Review: Annie's Special Day by Clarike Bowman-Jahn

BLURB:

In “Annie’s Special Day,” a little girl celebrates her birthday with an adventure every hour. It is a basic concept book about time and clocks.







REVIEW:

There is a pretty set rhythm throughout the book that will be pleasing to little kids' ears. It will also help direct them to pay special attention to the words when the pattern is not used. This is good as it differentiates around the most exciting part of the book: the sleepover!

I enjoyed the descriptions that were usually in the third sentence on every page as well as the creatively different ways the author found for Annie to know the time. Annie's day seemed pretty normal, something any child could relate to. The ending made me smile and it will make you too as you read it to your young one. :)

Find Clarike At: Blog | Facebook | Twitter

About Clarike Bowman-Jahn: Clara Bowman-Jahn worked as a registered nurse for thirty-two years, finally trading that job for her true love, writing. Clara’s short stories have been published in the anthology Campaigner Challenges 2011.

When Clara is not writing, she does volunteer work for a local elementary school and her church. She also likes taking long walks with her husband, blogging, and reading books. She is a member of the Society for Children’s Book Writers and Illustrators, Pennwriters, Bethesda Writer’s Center and Round Hill Writer’s Group. She lives in rural Loudoun County, Virginia, with her humorous husband, a senior dog and two cats. And she is the proud mother of two wonderful grown sons and the proud grandmother of one delightful grandson.

Don't forget about the giveaway for a copy of Annie's Special Day!

Annie's Special Day by Clarike Bowman-Jahn

Think back to when your love of books first began. Some of you will remember your MG years. Some of you will travel back to high school. But for me, and many others, it started at a very young age with children's books like Toestomper and the Caterpillars and The Funny Little Woman. So I am proud to be hosting a children's book and its author today.

Annie's Special Day -- Children's Book

eTreasures Publishing

In “Annie’s Special Day,” a little girl celebrates her birthday with an adventure every hour. It is a basic concept book about time and clocks.

Kids will love watching the clock with Annie as her special day unfolds and her friends join her for a slumber party that is so much fun she doesn’t want to miss a minute of it. Parents be prepared to read this book over and over as your child delights in the idea of staying up all night while effortlessly learning the basics of how to tell time.

-Barbara Simpson Carducci, Author of Storee Wryter Gets A Dog

Take a delightful romp, hour by hour, through a very special day in
Annie's life. It's her birthday, and every hour brings a new adventure.
Join Annie through a day of celebration into the dark of night and finally
sunrise in the morning. What great fun!

-Suzanne L. Walls, Author of Backyard Birds of the Piedmont

If you think this would be a good book for your child, grandchild, niece, nephew, etc., you're in luck because Clarike has been nice enough to offer a free copy of Annie's Special Day for me to give away on my blog. Use the Rafflecopter widget below to enter then keep reading to learn more about Clarike and her writing.

a Rafflecopter giveaway

MORE ON CLARIKE BOWMAN-JAHN'S WRITING

Brooke: Why are children's books important to you?

Clarike: Children's books are important to me because they usually explain something complex simply. Often the author tells something very basic and profound in the most simple terms available to the English language. And kids learn complex fundamentals through osmosis.

B: Why did you chose to write children's books?

C: I chose to write this children's book because I wanted to record how birds sound in the early wee morning hours of the day. As I rewrote and edited it, that part got taken out but now I have a published book. I chose to write for children because I have something to tell them and it is a challenge to speak in their own language.

B: What do you believe makes a good children's book?

C: And my answer to what makes a good children's book is in the above answer. Something important said in their own language so they can understand it on a basic level.

Find Clarike At: Blog | Facebook | Twitter

About Clarike Bowman-Jahn: Clara Bowman-Jahn worked as a registered nurse for thirty-two years, finally trading that job for her true love, writing. Clara’s short stories have been published in the anthology Campaigner Challenges 2011.

When Clara is not writing, she does volunteer work for a local elementary school and her church. She also likes taking long walks with her husband, blogging, and reading books. She is a member of the Society for Children’s Book Writers and Illustrators, Pennwriters, Bethesda Writer’s Center and Round Hill Writer’s Group. She lives in rural Loudoun County, Virginia, with her humorous husband, a senior dog and two cats. And she is the proud mother of two wonderful grown sons and the proud grandmother of one delightful grandson.

Come back on Friday for my review of Annie's Special Day!

Mother May Know Best. Doesn't Mean She Doesn't Like Opinions.

My mother doesn't always understand the importance of writing in my life, doesn't quite get how seriously I take it. At least, it can feel that way.

But when Campaigner Challenges 2011 went up for sell, no one was more ecstatic. (It might not have been humanly possible.) I tried to tell her it was no big deal, that anyone who participated in the challenges and said they wanted in, got in, but that didn't stop her from calling every single person she had ever come in contact with. (Seriously, I think she phoned up her whole graduating class, plus the one she was supposed to be in [she graduated a year early], plus my dad's.) And you should've seen what she did to get hard copies of that thing.

She was just as excited (well, maybe just a little less) when I got accepted into OSAI. I mean, she didn't even wait for me before she opened the acceptance email. (Though I guess the unexpected screaming of "You got in!" from across the house made up for it a bit.) So of course she came to my performance. A poetry reading.

Often she has told me about her own poetry, one poem in particular. Those stories never failed to end with "I wish I could find..." After my reading, she decided to go looking one more time. You totally know what I'm going to say, right? Right? Well yeah, she found them. Way to state the obvious. ;)

Now we finally get to the point of this post. (See, this is why I try so hard not to info dump.) She wants someone to look at them. But she doesn't really want anyone she knows to look at them. That's where all you lovely people come in. -bats eyelashes- I know from experience that you all have mad critiquing skills and I'm very, very politely asking you to use them on the two poems I'm about to show you, one of which is that one particular poem. Enjoy.

(And yes, I'm totally exploiting my blog audience for my mom. Aren't I just the sweetest?)

Waiting for the Sun
by Angela Busse
(11-5-95)

A seed it once was planted
Deep within the ground.
It grew from fertile soil,
But was withered up and brown.

For the sun it never reached there
Within the shadows deep.
Happiness avoided it,
The flower, once a seed.

The flower it grew ugly,
But stronger day by day.
Or maybe it was weaker,
The strength was all its play.

Deep down the flower wanted
A true friend all its own
But found none in the forest
Where only weeds had grown.

When the shadows reached their darkest
A sunbeam it was sent
To help the little flower
All weather beat and bent.

The flower it mistrusted
The sunbeam in its room
And although it often told him
He was not to be removed.

Bit by bit the sunbeam,
He brought it back to life
He made the flower pretty,
He made its colors bright.

Now of course the little sunbeam
Was devoted to this cause,
But he was called away again,
The darkness bared its claws.

The flower didn’t know it,
But the sunbeam made it strong.
The darkness it was held at bay
Through a battle hard and long.

The flower it still held the hope
The sunbeam would return
For in the flower’s hardened heart
A love began to burn.

The flower waited longer
Than a normal flower could,
For hope it keeps our hearts alive
Much longer than it should.

The day the sunbeam did return
Brought the flower back alive.
For without a little sunbeam
A flower can’t survive.

Of Better Things Remembered
by Angela Busse
(2-25-95)

I search the darkest corners
And they seep into my mind.
They twist and then they turn on me
And it's him there that I find.

The darkness as it lifts away
Will leave us in the past.
Back to the haunting memories
When I thought it all would last.

We used to talk and speak of things.
The things we'd seen and felt.
He told me of his thinking place,
The place where family knelt.

He taught me how to look at life
I find that good and bad.
For all the doors I know it opened
I walk through what we had.

But on the grander scheme of things,
I ask a question..., "me or him?".
I think of all the memories made
Knowing I will cherish them.

As the darkness it returns
And then it fades again
I know that I will let him go
Just not exactly when.

Accidents Happen

Which is why you should always have a current backup of your work somewhere. Email. Check. (At least, with some documents.) Flash drive. Check. Internet storage such as Dropbox. Will do. Once I get home and get my new, non-fried computer. (Keep reading.) And the good ol' hard copy. Check. (Though, they may not all be the most current versions.)

Why am I reminding you of this? You've heard it a million times, right? I mean, come on, Brooke, even you're getting tired of hearing it.

Because accidents happen.

As I mentioned previously, I'm currently visiting my out-of-state grandparents. Yesterday, I was talking to my mom on the phone when she informed me my computer has officially fried.

Give that a moment to sink in. My. Computer. Fried.

My mother plugged a flash drive into one of the front USB ports, forgetting they don't work. Usually, nothing happens. But oh, not this time. This time it sent a power surge through my computer. Ctrl+Alt+Del was not going to fix that bad boy. So my parents unplugged it. And it now refuses to power back on.

What did I tell you? Accidents happen.

Luckily, my dad thinks the hard drive is still good. And if it isn't, I uploaded current versions of all my writing documents onto my flash drive before I left. We also have computer insurance (I didn't even know that existed let alone that we had it. Guess someone told my mom accidents happen.) which will buy me a new computer.

This accident didn't turn out so bad. Hey, I'm even going to have a computer with working front USB ports. But that doesn't mean the next one won't. Or that yours won't.

So backup your work. Now. Twice. Naw. Four times.

NYR Update - 6 Months

Half of the year is over. Well actually, half of the year is not over until 11:59 PM on July 2 passes. But we're close enough, right? No? At least I'm correct that this is the first of the month then. And boy, did it get here fast! (This does not go against our agreement to not mention how quickly the month has gone by.) Unfortunately, I also wrote up this report pretty fast.

1. I will have complete THINKING OF YOU's ready for query first round of revisions. I received three critiques for my first two chapters and so far have implemented changes suggested in one. I am currently working with two potential critique partners for this work thanks to Rachael Harrie's Beta Match.
2. I will have two new first drafts. NA
3. I will win National Poetry Writing Month (NaPoWriMo).
4. I will submit at least two short stories to anthologies and/or contests. NA
5. I will read at least one hundred books. I read two books this month and am currently reading two others. Goodreads announces that I am seven books behind.
6. I will post at least one vlog a month. NA
7. I will exercise in some way once a week. The second week (June 10-16) I went on a two and a half mile run and a short hike. The fourth week (June 24-30) I went swimming twice.

I am not going to mope around about how little I got done this month. OSAI was an incredible experience that I hope to have again next summer and the two after that. Instead, I'm going to be happy that I started my new revising schedule today and that I got this post up on time.

How likely do you think it is that I can get half a year's worth of progress done before June 2 ends?