In my book, What Do You See When You Look at Me?, I use bright and colorful real life photos of both wild and domestic animals. With each picture, I invite my young readers to look carefully at the animal and describe what they see. Underneath each photo is a one-sentence caption of what I see. For example, the first photo is of a flamingo, not the whole bird, just the head and neck. I see a pink, curvy neck yet I also see the letter S. I hope to teach children to look at more than just a flamingo or elephant but to see the detail in each animal. I also hope that they can look closely at the animal and look for emotion such as the smile on the elephant's face, the tear in the horse's eye or even the big yawn of the tiger that is either tired or bored. If I were to talk to parents or teachers about my book and how I would like for them to use my book with children, I would tell them that aside from looking at fun pictures and learning to read the simple text, I would hope t...
Opening a Chapter of Inspiration Served with a Heavy Dose of Reality