Monthly Archives: November 2022

Power of Kids Seeing Themselves in Diverse Books

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By Freelance Writer and Books Author Denise Turney

photo of girl sitting on sofa while using tablet to read diverse books
Girl reading diverse book – Photo by Julia M Cameron on Pexels.com

Diverse books tap into the power of kids. Social skills, open mindedness, genuine acceptance of others and natural happiness are a few strengths common to kids. These strengths and others, including active listening, knowledge that there’s a lot for them to learn and a heart for the arts and creativity, empower kids. Seeing book characters who look like them put these strengths into practice opens up new worlds for kids. Even more, books with diverse characters do so much more.

Growing Up Without Diverse Books

Fortunately, the numbers of diverse books for kids are increasing. Growing up there were fewer than a handful of children’s books with characters from other cultures. Back then, it was a challenge finding books for young readers that had strong female characters.

Although I absolutely loved to read, starting and finishing dozens of books a week, I longed for stories with characters who reminded me of myself, my family, friends and neighbors. Years passed before I came across such a book which was Mildred Taylor’s Roll of Thunder, Hear My Cry. To say I was shocked to discover the book, is a huge understatement.

Simply seeing Roll of Thunder, Hear My Cry, a book my father gave me, a smile lighting across his face, changed everything for me. Who knows? It might be a reason why I became a novelist.

Kids Finding Diverse Books

That’s the power of kids coming across books that have major and minor characters who resemble them, their parents, siblings, neighbors and friends. More ways that kids are empowered when they read books that have characters and core experiences that mirror theirs include:

  • Supports healthy self-esteem
  • Shows kids what they can do
  • Encourages personal growth
  • Fuels creativity and a desire to continue to develop and advance
  • Impacts a child’s sense of belonging in a good way
  • Makes it easier for kids to connect with what they are reading
  • Enhances learning as kids develop deeper connections with these books’ characters
  • Sends a powerful message that kids from all backgrounds are valued and immeasurably important

A path to getting more diverse books into schools and stores goes through school and retail book buyers. Wholesalers and distributors, including digital distributors, work with independent authors, indie bookstores, libraries, hospitals, schools and major retailers to get books on their shelves.

As parents, educators and caretakers invest in diverse books, wholesalers and distributors work harder to get these powerful books into more retail, school and library outlets. This is when the power of kids can go into effect.

How to Tell Kids Are Benefitting from Diverse Stories

And it should. After all, who better to choose the books they want to read, stories that motivate and inspire them, than kids, the people who are going to sit down and read the books? Once kids feel connected to characters, they might want to read every book in a series.

But what if a child isn’t that talkative, choosing to read more than engage in verbal conversation? There are still ways to tell if a child is getting a lot of positive gain from a book. Among these signs there’s:

  • Parents and caregivers don’t have to encourage kids to read the books
  • Laughter is often heard while young readers are enjoying these stories
  • Kids talk about characters in the stories
  • Acting out fun scenes in middle-school books might become common
  • Should kids have their own cell phones, they can be overheard sharing events written in books with their friends over the phone
  • Children’s confidence rises, allowing them to tap into inner strength and lead projects they had previously shied away from

Connecting Power of Kids Thru Books

The gift of connection aids kids at home, at school and in larger society. Reading books at school that have no to few characters who look like you, speak like you or who are growing up the way you are can send kids the message that they aren’t important enough to be written about, even if only indirectly.

That certainly isn’t the way to acknowledge the power of kids. Admittedly, this is where authors come into play. Increasing sales of children’s and middle school books that have characters from a range of backgrounds encourages more authors to write these types of books.

Furthermore, fueling kids’ reading interest further comes through the chance to meet children’s book authors in person. For instance, schools can schedule author appearances, especially during cultural holidays. Educators can also ask authors to visit schools to close out discussions about a book.

In-Person Meetings with Children and Diverse Book Writers

Several schools are already doing this. These visits are positive for kids in so many ways, including:

  • Allows kids opportunity to get answers to their questions quickly and directly from the books’ authors
  • Shows kids that it’s possible for culturally diverse people to create engaging stories and earn a living doing so
  • Makes reading and writing fun
  • Shifts learning from the page to the classroom
  • Opens children up to different perspectives
  • Builds connectivity among students as they see similarities in their questions, opinions and perceptions

Also, seeing and talking with authors in person makes reading feel “real”. Even adults love to meet their favorite authors face-to-face at book club discussions. These personal interactions bring a spark to fiction.

What Are the Lifelong Rewards

Because reading books offers so many benefits, these interactions can carry lifelong rewards. Help with expanding vocabulary and understanding what has been read are two rewards. Additional rewards are:

  • Stronger empathy which helps kids relate to others
  • Improved writing skills
  • Ability to think through what they hear and read more fully
  • Exercises the brain
  • Inspires creativity
  • Opens kids up to the possibility of working in the arts
  • Enhances ability to communicate with different types of people, a skill that can help kids now and throughout their lives, especially if they step into leadership positions

Diverse Book Offer So Much Good

Whether you are a parent, caregiver, educator or youth worker, you can positively influence children’s lives, particularly middle school readers who might be at a crossroads as it regards deciding to continue or stop reading books for fun. You can power kids up, bringing diverse books that allow them to see people like them doing amazing things.

Look out for books to gift your kids with. Another step you could take is to read kids’ books yourself. See if they grab and hold your attention. If they do, they just might be a hit with your kids. Above all, encourage the kids in your life to appreciate good stories and to read regularly.

Books offer so much. There’s a wealth of information in good books. Make it easy for young readers to access this valuable information. And make it easy for young readers to have fun reading books that spotlight and celebrate characters like them.

Resources:

Importance of reading | Young Readers Foundation

Living Thanksgiving – Appreciate What’s in Front of You

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By Freelance Writer and Books Author Denise Turney

living thanksgiving cup of aromatic cappuccino with thank you words on foam
Living Thanks Cup – Photo by wewe yang on Pexels.com

Living thanksgiving calls for appreciation. It’s an ongoing process that requires present awareness. When you were a kid, you may have practiced present awareness effortlessly. In fact, a sure blessing linked to a happy, loving childhood is the ability to live in the present.

When you feel safe, loved and wanted, you can become fully involved in what you’re experiencing right now. Gone is the temptation to daydream or to pretend that you are someplace else.

Living Thanksgiving in The Present

Even more, a blessed childhood can keep you from looking to the future. Experience a loving childhood and you might not fall into the habit of convincing yourself that good things are always in the future always “out there” somewhere. That by itself can bring more goodness into your life.

After all, as you enjoy living in the present, you can actually experience the happiness that is associated with appreciation. The more physically present the thing you appreciate is, the stronger the happiness you may feel.

Try it. See how you feel when you fantasize or imagine having an experience that you like, but the experience is always in the future. Then, give yourself an experience that you enjoy right now. Look around your environment and count 5 things that you appreciate about the experience that you’re having right now. Which way feels better?

How Daydreaming and Fantasizing Influence Thankfulness

Daydreaming about a future experience that’s always too far ahead of you to enjoy or entering a loving experience and appreciating it right now? Which feels better right now? Fortunately, you could learn to appreciate what’s happening right now even if yours was a troubled childhood.

Furthermore, as it regards a blessed childhood, this doesn’t mean that you never felt sad or angry as a kid. It means that you didn’t experience trauma, especially ongoing trauma when you were a child. Trauma that’s experienced during childhood could make you want to be someplace else. To read more about childhood trauma, check out this article.

Continuously daydreaming, fantasizing and telling yourself that situations are better than they actually are could be signs that you have unresolved trauma. The good news is that you can deal with trauma and get through it, even it doing so requires the help of a licensed and highly experienced professional who you trust.

Associated Benefits of Living Thanksgiving

Whether yours was a trauma-free or stressful childhood, it can take work to start living in the present. When you consider the blessings associated with living in the present, you might be encouraged to try.

woman surrounded by sunflowers
Photo by Andre Furtado on Pexels.com

Living thanksgiving offers rewards. To start, when you are fully present, you notice more. You actually see colors, people, events that you might otherwise miss. Other benefits include:

  • Strengthening your intuition – the more you become aware of what’s happening right now, the more clues you can pick up about what’s coming. You also might start to notice slight shifts in your inner guidance which could allow you to pick up when something feels right or wrong.
  • Enjoy conversations more deeply – being present can help you to hear what people are saying more fully and more clearly. This, in turn, could lead to a deep appreciation for what’s being shared.
  • Dining may become less of an addictive action – live in the present and you might stop and only eat while you’re dining. This could allow you to taste your food and beverages more thoroughly. Keep it up and you might stop eating and/or drinking to feed an emotion or to avoid an emotion or memory. (According to Psychology Today, trauma can cause your brain to replay the traumatic event.)
  • Improved relationships – Hearing and listening to people better can strengthen interpersonal relationships. You also might pick up when someone is disrespecting you and choose to love yourself and ask the person to hold you in respect as you do them.

Exploring More Thankfulness Advantages

There are more advantages connected to living thanksgiving. It could take a while, but you’d eventually see that everything in this world is temporary. That includes traumas that you’ve experienced, if you experienced trauma. The key is to let the trauma go. Again, you might need help from a licensed and experienced professional you trust.

The more you realize how temporary everything is in this world, the more you might pause and enter living thanksgiving as you observe what’s happening in your life and around you. If you’ve ever seen a loved one transition, you know the power of being thankful for what’s happening now.

Delay living thanksgiving and you could encounter regret. For instance, you might not appreciate a person, a pet or an experience until after the person or pet transitions or the experience has ended. Just think about it. How much joy and peace would you allow into your life if you appreciated what was right in front of you?

If you’re in a challenging situation, look for something to appreciate. But don’t stop there. Also, seek a way out of the situation. Definitely gain lessons from the experience. Don’t leave an experience with empty pockets. Always walk away with a lesson, at the minimum.

Surprising Answers

Throughout your journey, focus on appreciating what’s happening now. This means appreciating the people around you now, appreciating a job that you’re in right now and appreciating your dwelling now. To repeat, this doesn’t mean that you don’t seek a better job or dwelling. It means that you find something to be thankful about where you are right now.

Living thanksgiving or appreciating what’s right in front of you can keep you free of a nagging sense that something is always wrong. It can keep you energized and hopeful. Just remember to be honest about what you’re thankful about. For instance, if you don’t like loud music, don’t say that you do. However, if you’re in an area where music is being played loudly, you might be able to appreciate the lyrics.

You might even discover an answer to a question you’ve been mulling in the lyrics. When you practice living thanksgiving, another takeaway is that you could become more aware. It’s no secret that appreciation and awareness are linked. After all, you actually have to practice awareness to spot things to appreciate.

Resources:

  1. 21 Common Reactions to Trauma | Psychology Today

Importance of Imagination in Child Development

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By Freelance Writer and Books Author Denise Turney

mother reading a book to her son at night for imagination in child development
Reading Books to Strengthen Imagination in Child Development – Photo by Mizuno K on Pexels.com

Imagination in child development plays a vital role, influencing a range of outcomes. Even as an adult, you can spot the role ingenuity plays in your life. Coming up with a new way to double your income, design home decorations with dried flowers or implementing a way to build confidence in your children. Each of these developments requires ingenuity.

So Much to Gain – Imagination in Child Development

Take away imagination and with it go creativity, inspiration, innovation and progress. It’s so important that Albert Einstein is quoted as saying, “Logic will get you from A to Z. Imagination will get you everywhere.”

Scholars and scientists have studied imagination in child development for years, some leaders thinking that imagination or creativity are naturally given. In fact, Yale Insights shares that, “The idea of humans as uniquely creative animals goes back at least as far as the ancient Greeks.” Others, like Aristotle, were under the impression that imagination or creativity was a gift from the gods.1

Defining Imagination in Children

But just what is imagination?

Merriam-Webster dictionary says that it is, “the act or power of forming a mental image of something not present to the senses or never before wholly perceived in reality,” From a creative stance, it is defined as the “ability to confront and deal with a problem.”

Above all, the ability to “confront and deal with a problem” is crucial. If children don’t know how to face and deal with challenges in healthy ways, they could experience inner turmoil. For example, they could feel hopeless and a lack of confidence.

How Imagination in Child Development Proves Critical

Without the ability to confront and deal with problems, children could also give up or resort to fighting to try to resolve a conflict. Here are more ways that imagination in child development proves critical:

  • Language development relies on imagination. Also, the more languages children speak, the stronger their creative thinking may be.2
  • Play is a primary way that children develop friendships and learn to make sense of the world. Critical thinking, social development and physical abilities are discovered and developed during play. Additionally, play helps regulate emotions and mental health. If you’ve ever seen a child become happier, more engaged and more energized after healthy playing, you saw firsthand the impact of play on a child’s development.
  • Creative writing, especially fictional writing, needs strong imagination. Develop Good Habits says that “Creative writing strengthens language arts skills and improves children’s grades in all areas of coursework.It helps them understand and develop good grammar habits, sentence structure, vocabulary, and dialogue.”3
  • Emotional functioning is at work when a child relates to others. Active listening, the ability to actually hear and respect what another person is saying and skills to manage their own feelings are parts of emotional functioning.
  • Artistic expression can surface during play or while reading, an activity that encourages the use of imagination.

At first glance, imagination in child development might appear less important than logical and practical skills. However, logical skills like math, biology and geography don’t touch on as many life components as imagination does.

Ways to Strengthen Child’s Imagination

Yet, simply knowing how important imagination is in child development is not enough. You have to find effective ways to encourage children to exercise their imagination or creativity. Here are several actions you could take to encourage your children to strengthen their imagination:

  • Invest time to actually play with your children. Don’t stop when your children start school. Continue to play with your children as they age. Doing so can strengthen your and your children’s imaginations.
  • Bring in art. Let your children have fun creating pictures and splash drawings, getting their hands colorful in washable paint.
  • Ask your children questions, aiming to get them into problem solving mode. Help them learn to use critical thinking and emotional functioning as they ponder your questions and potential answers.
  • In healthy loving ways, motivate your children to “try again” when they encounter failure. For instance, you could ask your children to list or talk about ways that they could approach a challenge or overcome a failure. Make it fun.
  • Encourage independence and free thinking. This means that you don’t demand that your children see life the way that you do. Who knows? Your children might come up with a way to solve a decades-long problem when they grow up.
  • Travel, allowing your children to explore different cultures, physical landscapes and environments.
  • Dance with your children, celebrating their unique moves and rhythm.
  • Allow your children to help you complete daily tasks like cooking. In fact, if you add toys and your children’s favorite songs to a meal preparation, your children might not only love to cook, they might appreciate finding creative ways to decorate food.

Let Your Child’s Creativity Bloom

Perhaps more importantly, let your children see you using your imagination. You can do this by reading books to your children. And you can let your children see you reading books by yourself that you love. Benefits of reading extend beyond imagination.

Reading aids in learning. The more your children read, the quicker they can pick up details. When you consider the wealth of information inside books, reading is a shortcut to a broader and deeper education, the type of learning that last a lifetime.

Pay attention to what blooms from your child’s imagination. You could be the parent or guardian of a gifted artist. That, or your child could be a medical, scientific or technological innovator.

So, curl up with your children and a good book. Make it a regular, special event. If you make reading books fun, your children might start asking you to read to them. It could become a fun, bonding experience that exercises your children’s imagination and yours.

Resources:

  1. What Is Creativity? | Yale Insights
  2. Bilingual Kids Better at Creative Thinking (medicaldaily.com)
  3. 9 Benefits of Creative Writing to Help Your Children (developgoodhabits.com)

How to Prevent Human Trafficking Today

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By Freelance Writer and Books Author Denise Turney

man s hand in shallow focus and grayscale photography plea to prevent human trafficking
Photo by lalesh aldarwish on Pexels.com

You can do more to help prevent human trafficking. Human trafficking is not a third world country problem. It’s also not limited to poor neighborhoods in developed countries. In fact, it could be happening right next door to where you live or a block over from where you live. And this raises a major way to prevent human trafficking.

Modern Slavery Can Happen Anywhere

Recognize that modern slavery can happen anywhere, in every type of neighborhood. Accepting this could help you to spot different forms of trafficking as well as signs that the crime is taking place near you.

As CNN shares, “Slavery can turn up in many forms, and closer to home than you might think.”1 Suburban homes, warehouses, major highways, airports, anywhere people are, there could be modern day slavery.

According to the World Economic Forum, 1 in 4 human labor trafficking victims is a child.2 Forms of trafficking include:

  • Labor (agriculture, manufacturing, retail, construction work, mining, etc.)
  • Forced marriage
  • Military combat
  • Selling counterfeit products
  • Drug smuggling
  • Forced organ donations
  • Prostitution

Listen to Real Life Stories

The number of people impacted by human trafficking is shocking. More than 140 million children have been a victim of this crime, with as many at 48% of child victims forced into labor being between 5 to 11 years old.

When victims speak out about their traumatic experiences with modern slavery, it sheds light on what’s happening right where we all live. Their story sharing exposes a hidden ugly fact about life in the world today.

Removing the cover is one of the best ways to face and deal with what is happening, is a start to doing what it takes to prevent human trafficking. If you want to help prevent human trafficking, consider listening to real life stories of victims.

How to Prevent Human Trafficking

You could also volunteer with an organization that supports people who have escaped modern day slavery. Becoming aware of signs of trafficking is another forward step. However, as you familiarize yourself with some of the signs, stay aware that trafficking could be occurring with a mile or less of where you live.

There is no certain type of person who is a victim, just as there is no certain type of person who commits this horrific crime. Therefore, should you spot a sign, do something. For example, you could call the National Human Trafficking Hotline (888-373-7888). Or you could call 911 (or your country’s emergency response number), Interpol, the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children (800-843-5678).

Look for These Signs

Although this list is not all inclusive, it reveals some indicators of forced work, be that work physical or sexual labor. Signs that modern day slavery is occurring include:

  • Withdrawal from family and friends
  • Missing school frequently or no longer attending school at all
  • Abrupt or significant change in behavior
  • Spike in fearfulness in a person
  • Not seeing someone for days, weeks or longer who you normally saw regularly
  • One or more people constantly with the person, as if ensuring that the person does not get free
  • Discomfort while speaking, as if they are repeating what someone is telling them to say
  • Dresses differently
  • Malnourished
  • Unexplainable change in living situation (i.e., lives in a filthy environment or a luxury environment)
  • Bruises and other injuries

More Specific Ways to Prevent Human Trafficking

Here are ways you could help prevent human trafficking or stop it from continuing. Raising awareness at your place of worship, school, on social media, etc. is one prevention step. Other steps include:

  • Watch your child’s online activity, as perpetrators solicit potential victims online.
  • Encourage companies to ensure they work to prevent human trafficking, not get involved in it by having products and/or services created by people forced into slave labor.
  • Call for help for someone you suspect of being trafficked. Do it in a safe way.
  • Shop responsibly, buying products or services, from organizations that deal in fair trade or work to stop forced labor.3
  • Mentor youth thru reliable, ethical organizations.
  • Spend quality time with the young people in your life. Perpetrators often target the emotionally vulnerable.
  • Write your government officials, letting them know that doing what it takes to prevent human trafficking is a priority to you.

Thank You

Should you meet a victim or a survivor, be an advocate. Above all, do something. For instance, you might cross paths with one or more victims while at lunch, shopping or while on vacation.

Sure. Getting involved, will change your life, even if only briefly. But your involvement could save someone’s life. It could be as simple as making a telephone call to 911, the FBI or the National Human Trafficking Hotline (888-373-7888). What you do could help someone heal from this awful adult and childhood trauma.

Clarissa Maxwell, in Escaping Toward Freedom, has to make this choice while she’s on vacation. The choice she makes cost her, but it’s worth it. Lives are changed, however hard the road. Hopefully, what happens in Escaping Toward Freedom sheds more light on the global trauma, encouraging people to take smart actions.

Thank you for what you do to prevent human trafficking.

Resources:

  1. A former child slave speaks: How to stop modern slavery | CNN
  2. How to stop modern slavery | World Economic Forum (weforum.org)
  3. Home – Fair Trade Certified

Danger of Keeping Small Town Secrets Across Generations

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By Freelance Writer and Books Author Denise Turney

empty concrete alleyway in small town
Passageway in Small Town – Photo by Simon Blyberg on Pexels.com

Small town secrets grow like uncontrollable weeds. Their sting is as painful as gossip, yet worse. Unlike gossip, these secrets have a deep, dangerous root. Sexual crimes committed by a star athlete, the whereabouts of a missing person and the deception that a woman is a child’s aunt when she’s actually the child’s mother – those are but a few misplaced confidences with lasting impact.

Small Towns with Old Histories

Other real life skeletons people living in small towns, especially towns with old histories, work hard to keep hidden have affected hundreds of children and adults. Danger associated with these mysteries is what drives people to keep them hidden. If you grew up in a small town that’s known for keeping events in the dark, a few of these mysteries might sound familiar:

  • College hazing that went too far, causing the death of a student, but no one going to trial because the death was ruled an accident and the crime was never properly investigated
  • Neighbor installing hidden camera in a home then using taped information to blackmail the homeowner for acts as simple as showering, relieving themselves and making out with a town schoolteacher
  • Corruption that stems back two or more generations, putting dishonest law enforcement and other government officials in place to keep the corruption going
  • Drugs taking over an entire town, destroying families and businesses while community leaders do nothing to stop the drug infiltration because they’re receiving kickbacks from dealers
  • A handful of business owners meeting and deciding which new businesses will open in the town, cooking up reasons to disallow the strongest competitors from setting up shop
  • Two married people have a lengthy affair, creating a child from the relationship, only to lie to the child about his real parents, not once telling their son their biological connection to him. People who know about the affair and who the child’s real parents are, never tell the child, not even after the child reaches adulthood.

Shocking Small Town Secrets

It’s these types of secrets that get the wrong men and women arrested, that leave children with more questions than answers and that prevent real growth from happening to the town. Believe it or not, some small town secrets are more outlandish and traumatic than those unearthed in large cities.

The real shocker is that small towns with big secrets can look “perfect” from the outside. Everybody knows everybody. Instead of passing one another on the sidewalk without speaking while out shopping, townsfolk stop, wave and chat with each other awhile.

If you didn’t know better, the entire town would look and feel like one big, happy family. Stay in the place long enough and you start to notice relationships and events that are off, that just don’t feel right. You spot a prominent business owner entering a hotel at the edge of town with a minister’s wife only to tell his own wife that he and the minister’s wife are mapping out the details of the summer’s vacation Bible school.

Everyone Knows What You Keep Lying About

Everyone in town knows the businessman rarely goes to church, but no one questions the lie. The chance to live in a place where wrong, particularly seemingly unforgiveable wrongs, don’t occur seems like sufficient motivation to lie, deny the facts and support tragic secrets.

At their worse, small town secrets can conceal a murder. Destroyed evidence, bribes paid to a coroner and a judge and threats made to those seeking the truth, can do more than hide facts. Acts like these can ensure that the wrong man goes to prison.

But why do people tell lies or keep secrets, especially dangerous hidden facts? Desire to mask their own indiscretions is a primary reason. Fear of retaliation from powerful people is another.

Together these two can create a web that’s hard to get untangled from. Greasy Plank in Memphis, Tennessee is a town of secrets, dark mysteries. Religion won’t save Greasy Plank residents.

Break Free

If you grew up keeping secrets, it might be time to break free. Doing so can release positive energy, allowing you to start and finish work you’ve wanted to do for years, but never seemed to find the strength to get to.

Here are more rewards associated with letting small town secrets go, float away like rocks moving down river:

  • Restored relationships with people wrongly suspected of crimes
  • Freedom from unforgiveness
  • Independence from resentment and suspicion
  • Healing from trauma
  • Innocent children and adults regaining their honor

And most of all, wrongs finally made right. Oh, and another advantage. You can sleep at night, your mind lighter from no longer having to carry heavy secrets. Tammy Tilson in Spiral fights for these rewards, for herself and her family, but she has a lot to lose if she tells what she knows.

Her choice to keep small town secrets has a very high price. Yet, that’s the way it goes when you try to hide the truth. Should you be keeping secrets, especially from yourself, consider the weight you’re carrying. See if you can find a way into the light of the truth. You might be able to do it in a way that frees up more people than you know without causing more trauma, more harm.

Resources:

  1. Small Town Secrets – NBC Boston