BRAVE Books stands for Bringing Real American Values That Endure. They are perfect for boys because they are primarily visual learners and would love these illustrations. These picture books keep children entertained and excited about the stories they are reading. They all include some sort of conflict that is resolved by the end and the themes are all relatable. BRAVE Books have animals as the main characters in their stories and, outside of their books series’, there are different individual books that instill important messages. These characters include:
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A gorilla
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A fox
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A cheetah
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A tiger
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A elephant
The topics covered in these stories give children a good understanding of what’s important to focus on, even at a young age. It is never too early to have meaningful conversations with your children and reading BRAVE Books can be the start of them. Reading these stories aloud to your children along with the activities and questions at the end is great family bonding time. You get to learn more about your children and what they enjoy most about storytime.
First, Elephants Are Not Birds will make you forget all about Dr. Seuss. It is a fun story to read with your boys because all of the lines rhyme. This story discusses identity and truth. It tells of an elephant named Kevin in a town called Toke-a-Toke. He and other elephants would pull carts all over town delivering supplies every day around noon, but Kevin loved singing and preferred that instead. A vulture named Culture heard him singing and asked him why he was carrying carts all around. He complimented Kevin’s singing and said that he must be a bird. Kevin thought he was silly but Culture persisted. He convinced Kevin that he is a bird since he likes to sing so much and handed him a beak and wings to wear. Once he put on the beak and wings, he tried doing different things that birds did:
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Eating seeds
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Building a nest
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Flying
Overall, being a bird was a struggle for Kevin. Eating seeds didn’t work out for him because his beak wouldn’t grip and building a nest didn’t work out because his twigs wouldn’t stay together. Flying was what he was going to test to see if he really was a bird. He started climbing a pine tree, the Big White Pine, that sits at the top of a hill. Everyone was worried and did not know what he was doing.
As he was climbing the tree, one of the branches broke and he fell. As everyone was surrounding Kevin who was lying in the grass, feeling down, they smelled smoke and the tree was on fire. They all needed a strong animal with a trunk and stout legs to help them out. Kevin saw his reflection in the mirror on the tree and knew he was the perfect one for the job. He takes off his beak and wings and sprayed water from a barrel onto the tree to put the fire out.
In conclusion, it is important to be confident in yourself and your abilities. There are lots of people who do not wish you the best and will try to steer you away from who you really are. In this story, Culture the vulture was tricking Kevin into thinking that he was not enough. You can also talk to your children about the importance of discernment and trusting yourself. BRAVE Books will definitely leave your curious boys with more questions for you and keep them excited to read more.