Pam Scheunemann

I thought this book was cute and informative. The book's plot is around creating a float for a Mardi Gras parade. Throughout the book, Frenchy, the pelican visits different cities in Louisiana to get ideas and parts for her float. She visits Lafayette for the base, Alexandria for some good Cajun cooking, Natchitoches for a model of a plantation, and the Tenses River National Wildlife Refuge for some good ole jazz music. They saw riverboats on the Mississippi River and finally won best float in the parade. Throughout the book, the margins had fun facts about Louisiana like the state dog, amphibian, bird, and tree. It also listed facts about when the city was founded and defined some words like crawfish and cajun culture. It was more like a fact book written in the form of a story. It would be great for kids because there were maps and cute illustrations and a "Louisiana at a Glance" page that would be great for writing reports.… (mehr)

All I can say is, out of the three I checked out from the library, this was the best. It had the most crafts, the most that I might actually choose to do, and the brightest, clearest format. Still not saying much. I want easy crafts that will actually make useful things that I don't already know how to make, that use things that would likely be thrown away (this, for example, takes perfectly nice things like a vase and a keepsake box, and decorates them). I know, that's asking a lot. We'll see what I find when I check out adult versions of these books.… (mehr)

Tolerance should have been renamed acceptance. This book defines tolerance over and over again by stating that it is accepting others. Although people often use the two words interchangeably, tolerance is not acceptance. When someone simply tolerates someone else's beliefs, that does not mean that they agree with them. You can tolerate someone without accepting their beliefs, but you can't accept something without tolerating it. For example, someone might tolerate that a man or woman practices polygamy, but they do not accept it as being okay.
Besides this mix up between definitions, the book does send a good message to young readers. We should always accept others for who they are. If our society would follow through with this, we would live in a much better place today.… (mehr)