The best children's book ever written (***In my humble opinion)

I simply love the topic this month: Share you favorite children's book.
Honestly, this was the fastest blog piece I've ever penned.

On my own blog, Writing in my Oxygen, I've talked numerous times over the years about my number one book for children, the one I always give as a gift to expectant mothers, or when I've been invited to toddler birthday parties.

That book is THE LITTLE ENGINE THAT COULD, written by Watty Piper and illustrated by Dan Santat.

Now, I'm going to be honest and tell you I didn't read this book as a child. In fact, I'd never heard of it until my own daughter was born, 30 years ago. The book was given to me as part of a baby shower gift and when I read it after every one had gone home, I fell absolutely, head to toes in love with the message within its pages.

Self motivation and self actualization flow from this story so effortlessly, that even as an adult I was rooting for that little engine to get up over the mountain. The theme of the book - believing in yourself - is such a wonderful, universal theme that even today in various aspects of my life I find myself thinking you can do it at times when I am questioning myself.

That little engine told himself time and time again, around every twisty curve, up every steep hill,  I think I can. The phrase is repeated so many times in the book THAT should be the title! I THINK I CAN.

The best part of the tale - for me - is the ending where the engine, having gone over the punishing mountain, around all the dangerous, twists and turns, and has reached his final destination declares, I knew I could.

As adults, how many times have we felt that we couldn't go on? Complete a task? Even make it through another day of seemingly insurmountable problems? In this day and age and with so many things coming up on a daily basis that require our time, focus, and energy, there are moments when we all feel that we just can't go on. We can't take on one more project, tackle one more dilemma, deal with one more emotional issue. It just gets to be...too much.

The message of The Little Engine that Could is to just believe that you can do anything you set your mind to if you, in fact, believe you can do it.

For me, personally, I would never have tackled a brand new writing career at the age of 55 if I didn't have some of that little engine's gumption in the back of my mind. I thought I could write something people would read. I thought I could get what I wrote published. I knew I'd made my dream come true when my very first publisher bought my book.

Self actualization and belief in yourself are things we should teach our children from the get-go in life. That's why I now give this book at every baby shower I attend, and at most children's birthday parties I'm honored to be invited to.

Believe in yourself...as Martha Stewart says, "It's a good thing."

My newest book, a fairy tale redux of Sleeping Beauty, titled WOKE, releases on 7.1.2020. In my version, Aurora doesn't wait for love's true kiss to awaken her...

Waking up each day is a gift….

On her 21st birthday, someone slipped a potent drug combination into socialite Aurora Brightwell’s champagne putting her in a coma for the next ten years. It’s been a long road back, and it’s time to reclaim the life she lost and find out exactly what happened on that fateful night.

Financier Kincade Enright has his own reason for helping Aurora discover who poisoned her, but for the time being he’s keeping that - and his true identity - to himself. What he can’t keep hidden though, are his growing feelings for the one-time paparazzi darling and party-girl.

When this prince of finance joins forces with the former sleeping beauty, nothing can stop them from finding the answers they seek…or prevent the powerful emotions developing between them as they search for the truth.

Peggy Jaeger writes contemporary romances and rom coms about strong women, the families who support them, and the men who can’t live without them.

Family and food play huge roles in Peggy’s stories because she believes there is nothing that holds a family structure together like sharing a meal…or two…or ten. Dotted with humor and characters that are as real as they are loving, Peggy brings all aspects of life into her stories: life, death, sibling rivalry, illness, and the desire for everyone to find their own happily ever after. Growing up the only child of divorced parents she longed for sisters, brothers and a family that vowed to stick together no matter what came their way. Through her books, she has created the families she wanted as that lonely child.

As a lifelong diarist, she caught the blogging bug early on, and you can visit her at peggyjaeger.com where she blogs daily about life, writing, and stuff that makes her go "What??!"

You can connect with Peggy here: : Tweet Me//Read Me// Visit Me//Picture Me//Pin Me//Friend Me// Triber// Book Me

A Great Holiday Read by Lynn Lovegreen

It’s the time of year when people are looking for holiday romances. My friend Mercy Zephyr has written a sweet contemporary transgender romance that I really enjoyed reading. Here’s my interview with Mercy:

How did you come to write this book?

This is the first book I wrote. It was coming up on the holidays, and I felt left out of the festivities; transgender women don't exactly get written into Hallmark specials. Every Thanksgiving, there's a Thanksgiving dinner me and my husband go to for all the people in the community whose family have rejected them, so that feeling is there; Plus, a lot of us feel like we're not going to find love, and I touch on that in the book, but it's important to have hope, so I wanted to give some of that hope away to people who needed it. Not only that, but a lot of cisgender people who read it found it to be a great read and learned a lot, too.

I agree, I had fun reading it and learned a lot myself! I know you published this book, and some of our readers are interested in that process. How did that happen for you?

The story popped into my head, and I wrote it out, self-edited it, studied how to create a cover and designed it myself, then set up my web presence and published it late on Christmas Eve last year. That's a pretty terrible time to publish a Christmas story, since nobody will really notice it until after Christmas, but it took longer than I thought it would at first.

These things always do! What are your plans for future novels?

Unveiling Ms. Claus has a bit of tasteful heat in it, since so much of the book is about Amber's relationship with herself and her own body, and she just couldn't show that without taking her bits out for a spin.

Since then, I've moved to writing low heat. I've seen queer authors be stigmatized for the intensively sexualized content in their books, even when they are writing in ways that are really very tame. An M/F story with very mild sex in it, nothing graphic at all, is totally acceptable. Change the couple to two women or another LGBTQIA identity and without a single word changing, people start treating it as high heat or erotica. My next books don't even have a sex scene to be misinterpreted like that. 

I might write some more holiday pieces in the future as I get more comfortable with my production schedules, but right now, I'm working on three more books; one of them should be on Amazon by November 15th or so, give or take. That's Transpire Together, a sweet small town second chance in the shadow of the 2018 bathroom bill fight, with a trans man and a cis woman. The next one... February, I think. Also small town, friends to lovers, with a twist on a fake relationship. It is going to bring in Alaska Native representation and asexual spectrum topics, and it's a lesbian story. I want to mix things up there. 

Unveiling Ms. Claus

Doctors cannot be in relationships with their patients. Who knew how much that would hurt?

Rejected by her parents as an adult, Amber Claus is starting life anew from nothing, as a woman. When she meets a man who feels like he could be The One, things feel hopeful...until she meets him as the doctor helping her to transition. And doctors can't date patients.

But she won't need help forever, and she's earned some Christmas cheer…

Mercy Zephyr (she/her) was born and raised in the Mat-Su Valley, where her and her husband of eleven years live today. Together, they enjoy bicycling, spending time with her supportive parents, and spoiling their grandchild and each other. She is an asexual transgender woman of Athabaskan descent who transitioned alongside her husband. She writes sweet, optimistic #ownvoices romance with a spoonful of humor and a dash of grit, centering transgender and sometimes asexual characters. 

Website and Newsletter: http://www.mercyzephyr.com

Twitter: http://twitter.com/MercyZephyr)

https://books2read.com/ap/nzgEKJ/Mercy-Zephyr

Lynn Lovegreen grew up in Alaska, and still lives there. Her young adult historical romances are set in the Alaska Gold Rush, a great time for drama, romance, and independent characters. See her website at www.lynnlovegreen.com.

"Let It Snow"

by Diana McCollum

This year for November Romancing the Genres are reviewing Christmas books. I chose “Let It Snow”, by Nancy Thayer. I had never read anything by Nancy Thayer, so she was a new author for me.

It’s a sweet Christmas story which takes place on Nantucket Island. The heroine Christina Antonioni is a gift shop owner in one of the ‘sheds’ on the wharf. The other shop owners are her friends and they are an eclectic bunch.

Christina befriends a ten year old girl who had tried to shoplift from her store. She hires the young girl and becomes her friend. Wink, the young girl, helps with unpacking the Christmas shipments and decorating the store. 

Wink lives with her Grandfather while her mother is going through a divorce on the mainland. Turns out the wealthy Grandfather, Mr. Bittlesman, is the new landlord to the shops on the wharf. Mr. Bittlesman is a Scrooge, and plans on raising the rents the first of the year. This would put all the shop owners out of business.

Wink introduces Christina to her Uncle Andy who has recently moved to the island. With the  help of Wink’s Uncle who is not only a handsome, but charming bachelor, Christina feels this will be the best Christmas ever. The only hitch to their budding romance is Andy’s father Mr. Bittlesman. 

Christina hosts a tree decoration party for her friends. Her parents passed and she doesn’t have any brothers or sisters. Her shop and her friends and Nantucket are the most important things in her life.

Mimi, Jacob and Harriet, the other shop owners, along with Christina try various ways to soften up Mr. Bittlesman to no avail. Finally, they dress in Victorian clothes and go Christmas caroling at Mr. Bittleman’s mansion. Unbeknownst to them, his wife who had passed was a wonderful soprano singer. This touched his heart and he sends a Christmas letter to the shop owners reducing their rent by twenty-percent!

This story gives the reader a real feel for living on Nantucket Island, especially during the winter and holidays.

Andy is such a kind and considerate boyfriend. He gets the shop owners together with his own family to have a surprise Christmas Eve party for Christina at her house.  He doesn’t want her first Christmas Eve without her mom or aunt to be spent alone. This was a very touching scene. 

 

She is invited to Christmas dinner the next day at Mr. Bittlesman’s house with Andy, Wink and the rest of the family.

Andy and Christina’s relationship develops over the first couple weeks leading up to Christmas Day. A sweet slow romance, with of course, a happily ever after! 

The themes of friendship, love, family and self-discovery in “Let It Snow”, keeps the plot moving and insures it is a holiday story to remember.

My Christmas I remember fondly is when my family lived on Guam. We got to go swimming in the ocean which was amazing.

The other Christmas was when I was first married and lived in MI across the street from a family with seven children. 3 foot of snow and no one could get to town to see Santa. I dressed in my Husband's red hunting suit, pillow stuffed inside, black boots and red hat, makeshift white beard, and I was Santa for a night! The wonder on their little faces made me feel so good. I had fun!

Will you share a Christmas memory with us?