Lila Danisa

February is Black History Month and I stumbled upon an Instagram post recommending Best Children's Books to Celebrate Black History Month ( https://www.instagram.com/p/DUVdF4clHAW/?igsh=MXByaHo3cjFrcHpxYQ== ). For me, that post was perfect since I want to read more about Black History. Both for me and for my son. Children's Books, so far, are the best medium for my son (and me!) to learn something new, that's why I choose Children's Books to Celebrate Black History Month.

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"... nobody can ever cuff your beautiful and brilliant mind."

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I found the Read Aloud video on YouTube ( https://youtu.be/OzBI0iYdoGA?feature=shared ). Tausha, the channel handles, read the book beautifully. My son and I loved her voice so much. It was clear and comforting. By the end of the reading, she delivered the value(s) of the story. My son and I enjoyed it so much.

The storyline of the book was really good. It reminded the readers that we could be anything we think of. We need to stand up for ourselves and be strong like people before us.

The used of "flying" as metaphor of doing what we want was really good. My son almost quickly caught the hidden messages of flying in the story. Flying as to using your imagination to explore more.

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"... remember somebody somewhere at some point had to figure out they could fly."

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This book was also mentioned a little bit of racism as the product of ignorant. This part of the book, my son was sad for the characters in the book and said to me that he would never do that. I am so proud of him. However, the ending was beautiful and inspiring.

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"... somebody somewhere at some point had to figure out they were ready for any new thing coming their way."

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What a beautiful book! I am so glad I stumbled upon the Instagram post recommending this book and Tausha's YouTube channel reading this book as beautiful.

Still entertaining me how fresh the idea of learning about animals by identifying their butts. My son was laughing so hard when I read the title of this book for the first time. The cover of the book is also funny with the fart cartoon 🤣

This book has simple explanations and fun facts for each animals and their butts 🤣🤣🤣 The words used in this book were simple and easily understand. The photographs of the animals supported the fun facts about the animals.

What my son (and me) loved the most about this book was there is one animal we never heard before, Okapi. It's so unique and we were very glad that this book introduced us to it. We watched so many videos about Okapi afterwards and until now my son is still obsessed with it.

Thank you to Christianne Jones, Capstone, Pebble, and NetGalley for the ARC.

That was so good!!!

I went blind reading this book. I didn't read the blurb, the tropes, and anything. I was kinda skeptical on how the story would be since there was no way you accidentally married, especially to your professor. And the author smashed my skepticalism so hard I was stunned by the story. Mind blowing 🤯🤯🤯

The story was magical and so sweet! I loved the storyline so much. Being only 78 pages with solid storyline, this book was perfect for me. The chemistry between Norah, the heroine, and Rowan, the hero, was delicious delivered. Mutual pining with forgivable miscommunication (?)

I ate this book up in one sitting. 100% satisfied with this book.

Thank you to Alyson Archer for the ARC.

I knew a little to nothing about US-Mexico relationship in terms of migrations. What I knew mostly came from movies, news, and back when I was in school. I barely knew the surface of it. This book brought my curiosity back and sparked my own research about this border matters.

To be honest, I only liked the half of this book, which the author explicitly told the story of what happened in the US-Mexico borders. The other half I didn't fully interest was when the author talked in deep about the organization. I have no doubt that organization cause something really good for the immigrants. But when I picked up this book, I expected I would get full closure on what's the hope on the border about. Yet, I still enjoyed reading this book. Enlightened me in heartbroken yet thought-provoking subjects. Especially now since the Trump's ICE is going crazy.

Thank you to Gil Gillenwater, Guardian Warrior Foundation, University of Pemakö Press, and NetGalley for the ARC.

4,5 stars rounded-up to 5 stars because of the found-family trope went so strong in this book. I am a sucker for good found-family trope, so I didn't hesitate for a bit to give this book a round up for its well delivered found-family story.

So freaking sweet!!! I couldn't describe more other than this book was so freaking sweet. I loved the slowburnish relationship between Mac and Jane. They might have an instalove, but they treated their relationship slowly-ish. Understandable, since Jane jut got out from a-hell-of bad relationship.

I loved that the motorcycle club was not the center of the story but it was still centered in it. The members of the MC were so funny and I will definitely read the two previous books in this series. Easy to say, I already invested in this story. The next book is Tank's book and I can't wait. The author also mentioned a potential couple and I hope I am right. I could already get the angst(?) from that potential couple.

Though this book is 300+ pages, I could easily read it in one sitting if I didn't need to mothering/wife-ing. The story was light but still discussing heavy matters, so please check the triggers warning beforehand.

There were some parts that feel repetitive and cringey, but I didn't mind at all. Those repetitive-ness were necessary for the story and characters' growth and I loved an acceptable amount of cringe this book offered.

Overall, I loved this book and can't wait to be back to Pensacola.

Thank you to Cala Riley and Hambright PR for the ARC.

Actual rating: 3,5 stars.

Let see what I need to get out of my chess first. The premises of this book were really good and intrigued me so much. Feeling for stepfather definitely a taboo theme. Adding huge age gap (I assumed) since the FMC was only 18, another point plus in taboo side of the story. But this book missed all those details, I didn't know how old Owen (the MMC) was. Either I didn't catch it or I just entirely skip the part where Owen told his age. Owen and Mei (the heroine) chemistry was also not good at all. For me, they didn't even have any sizzling lust. They just suddenly kissed and had sex and loved each other. I normally fine with instalove, but in this book, the instalove was not well delivered. The plot twists were also weird. So messy and chaotic. The ending was also anticlimactic. What I disappointed a lot was there was no explanations on how Owen's three kids (which almost the same age with Mei) reacted on Mei being Owen's partner. Like I said, the story was so freaking messy. I understand that this is novella and the author might want to keep everything light, but this book left me unsatisfied with almost everything.

Thank you to K. Webster and Chaotic Creatives for the ARC.

I love cats, though I am not in the place to have one as a pet yet. To read a book about how people loved their cats and made masterpiece paintings based on cats they loved so much was a quite entertaining. The hidden messages between their paintings and the choice of cats on the paintings were amusing to read.

This book offered eye pleasing cat paintings with deep meaning behind them. I discovered so many different style of paintings yet every each one of them had the same concept to connect which was the cat as the center of the story.

Thank you to Susie Hodge, Gemini Books Group, Gemini Gift Books Limited, and NetGalley for the ARC.

I knew nothing about groundhog, but this book solved it. Now I think I know little bit about this woodchunk. My son loves all kind of animals and being his mother, it brings me to the point of I need to learn about all kind of animals too. One of the best parts in motherhood is that I always learn something new every single day. Now is the time to learn about groundhog. Previously, we (my son and I) read a book about Margot The Groundhog, who was preparing for her hibernation, which also came from the same author of this book. Reading this book and learning more about groundhog, made the story of Margot really make sense.

Thought we currently live in Indonesia and there is no groundhog here, it was really good to learn something new. My son's aunts live in Canada and they already promised my son to take videos and pictures when they see groundhog(s). See, reading this book opened up a new conversation (and bounding) between my son and his aunts. For me, it's another win.

Thank you to Lieve Snellings, BooksGoSocial, and NetGalley for the ARC.

That was weirdly funny. Before the context explained, it was definitely not my jam since it was kinda like grapes. But it turned out to be CNC or whatever it was being called.

The plot twist was also weirdly work well. It didn’t make sense but somehow it worked with the story.

With only 70 pages, I think this novella covered everything good enough. And it was entertaining to read. Short, light, and weirdly good.

Our (me and my son) first book of real pictures of animals but with them talking. Book like this usually use illustrations but this book uses real photographs of rodents, birds, and other animals. There are brackets of their conversations. It was actually so creative but some of the editing photos were tacky. Though since this is my son's book and he enjoyed it so much, it was what matter the most.

The story was also refreshing. Margot, the groundhog, was about to sleep for the winter. But she was sad because she might miss her friends. So she and her friends were thinking together on how to make Margot not sad again and she could sleep peacefully that winter.

The friendship and helping each other, I think, were the main messages of this book. Fortunately my son could easily grasp those messages.

I think this book would be on our reread shelf for quit sometimes since the idea of using real photographs of the animals was still so refreshing for us.

Thank you to Lieve Snellings, BooksGoSocial, and NetGalley for the ARC.

I got this book for my son, but along the way, this book is also for me. I am not the type of person who read self-help books, but I got hooked with children self-help books. It easily to understand and so simple to follow.

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"Engaged parents, guardians, and other caregivers, such as teachers and therapists, have the strongest impact on molding the minds and actions of young people."

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This book easily explained about how to be kind. The examples of situations the young people might find in daily life helped so much to understand and how to implement the motivations to actions.

My son loved the illustrations so much. The little bee with beautiful flowers. He was eager to follow the little bee while I read and explained the book to him.

Encouraged by this book, we tried to be kind, even in the simplest ways possible, every single days. I still need to reread this book to my son so he could fully understand and implement this book in his life.

Thank you to Kristie Zoller, Future Horizons, and NetGalley for the ARC.

To be honest, I got this book for me, not for my son. Recently I discovered many golf-romance books and I wanted to learn the basic of the sport. That's why I downloaded this book through NetGalley. Yet, after finished reading this book, I still clueless about golf. This book didn't help me at all.

Same like other books in this series, 100 First Words for Little Ones, this book only contained pictures/illustrations of the words related to golf. There is no explanation followed up. The pictures/illustrations were also not helping to understand the meaning of the words. I understand that this is board books but I wish there were simple explanations about the words.

My son ended up reading this book with me and we watched the video of people playing golf. Since he has toys golf set, he could name them partly because of this book and mostly because the video we watched.

Thank you to Adina Oberman, Familius, and NetGalley for the ARC.

What a creative and refreshing idea to use sink as motivational aprroachment!

Start with leave the sink better for the next person using it then we can apply the sink concept to other aspects in our life.

The words used in this book were easy enough to understand even for my 5 years old son. He also could grasp the messages behind the analogy of sink.

Though he understood the story and the messages, for him to implement them is another story. I need to keep encourage him more and remind him everyday about it.

Thank you to Daren Martin, Walter Nusbaum, Carpenter's Son Publishing, Clovercroft Publishing, and NetGalley for the ARC.

Turning phenomenal speech into poem following with esthetic illustrations is a refreshing idea 🤌🏻👌🏻

For me, I could easily understand more about the main messages of Dr. King's speech. It also motivated me effortlessly.

I also ended up reading this book to my son. I introduced him to Dr. King and why he is so phenomenal. I simplify the words using in this book to words my son could understand. We watched video of the original speech Dr. King delivered. My son might not understand it (and this book) fully, but at least he could get the motivational vibes and it might stick with him. I definitely would continue reading this book to my son as his way of thinking growth more.

Thank you to Alice Faye Duncan, Astra Publishing House, Calkins Creek, and NetGalley for the ARC.

Cute story!

I read it for my son on Christmas time. Though we don't celebrate Christmas, my son is very familiar with it because of his videos and western cultures (?) since his daddy and family are from there.

My son liked the story. He said it was cute that Hendrix wanted a job and busy on Christmas. He said if he were Hendrix, he wouldn't want have a job and he would gonna have fun on Christmas. And that was the time I tried to tell him the messages of the book, which I assumed one of them was the importance of knowing your role in daily life. If my son choose to be the one to have fun, that's also the role. And no matter what role he chooses, it would always be important because he knows what his worth.

The illustrations were also good. Colorful and full of details especially in each character's expressions.

Thank you to Kristin Haynes, BooksGoSocial, and NetGalley for the ARC.