Do you know Veruca Salt? She’s the spoiled, impatient young girl from Roald Dahl’s children’s book Charlie and the Chocolate Factory, which was made into the classic Willy Wonka movie. Veruca is terribly demanding: “Hey, Mummy! . . . I’ve decided I want a squirrel. Get me one of those squirrels!” In the movie, she
Jimmy Fallon’s new song is helping Americans tune in to the importance of fighting viruses: “Wash your hands, wash your hands, do not touch your face.” He strums his guitar, crooning that if we follow these guidelines, “Then the world would be a better place.” He wrote the song for his young daughters and shared
Q. What keeps you up at night? A. Reading much, much too late! Q. What is your proudest career moment? A. In 2005 I won the Henry Bergh Award, which honors books that recognize the need to treat animals with kindness and caring (for my book Tails Are Not for Pulling). I got to stand
When you read to your baby, you’re not just bonding, you’re promoting language and social skills. It’s never too early to start a positive lifetime habit. “In the first few weeks with my newborn at home, whatever I was reading, I would read aloud to my baby—novels, magazine articles, even emails. As she got older,
Hurray, it’s the holiday season! Uh-oh, it’s also cold and flu season. Parties, travel, and gatherings are all part of holiday fun, but time spent with others during cold and flu season means that you and your children are more likely to get sick. What are you supposed to do—hide out and avoid the crowds?
By Elizabeth Verdick and Marieka Heinlen, author and illustrator of the Best Behavior® series Storytelling is at the heart of being human—and it starts at birth. We share stories as we talk to our babies, sing to them, and read to them. They grow rich in stories, and once children are verbal, they are eager
When I picture myself as a kid, I think of my bedroom in our split-level West Virginia house, a room I loved but had to leave behind at age eleven when my family moved to Maryland. For years, that room was my own little world, my book nook, my place to cuddle my cat Rag,
Experts say kids are more stressed today than ever before. That’s no surprise. We see the fast-paced, competitive, tech-savvy world they’re growing up in. We’ve heard the stories about kids getting bullied, struggling academically, being exposed to violence at home or school, dealing with economic uncertainty, and worrying about the environment or conflicts in their
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