bird to be coloured in, with the name, description, habits and location of the bird on the opposite page. There was another one about fish, another about wild flowers, another about trees. There was Animals of the British Isles, Jungle Animals, Arctic Animals; Space, Planets, Stars; Fruit and Vegetables; People from History. There were also quite a few with fairies but Luke had seen enough to know that he had misjudged Amelia. Not all colouring books were boring.
So the visit to Auntie Joan’s turned out to be not so bad after all. Luke was given beans on toast with tomatoes and leeks for dinner, which went down very well. And Amelia kindly let him do some colouring in her History colouring book from which he learned that Albert Einstein, who was famous for being a very clever man, was a vegetarian like him. He showed that page to Auntie Joan.
****
Monday morning Luke sat in awe, watching Joe draw a brilliant picture of Mrs Tebbut. It looked just like her. He was especially impressed with how Joe had captured her eyebrows, the way they each did their own thing when she was angry.
“Joseph Carter put down your pen!” Mrs Tebbut shouted from behind her desk.
Luke looked at her and then at the drawing.
“Amazing!” he breathed.
As she stalked towards them, it dawned on Joe that it would have been better to have drawn it on paper so that he could tear it up. He licked his finger and tried to rub it off but the ink had already sunk into the wood.
“Headmaster’s office! Now!” she boomed when she saw his handiwork.
Joe was already on his feet. He knew the routine. Luke tried not to smile.
“And you, Luke Walker,” Mrs Tebbut still had some rage to vent.
“What did I do?” asked Luke incredulously.
“You two are as bad as each other. Move to the front where I can keep an eye on you!”
“There’s no room at the front,” said Luke with relief.
“Katia, Shania, swap desks with Luke please.”
She had an answer for everything.
“I didn’t do anything,” he said plaintively.
Joe was gone until after playtime and when he did come back he had to stand in the ‘naughty corner’. Luke sat alone in a haze of Lily of the Valley, trying not to make eye contact with his teacher. At least Joe was allowed to sit with him after lunch. Well, sort of.
“Luke and Joe, sit at either end of your desk, facing each other. I’ll have no more whispering and conspiring.”
The boys moved their chairs, turning sideways to the white board.
“Great,” muttered Luke, “now I’ll get a stiff neck twisting round to look at the board.”
“And I’ll have no muttering either,” said Mrs Tebbut, quiet enough to let him know that, at this distance, she could hear everything.
While the class got themselves settled in for afternoon school, Mrs Tebbut directed Miss Shaw, the new classroom assistant, to the photocopier.
“Just make 30 copies – I don’t want spares cluttering up my desk – and then put the Master Copy back in here,” she said, indicating her desk drawer.
Miss Shaw went to the staff room, where the photocopier was stationed, and Mrs Tebbut wrote on the board: The Eatwell Guide
******
Concludes tomorrow, but if you don’t want to wait you can read the whole chapter here 😀
Story continues from yesterday:
*******
Luke, wearing full school uniform, was finishing his jam and toast when his mum entered the kitchen at half past seven. She was stunned. Normally she had to call him at least three times before he’d get up, and even when he was up he had to be constantly nagged to get dressed and breakfasted. He didn’t appear to have had a shower and he was wearing Friday’s dirty shirt, but Mrs Walker decided to let that go.
“Morning Luke,” she said, apprehensively, “everything ok?”
“Yes thanks Mum,” he replied politely, “I want to get to school early today so I’m bein’ organised.”
“So I see. Any particular reason?”
“No.”
Mrs Walker, known by Luke to be very distrustful, looked closely at her youngest son.
“Ok,” she said, eventually, “well done.”
Luke smiled, put his gobstopper back in his mouth and went upstairs to clean his teeth.
He was at school a good twenty minutes before most people got there. Even Mrs Tebbut wasn’t there yet. He went in to his classroom.
He furtively looked around to confirm he was alone and then rushed over to the drawers. Everyone had a drawer with their name on. They kept their books and pencils and stuff in them. He found Kenny White’s drawer and pulled it out. Then he took from his bag Kenny’s droppings – 1 panda pop can, 1 crisp packet and one half-empty sherbet fountain. He pushed them into the drawer and closed it. Then he ran outside to kick a ball around on the playground until the bell went.
After the register had been called everyone had to line up for assembly. Luke took his place at the end of the line, followed the rest of his class into the hall and sat down on the floor behind class 3. He watched all the other classes file in and the assembly began. He sat still, faced forwards and pretended to be interested. When it was half way through he tried, quietly, to get Mrs Tebbut’s attention.
“Psst, psst, Mrs Tebbut,” he whispered.
She didn’t hear him. He coughed. She didn’t turn her head. He faked a loud sneeze. She frowned at him.
“Mrs Tebbut,” he whispered again, “can I go to the toilet?”
She silently shook her head.
“Please Mrs Tebbut, I really need to go,” he whispered a little louder.
The children near him started to snicker and Mrs Tebbut reluctantly gave in.
“If you must,” she hissed, “slip out the back.”
Luke did as he was told.
Once back in the classroom he grabbed his bag and exited through the cloakroom. He ran to class 6, the long way round so as not to pass the hall, and entered their cloakroom. He scanned the names above the coat pegs until he found what he was looking for. Yes! There it was. Haines.
On Haines’s peg hung Haines’s coat and into its pockets Luke deposited Haines’s droppings: 1 Tango can, almost empty, upside down; 1 crisp packet, almost empty, upside down; and 1 used piece of …… oh no! Luke found that the chewing gum he’d wrapped in paper when he’d recovered it from the crime scene, was now as hard as plastic and therefore unfit for purpose. He needed something sticky.
Of course! With almost no hesitation – he reminded himself it was for a very important cause – Luke spat what was left of his gobstopper into Haines’s inside pocket. Part three complete.
“Who are you? What are you doing in here?”
The man’s voice behind him made Luke’s cheeks flush hot. He turned round and reached into his bag.
“My brother is in this class,” he said, meekly, “’e forgot ‘is English book so I brought it for ‘im. I was jus’ lookin’ for ‘is bag on ‘is peg.”
He handed Jared’s book to the Year 6 classroom assistant.
“Oh, I see. Thank you,” he said as he took the book, “I’ll see that he gets it.”
“Thanks,” said Luke and ran back to his own class.
He opened the door just in time to witness Mrs Tebbut holding up a cola-soaked, sherbet smeared, grease-stained copy of the new History text book while shouting at Kenny White.
Luke sat down quietly and waited for lessons to begin.
****************
You can read the whole of Chapter 3 here, and the first eight chapters are available in paperback.
Story continues from yesterday:
******
And so the morning continued. Dad read the paper; Dudley sniffed, peed and eventually laid down; and Luke resentfully picked up other people’s rubbish.
He spotted a set of six-pack rings in the long grass and reached for it. It moved. He reached for it again and it moved again. Luke parted the long grass and found, with one of the rings caught tight around his body, a little hedgehog.
“Oh dear oh dear,” said the vet, “come on fella, let’s get this horrible thing off you.”
She cut it off and then gently cleaned the hedgehog’s wounds.
“I would say, going by the severity of the cuts around his neck and behind his forelimb …”
“His armpit,” Luke clarified in case anyone was unsure to which wound she was referring.
“er, yes, if you like,” the vet went on, “and the fact that he is quite undernourished, that this unfortunate animal …”
“Spiker,” said Luke.
“I’m sorry?”
“That’s his name.”
“Oh, I see. I would say that Spiker has been struggling with this horrible appendage for over a week. It’s very lucky you found him when you did.”
Luke suddenly saw the job of picking up litter in a very different light. It was a very important job and, in conjunction with punishing droppers, was outlaw work.
The vet said that she would take care of Spiker until he was better and then she would call them to pick him up and they could release him where they found him.
“That means,” thought Luke, “I need to make sure the park is safe for him to come back to.”
On the way home, Luke formulated a plan:
➔ First he would clean up all the rubbish;
➔ then he would keep watch and record the names of all the droppers and what they dropped;
➔ then he would teach them a lesson.
All afternoon Luke and Dad picked up litter. They filled three and a half large dustbin bags with bottles and cans, crisp packets and sweet wrappers, fast food containers and carrier bags. Luke also found a £2 coin which Dad said he could keep for being such a good worker.
“Nice to be ‘preciated for a change,” thought Luke and spent 99p of his hard-earned cash, on the way home, on a giant gobstopper.
Part one of his plan was complete. Now, on Sunday, he was carrying out part two.
It was slow going. His eyes glazed as he stared across the empty park.
“There’d be no shame in bringing more than one comic in future,” he decided.
Then, at 10.06, on one side of the park, seven Year 6 boys entered, laughing and pushing and kicking a football between them. At the same time, on the other side of the park, came Simon Butler, Kenny White, Becca Nithercott and Christina Burkiss, all from Class 4 – Luke’s class. Becca and Kenny were carrying large, brightly-coloured kites.
Luke shrank down behind his Beano. The Year 6 boys raced around chasing their ball and shouting insults at each other. The class 4 kids took it in turns to run across the field trying to keep their kites aloft in the windless sky.
Luke kept his eyes on them all as discreetly as he could. No litter was dropped. He was getting awfully tired of sitting still.
Then the football suddenly flew higher and further than intended and landed in one of the back gardens. Luke watched as one of the Year 6 boys vaulted the fence to retrieve it.
“What are you doing here all by yourself?”
Simon Butler! Where did he come from? Luke tried to look nonchalant. With slow deliberation he took the gobstopper out of his mouth.
“Readin’ me comic. What’s it to you?”
“Reading my foot!” Butler scoffed, “you’ve been sitting here with your comic against your chin for the last ten minutes. Are you waiting for someone?”
This was no good. Butler was drawing attention. And he was distracting. Now there were only five Year 6 boys – where did the other two go? Simon Butler climbed onto the bench next to Luke and sat on the back of it, his feet on the seat.
“Who are you waiting for? What are you waiting for?”
This was infuriating. Flamin’ Butler! Luke had to get rid of him and he could only think of one way to do it.
“Is that yours?” he pointed to a £1 coin on the ground.
“er, oh yeah, I must have dropped it just now,” Simon lied as he stooped to pick it up.
He called to his friends.
“Anyone fancy some crisps?”
And he ran off without giving Luke another thought.
“Expensive,” thought Luke, mourning the loss of the last of his money, “but worth it.”
******
Continues tomorrow but if you can’t wait that long you can read the whole chapter here and the first eight chapters are also available in paperback.
Chapter 3: Luke Walker and the Giant Gobstopper
SUNDAY
LITTER: 1 PIZZA BOX AND 1 COKE CAN
DROPPER: UNNOWNE
Luke tutted and looked across the park. At 8.27 there was no one else there but he knew they would come. And when they did, he would be ready.
On one side of the park was the school, on the other, the pony paddock. The top and bottom edges skirted the ends of back gardens. With his binoculars Luke could see it all clearly. He waited.
At 8.49 a dog walker entered the recreation field and walked around twice. Luke pretended to read his comic while secretly watching the person’s every move. No litter was dropped.
At 9.12 and 9.18 two more dog walkers arrived at opposite sides of the park. One threw a ball for his dog, the other kept her dog on a lead. No litter was dropped.
For Luke time was passing extremely slowly. He had read his comic three times and it was losing its appeal. At least his enjoyment of the gobstopper was not waning.
“The solitude of the outlaw life might be too much for some people,” Luke mused, “but I’m used to it now, I can handle it.”
Twenty four hours earlier he had been less philosophical:
“I don’t see why I should have to clean up other people’s mess!” Luke complained to Rusty who was sitting on a cabbage leaf, watching him.
Mrs Tebbut had followed through on her threat to send home a letter after the zoo trip and Luke’s dad had sentenced him to a month of weekends cleaning up litter. Luke was bitterly resentful at the injustice of it all.
“I mean, I could see the logic if I was a litter dropper myself. Makin’ me pick up litter would serve me right. But I’m not a dropper. I’ve never been a dropper. I won’t ever be a dropper – so what kind of lesson is this s’posed to teach me? A lesson I already know, that’s what!”
Rusty, Ash and Scratcher, the only witnesses to this tirade, did not attempt to answer him. They were used to his rhetorical rants and knew it was best to just let him get it off his chest. Sitting with his friends in ‘the damson patch’, as it was now known, letting off steam with the only ones who really understood him, was a kind of therapy for Luke. He always felt better afterwards.
But at the park Luke felt humiliated. It was Saturday morning; scouts were having football practice; skateboarders were zooming up and down their ramps and slopes; little girls were skipping rope and playing hopscotch. Luke felt like everyone was smirking at him picking up litter. It was disgusting. Disgusting people had dropped their disgusting rubbish and he was forced to clean up after them. It made him so cross.
Then he noticed his dad trying to get his attention. Maybe he was going to let him off. Maybe he’d done enough now.
“Luke, look, behind you. Dudley’s done his business. Make sure you pick that up as well.”
Dad went back to reading the paper and Luke seethed. It wasn’t fair!
******
Continues tomorrow, but if you can’t wait you can read the whole chapter here now
and the first eight chapters are also available in paperback
Continues from yesterday:
*****
But, it was nice weather, and anything was better than being stuck in a classroom. Luke decided he might as well try to make the best of it.
Mrs Tebbut pointed at two big tigers.
“What can you tell me about the tigers in this enclosure?” she asked the group.
Luke was shocked. He put up his hand.
“Are they criminals?” he suggested.
“Don’t be silly Luke, of course they’re not criminals.”
“Well it don’t seem fair to put innocent animals in prison.”
“Can anyone give me a sensible answer?”
Simon Butler read aloud from the board on the fence.
“They’re Bengal tigers; well known for their power and strength; one of the most feared predators in nature. In the wild they scent mark large areas of up to 100 square kilometres to keep their rivals away.”
“Very good Simon,” Mrs Tebbut smiled.
Luke didn’t think there was much to smile about.
“The wild ones live in massive places, prob’ly bigger ‘n Bournemouth, and this cage is smaller ‘n my back garden. No wonder they look fed up,” he thought.
They moved on. Luke lagged behind with diminishing enthusiasm. Mrs Tebbut drew everyone’s attention to another enclosure.
“Can anyone tell me what these guys are?”
“They’re penguins,” said Anna.
“That’s right. Does anyone know what type?”
“They’re bored penguins.” He knew the moment he said it that he’d said it too loud.
“Luke Walker! I am tired of your attitude! If you can’t enter into the spirit of things with a smile on your face and some genuine effort then kindly do not participate at all.”
That was fine by Luke.
“Why do teachers ask you what you think if all they really want you to tell ’em is what they think?” he grumbled to himself.
When Mrs Tebbut was distracted by Katia getting a splinter, Luke decided to take her at her word and ‘not participate at all’. He was better off on his own anyway. He wandered around the zoo, looking at the animals and feeling sorry for them.
“Don’t seem right to lock animals up when they ‘aven’t done nothin’. It’s like the Sheriff of Nottin’am all over again.”
He noticed an empty bench in front of a line of trees, away from the busier zoo paths, and decided to have a sit down.
“It’s a shame about zoos,” he thought, disappointed.
While he sat there he looked around. Over his left shoulder, behind the trees, he saw another enclosure. It was off the beaten track and smaller than the others. It was concrete and contained nothing of beauty or interest except its occupant. There stood the biggest, most breath-taking, awe-inspiring individual Luke had ever encountered. An elephant. All on her own.
“All on your own,” Luke sympathised, as he made his way to her, “another damson in distress.”
He climbed up on the fence so that he could talk to her over the top of it and she walked towards him to get a closer look.
“I’m on me own too,” he continued, “not stayin’ with the group if I’m not wanted!”
Then he had an idea.
“Would you like to come out an’ play with me?”
The elephant seemed interested so he went on.
“Ok, listen, we’ll have to be a bit sneaky. You wait here while I find a key; then I’ll open this gate and you can slip out before anyone sees.”
It was a brilliant plan!
*******
Continues tomorrow, but if you can’t wait you can read the whole story here now 😀
and the first eight chapters are also available in paperback 🙂
New from Honestly Books is Wild Goose Chase by Lavender Laine which is perfect for the teens to adults section of our Vegan Children’s Books page.
Lavender Laine, author of What’s good for the goose is not good for the panda, a rhyming story for little children, is a collage artist with a passionate opposition to vivisection. Her latest title, the non-fiction Wild Goose Chase, is not only a feast for the eyes but also choc full of information that every anti-vivisectionist should know. She has mined the brilliant Sacred Cows and Golden Geese by Ray and Jean Greek for all the text, which she has torn from its pages and pasted onto a backdrop of colourful images from many and various books and magazines. The result is a stunning visual treat designed to make the historical scientific facts easier to remember.
On the first page is the classic quote from Dr Werner Hartinger: “There are, in fact, only two categories of doctors and scientist who are not opposed to vivisection: those who don’t know enough about it, and those who make money from it.”
The acknowledgement pages follow:
And then it begins with a statement that it will go on to prove: Trying to cure human ills by experimenting on animals is a wild goose chase.
From thereon each page is full of information which was meticulously researched by the Greeks for Sacred Cows. Laine has chosen excerpts from the Greeks’ book which she feels are the most important to commit to memory. I’ve read Sacred Cows and Golden Geese several times from cover to cover and it teems with information explained in a way that is easy to make sense of for a non-scientific mind such as mine. However, there is just so much information in there that, even after reading and re-reading, I find it hard to bring the facts to mind in conversation with others and therefore am unconvincing in my arguments. That’s why Wild Goose Chase is so important. Laine has included only a fraction of the text from Sacred Cows – giving us less to memorize – but those well chosen excerpts explain clearly and concisely why vivisection is scientifically flawed and why it continues in spite of that.
It’s a kind of CliffsNotes for Sacred Cows, but much more eye-catching.
It begins with the history, showing that “True advances in medical knowledge has not come from animals.” It reveals that Nobel Prizes were awarded to the wrong people – those who ‘validated’ things in animals decades after they had been discovered by other scientists in human observations.
It explains how animal experiments have mislead scientists into thinking dangerous drugs were safe, and safe drugs were dangerous.
It explains that animal tests continue in spite of this because they provide a legal ‘safe harbor’ for the government and drug companies who can claim due diligence when things go horribly wrong.
It explains that, in the education system, original thinking is neither required nor welcomed; that editors and reviewers perpetuate the mass delusion; that money drives education and money drives research.
It explains that what is needed is a ‘voluble public outcry’ to stop this scientific fraud which is killing so many humans and animals. What is needed is for everyone to be aware of these facts so that they can no longer be deceived by the vivisectors’ PR machines.
And then it goes on to explain what we should be doing instead of animal experiments: the scandalously underfunded human-based research methods which really could make a difference. Look – there’s Elvis! ↑
Eg epidemiology, human autopsies, in vitro research, clinical observation, genetic research, computer modeling, diagnostic imaging, post-marketing drug surveillance. It’s amazing what they can do now (and Sacred Cows was written sixteen years ago so think of the even more amazing advances that must have occurred since then).
“To insist that animal experiments are necessary is ludicrous.”
“Why wait in the dark ages when the Star Trek sick bay is at hand?”
The book concludes with a call to action, inviting everyone to educate themselves and speak out against the mass delusion which is costing so many lives.
There is nothing in this book but scientific and historical facts which are easily verified by referring to the indicated pages in Sacred Cows. There are no disturbing images or descriptions of animal experiments – what would be the point? If vivisection could be stopped on grounds of cruelty to animals it would have been banned a century ago. Exposing the scientific fraud is the only way to end it. Educating ourselves is where we start. Buy this book and give it rave reviews! Enable every teenager to understand that animal experiments are not necessary and never have been; that they are actually harmful to medical progress and will not save human lives.
Ow! That was a thistle. Luke poked and scratched at it with a stick until it broke away from its roots and could be pushed aside. He then rubbed his grazed wrist and forged ahead, emerging moments later on the other side of the hedge. Simon Butler’s back garden.
It wasn’t the first time Luke had gained illegal entry to Simon Butler’s garden but if all went well it might be the last. He’d been eleven times before, to visit the rabbit. Simon kept his rabbit in a small wooden hutch at the end of the garden, near the dustbins. He used to let her out to play when he first got her but after a couple of months, when the novelty had worn off, he only visited his pet for five minutes once a day to refill her food and water. Luke felt sorry for her. He could see the hutch from his bedroom window next door. When he borrowed his dad’s binoculars he could even see the rabbit.
“She must be so sad and fed up. And bored,” he said to the Robin Hood poster on his wardrobe door, “I’m going to visit her.”
A couple of times a week for the last month and a half, Luke had endured scratches and scuffs, and the hedge had endured bends and breaks, so that the rabbit could have a bit of company. He always took her something from Dad’s vegetable patch – a bit of lettuce, or a carrot maybe – and after the first few times she seemed pleased to see him. She put her face close to the wire and eagerly tugged at the treats he pushed through to her. But he had to be careful not to get caught.
Simon was a smarty-pants who always did his homework and always got good marks. He was good at sports and he was good at maths. He was always the first to put up his hand in class and his shoes were always clean. Irritating though all of that was, Luke could have let it go if Simon hadn’t done something unforgivable.
Luke’s best friend, Joe, was not very fast and he was not very clever. He was last to be picked for every team game and first to be told off in every lesson for not knowing the answer. But he always took it on the chin. He shrugged it off. Sports weren’t his thing. Maths wasn’t his thing. He wasn’t especially enamoured with science or history either but that didn’t worry him. He was the best friend Luke had ever had and was totally reliable. He had kept his mouth shut when Luke tripped over his shoe laces and knocked Mrs Tebbut’s mug of tea all over her desk; he had kept it to himself when Luke accidentally cracked Mrs Tebbut’s windscreen with a cricket ball. He was the kind of friend who could always be depended on.
So when Smarty-Pants told Mrs Tebbut that Joe had copied his test and Joe got sent to the Head Master for cheating, Luke was very cross. Simon Smarty-Pants Butler was a tell-tale and a liar. He could never be trusted. And he didn’t like Luke any more than Luke liked him. It was vital that Luke didn’t get caught.
****
to be continued …
Click here for the whole chapter.
It was tense and silent as we drew a name from the hat, and with hard-to-contain excitement we unfolded the paper. And the winner is ….
Congratulations Lira, you have won a copy of “Why are you a vegan?” and other wacky verse for kids. We hope you enjoy it 😀
Thank you to everyone who entered, and for those who weren’t lucky this time don’t be disheartened, it’s available on Amazon 🙂
Plus, there are going to be plenty more opportunities to win as there are many more giveaways to come.
Watch this space!
Day 7: you’ve got ONE day left to enter the prize draw for a chance to win a copy of “Why are you a vegan?” and other wacky verse for kids.
The winner will be drawn on Wednesday, the 11th of May: TOMORROW!
Comment on this post to put your name in the hat
Funny rhymes with messages on vegan lifestyle, sounds difficult to combine but the authors have put a brilliant effort in creating this work. This is a book consisting of poems and picture stories. What is interesting about this book is,the drawings are hand drawn which makes this book a special one because children can actually connect to the drawings and the simple poems and learn in more than one way. Very beautiful illustrations and amazing writing.
A very sweet read. Would recommend it for every kid.
Goodreads review
For more vegan books for children, go home
Day 6: you’ve got two days left to enter the prize draw for a chance to win a copy of “Why are you a vegan?” and other wacky verse for kids.
The winner will be drawn on Wednesday, the 11th of May.
Comment on this post to put your name in the hat
Funny rhymes with messages on vegan lifestyle,sounds difficult to combine but the authors have put a brilliant effort in creating this work. This is a book consisting of poems and picture stories. What is interesting about this book is,the drawings are hand drawn which makes this book a special one because children can actually connect to the drawings and the simple poems and learn in more than one way. Very beautiful illustrations and amazing writing.
A very sweet read. Would recommend it for every kid.
Goodreads review
For more vegan books for children, go home
Day 3: you’ve got five days left to enter the prize draw for a chance to win a copy of “Why are you a vegan?” and other wacky verse for kids.
The winner will be drawn next Wednesday, the 11th of May.
Comment on this post to put your name in the hat
Funny rhymes with messages on vegan lifestyle,sounds difficult to combine but the authors have put a brilliant effort in creating this work. This is a book consisting of poems and picture stories. What is interesting about this book is,the drawings are hand drawn which makes this book a special one because children can actually connect to the drawings and the simple poems and learn in more than one way. Very beautiful illustrations and amazing writing.
A very sweet read. Would recommend it for every kid.
Goodreads review
For more vegan books for children, go home 🙂
To celebrate the launch of our new Vegan Books For Children page we are going to have some giveaways of some of the lovely books on it.
First up is “Why are you a vegan?” and other wacky verse for kids
It’s been over a year since this one came out in January 2015 – unbelievable!
You can read more about it here in the post about the earlier giveaway, when it was published, and if you’re still not sure you’re interested, look at this lovely review we just found on Goodreads:
Funny rhymes with messages on vegan lifestyle,sounds difficult to combine but the authors have put a brilliant effort in creating this work. This is a book consisting of poems and picture stories. What is interesting about this book is,the drawings are hand drawn which makes this book a special one because children can actually connect to the drawings and the simple poems and learn in more than one way. Very beautiful illustrations and amazing writing.
A very sweet read. Would recommend it for every kid.
So, if you would like to win a copy of this colourful, happy vegan children’s book, just comment on this post and let us know. You’ve got seven days to do so – next Wednesday, the 11th of May 2016, we will draw a name from our ‘hat’ to select the winner. Open to everyone, worldwide.
Look forward to hearing from you 😀
We love this book!
It’s so perfect! Full of vibrant colour and light.
Valerie Bloom’s happy, funny poem is gorgeously illustrated by David Axtell.
Every page is full of delicious mischief and tasty, sweet, juicy fruit.
The rhyming story is told in the first person from the point of view of a delightfully naughty little girl who loves fruit and eats as much as she can get her hands on while teaching little sis how to get it without getting caught.
The written-in Caribbean accent naturally adds sunshine to the words and you really feel like you’re inside the head of big sis; which makes you as eager as she to taste all those juicy fruits.
I probably shouldn’t show any more, wouldn’t want to spoil the ending 😉 You really should get down to the library and borrow this wonderful book (or get your own copy) – especially if you’ve got a little one who’s learning to count.
Highly highly recommended 😀
It’s in the Book Shoppe 😀
We’ve got a new book shop! And I decided to call it a Book Shoppe just for the fun of it.
We’ve just published a few new books, which I’ll tell you about in the coming days, so I thought I’d set up a pretty little book shoppe to show them off. See the picture of a Book Shoppe in the side bar to your right? Why not click on that? Go on, it’s nice in there 😀
Silly Verse FOR KIDS by Spike Milligan was one of my favourites as a child (I saved up for it with my pocket money and bought it from the village shop) and I still love it. So I decided to make something similar, full of funny, quirky poems: HUMANS ARE NOT OMNIVORES [poems your teacher might not like] (I decided not to beat around the bush with the title!)
Spike Milligan was a brilliantly irreverent vegetarian comedian and author who died in 2002 at the age of 83. He campaigned against factory farming and vivisection and was once thrown out of Harrods for trying to stuff 28lb of spaghetti down the mouth of the food hall manager because they sold pate de foie gras.
“I told him it might give him some idea of how a goose feels being force-fed maize” he said.
I modelled our new book on his, making it the same size and the same layout, so it’s only a little one – just 11cm x 18cm.
His is a Puffin book, published by Penguin. Ours is a Little Chicken book, published by Violet’s Vegan Comics 😉
And both are full of quirky, eccentric, funny poems for kids like ‘Mary Pugh’, above or a selection from Wacky Verse, examples below 😀
I hope Spike would have liked it. I hope you like it too.
All you kids who are sick of being told at school that humans are omnivores – this one is for you! 😀 😀 😀
The fourth and final Honestly Books giveaway draw has taken place and the winner is B Mackela! Congratulations Bill – you have been twice lucky 😀 and How many friends could a Bibbolybob make if a Bibbolybob came to Earth? [The Little Edition] by Edward Benn and Juliet Mahoney will be on its way to you very soon.
We hope you enjoy it 😀
So that’s it for the Honestly Books giveaways. Thank you to everyone at Honestly Books for donating those to us, and to everyone who entered the draws.
We highly recommend Honestly Books to anyone looking for lovely books for children for Christmas and we hope our winners will thoroughly enjoy their prize[s] 😀
The lucky winner of our 3rd Honestly Books giveaway, What’s Good For The Goose Is Not Good For The Panda by Lavender Laine, is B Mackela
Congratulations Bill 🙂 Give us your address via our contact form on the About page and we will get the book to you as soon as possible.
There now remains only one more chance to win! The final book of our Honestly Books stash, the little Bibbolybob book, will go into the draw next week. Look out for Monday’s post to enter 😀
Our third Honestly Books giveaway is the unique What’s Good For The Goose Is Not Good For The Panda by Lavender Laine.
You can read our review of it here, but basically it follows the classic children’s story model in which the protagonist (Patty the panda) goes on a journey to find out about herself by trial and error.
It’s told completely in rhyme which is charming and the illustrations and text are all done in collage which is so different and fun and shows children that they can make art out of anything and encourages recycling.
The moral of the story is that we are all different and that what’s good for one is not necessarily good for another. This is undoubtedly why Laine dedicates the book to the Safer Medicines Trust which campaigns for an end to animal experiments on the grounds that all species are different and therefore results from animal tests cannot be relied upon for human medicines.
So if you’d like your own copy of this book just comment on this post to enter Friday’s prize draw. We will announce the winner on Friday morning. Good luck 😀
The winner of a copy of the brilliant Colour By Nutrients by August Bassett and Amy Fibbitts, our second giveaway from the Honestly Books stash, is Carol of Art Is Not For Sissies. 😀
Congratulations Carol. You can give us your address privately on our contact form (at the bottom of the About page) and we’ll get the book to you asap 😀
And the winner of our first Honestly Books giveaway: How Many Friends Could A Bibbolybob Make If A Bibbolybob Came To Earth?, by Edward Benn and Juliet Mahoney, is Bookish Heather!
Congratulations Heather – we will send the book to you as soon as you contact us with your address 😀
” … he will be regarded as a benefactor of his race who shall teach man to confine himself to a more innocent and wholesome diet. Whatever my own practice may be, I have no doubt that it is part of the destiny of the human race, in its gradual improvement, to leave off eating animals, “
Henry David Thoreau
in Walden (1854)
“I believe that every man who has ever been in earnest to preserve his higher or poetic faculties in the best condition has been particularly inclined to abstain from animal food, …”
Henry David Thoreau
Walden and Other Writings
ISBN 9780553212464
Bantam Books
Page 276
Here is another lovely yoga book for children from Michael Chissick and Sarah Peacock. This one is designed to be used by teachers and parents to help children use yoga relaxation to cope with stress, grief, bullying and lack of confidence.
The book begins with guidance for teachers and parents, explaining the aims of the book, how children can benefit from and enjoy Ladybird Relaxation and giving advice on how to teach it to children. Then the story begins.
Ladybird’s friends are all stressed or unhappy about different things – stress from a heavy workload, bereavement, bullying and feeling they’re rubbish at something. Ladybird sympathises and tells them she is going to give them a special gift that will help them all.
Beautifully illustrated, it is a joy to read and makes you feel more relaxed as you turn the pages 🙂
The final part of the book explains how to teach Ladybird Relaxation including a script to read while using a ladybird puppet or little bell (outlined in the guidance at the beginning) to symbolise the ladybird landing on different children as they relax on their mats with eyes closed.
It sounds really therapeutic and I can’t wait to try it myself.
Available on Amazon here
Frog’s Breathtaking Speech is a gorgeous book for children – and teachers, and parents – to help them cope with tension and stress.
Michael Chissick is a children’s yoga teacher and Sarah Peacock is a primary school teacher and they have both found the frog’s story very useful when helping children to relax.
This beautifully illustrated story is about a frog who is very sad because he is worried about a speech he has to give at school the next day. When he explains this to his friends, they all tell him about their own special ways of breathing which release tension and anger and enable them to feel happy and relaxed.
At the beginning of the book there is guidance for teachers on how best to use these techniques to help children and at the end there are simple instructions, accompanied by lovely illustrations, about the yoga postures which accompany each type of breathing.
A lovely book.
You can buy it here 😀
This is a truly beautiful little book for reading to small children by Maria Luisa Arenzana and Antonella Canavese.
It is full of surreal rhymes and stunning illustrations which convey a peaceful, loving message of compassion and empathy for animals, hens in particular.
I love the verse on the above page which reads
Our love
means something
which is nothing
in our hands
and it’s everything
in the world.
I took this to mean that it’s no good just to say we love animals and feel we love animals unless we put that love into practice in the world by living a compassionate life.
A truly beautiful, dreamy book which I’m sure would delight small children. It’s available on Amazon and, if you want one, could be with you in a few short days 🙂
We are having fun making videos of some of our stories being read aloud and have decided to make Story Time a permanent fixture on our site. So, if you want to be read a story, just click on the link in the sidebar to your right (or the big picture above) and choose a video 🙂 There are only two on there at the moment, but give us time, we’ll keep them coming 😉
Are you sitting comfortably? Then we will begin 😀
Going to the library is fun. Browsing the books, choosing something you like and taking it home for weeks at a time. For nothing. This is something to be truly appreciated and not taken for granted.
If we don’t use it, we might lose it 😮
If you live in the sticks like us, miles from the nearest library building, there might be a mobile library that visits your area. They usually come by every couple of weeks. Contact your local county council to find out where and when your mobile library is coming next 🙂
Arktel: The planet only children could save is a beautifully illustrated book by Menkit Prince.
It’s about three planets: Tarjez, Arktel and Earth. On planet Tarjez, we fast forward to what could happen if we keep going the way we are on Earth i.e. total destruction.
Children from Arktel witnessed the destruction of Tarjez and decided to take action because they saw similar trends happening in their world that could lead to Arktel’s destruction.
The Arktel website is not only about the book but also about how children here can save our planet. It’s honest and straight-forward as well as being a brilliant educational resource for children, their carers and their teachers. It’s a heavy subject but unless we look it straight in the eye and acknowledge the crisis we are facing, we will never overcome it. This book and its associated website challenges us not to get depressed but to do something about it.
We can you know 🙂
I have just come across this beautiful book at our local library and wanted to tell you about it. The illustrations are stunningly gorgeous and the honesty of the story is so refreshing and heart warming. Here are a few snippets ….
At this time of year when many of us are heart-broken in the knowledge that most people will celebrate the season of goodwill by taking the life of an innocent, it is so refreshing to find a story for children which, in spite of its honesty, fills us with hope. Read it all to see what I mean. Here it is
Violet's Vegan Comics 