Month: March 2020

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Multi-cultural Farming and Gardening books – diversity with “A Barbie and a Book”

Doll with afro puff and wicker basket and wellies
Let’s play urban gardeners

Is there anything nicer than an Amazon package with a new book?  Yes, a new book PAIRED with a dolly.

While I was involved with Multi-Cultural Book Day I reviewed a book about African elephants and my review had a suggestion of buying toy animals too.

Diverse books are needed as much as ever. Dolls and books have a very important role in REPRESENTATION. Imagine reading a book like “The Sugar Plum Ballerinas ” and then having a ballet doll to act out the scenes!   Heaven!!   Imaginative play, books and dolls all work together. 

I am going to kick off with a post about Farming and Urban Gardening to tie in with the new Sweet  Orchard Farm Barbie dolls.  I have a FABULOUS  global list of Multi-Cultural Farming books  that  I am linking to.  The list is from America so there’s a rich  mix of cultures and plants. Barbie dolls are multi-cultural and affordable.

I am selecting two books “Lola Plants a Garden”

Little black girl looking at seeds growing in her garden
Lola has many books for little kids

and “Green, Green – A Community Gardening Story” 

Book cover with little black girl in a garden
Dolls enjoy playing in the garden

I used to live in London so I want to share the idea of gardening in small spaces and urban settings.

Here come the dolls. 

I am showcasing the  Sweet Orchard Farm series of dolls, animal and play items.  I live in a rural Irish village so I love that Barbie has a tractor as well as a truck.

To pair with Lola Plants a Garden and Green Green  I think Chelsea is perfect.   Chelsea in Barbie’s little baby sister and she comes with a little yellow chick. 

Brunety curly doll in wellies
Chelsea on the farm. is she Lola today?

Barbie gets the best accessories but her pals and siblings have some sweet outfits, animals  and props too.   The brown skinned  dolls, apart from Chelsea are adult sized, with one male and two female dolls in jolly coloured wellies.    I have linked to US Amazon where possible.

Barbie with afro puff and wicker basket in packaging
Sweet Orchard Farm has a dress code
barbie in blue wellies and watering can
Sweet Orchard Farm Barbie, an urban gardener
Planting time on Sweet Orchard Farm

 

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Books for people who cannot read – Alexa helps people who are alexic as well as dyslexic

The book industry has changed so much- all the new ways to read or hear a book –  Amazon’s Alexa can share books with people who might really enjoy some story telling but cannot read – they could be  too small, they could be dyslexic, they could be”Alexic”. 

In neuropsychology there are words that we only come across when a brain is not well.  Someone whose brain has taken a knock could be aphasic (not able to speak properly), agnosic (not able to recognise objects), prosopagnosic (not able to recognize faces) or , new word coming up ‘alexic’.  The “a” means that something is missing so afamilial means you have no family.  Alexia means the absence of the ability to read.

But Alexa was shown on TV recently helping a women who had lost her ability to read to access the books she had collected for her retirement  – but then lost with a rare type of dementia.  An Alexa type device gave her back her books.

I had not seen Amazon and Jeff Bezos as anything other than money-making machines but the Big Life Fix showed that tech is looking to a future that is not about young people with new kit but old people keeping quality of life.  So as a self-published author I am happy to do battle with all the different platforms for books, e-books, audio books, library books, library e-books and library audio books.

 

girl in First Holy Communion dress and veil has her hair and rosary beads blown sideways by a white helcopter
Which format is this again?