Olive and the Big Secret by Tor Freeman


Olive and the Big Secret by Tor Freeman
Publisher: Templar
Genre: Childrens (3+ yrs), Contemporary
Rating: 4 Stars
Reviewed by Nymphaea

Olive learns the hard way that keeping secrets is tough, and telling them can make for a whole lot of trouble!

When Molly shares a secret with Olive, the urge to tell is just too great! Olive tells Joe who tells Matt who tells Lola. But Lola is best friends with Molly. Uh-oh, the secret is out, and Olive is in for it!

Secrets can be a bit load of trouble.

I’m not great at keeping secrets. At Christmas, I want to blurt out what everyone is getting because I just can’t keep the secret in. Olive is much the same way. She has something big she knows and needs to tell someone. Unfortunately, secrets have a way of not staying secret for long.

I liked this book because of the lessons it showed. Sometimes secrets are good things to keep under wraps. It’s not your place to tell and someone might get hurt. It also showed the way friendships can be frayed because a secret was shared. This book moved along well and kept my attention easily. I liked the illustrations and the way the story was told without being mean.

If you’re looking for a cute book to read with children that deals with secrets, then this might be the book for you. Check it out!

My Dawg Koa by Kelly Brakenhoff


My Dawg Koa by Kelly Brakenhoff
Duke the Deaf Dog ASL Series, #3
Publisher: Emerald Prairie Press
Genre: Children’s (0 – 6 y.o.), Contemporary
Rating: 4 Stars
Reviewed by Astilbe

Deaf friends Duke and Koa are the same, but they are also different.

Duke the Deaf Dog learns about similarities and differences between friends and families. A fun, engaging way to teach children that best friends share common interests. Their houses may look different, and their parents may have different rules and expectations, but Duke finds one thing families share no matter what: LOVE.

Kindness is the key to everything.

Duke and Koa’s friendship made me smile. Both of them were used to how their parents ran things and were occasionally surprised by the different types of rules that exist in other households. It made me smile to see how they adjusted to these moments and how their habits rubbed off on each other. They were both wonderful friends to each other, too. What could be better than that?

I did find myself wishing the narrator had spent a little more time developing the plot. Yes, it was important to explain how someone who is deaf knows when someone is knocking at the door or wakes up at a specific time in the morning, but I thought it was just as important to give a few more examples of how Duke and Koa evolved as a result of their friendship. Had this happened, I would have happily gone for a full five-star rating.

Some of my favorite scenes were the ones that showed how Duke and Koa’s families had adjusted their homes to be more accommodating of the deaf folks – or dogs! – who lived there. I live with someone who is hard of hearing, and we’ve used some of these accommodations in our home! Different solutions are sometimes necessary for people who are completely deaf versus those who can hear certain sounds but not other ones, so it was nice to see such a wide range of options here. I’d happily recommend it to everyone I know who has hearing loss or who loves someone who does.

This is part of a series, but it can be read as a standalone work.

My Dawg Koa was a heartwarming slice of life.