Book Review and GIVEAWAY: Can't Wait Willow by Christy Ziglar

When the twins were little, they called the toy aisle at the story the "play area". They seemed to honestly think those toys were just there for them to go along and push the buttons on the noisy toys and move on. I don't remember them EVER asking if we could actually BUY the toys.

But Little Bit is another story. I think a big part of it is that she has older sisters and she sees them occasionally buying things they want when we go shopping. I think it must also just be personality, or something though. Whatever it is, when I got the chance to review Can't Wait Willow! by Christy Ziglar, I figured it would be a great resource!

This beautifully illustrated picture book is about a little girl named Willow who has been anxiously waiting for the circus to come to town. When it DOES come to town, as she walks to the circus, she is distracted by the ice cream truck, her friends inviting her to play, a lemonade stand, etc. . . so that by the time she actually GETS to the circus, it is closing for the day, and she doesn't have any money left to buy her favorite treat, cotton candy. She's given a "second chance" and makes better choices the next day.

Little Bit was happy to sit down and hear her new story as soon as we got it. I was amused to hear her also notice that Willow had "too much sugar" that day, with the ice cream, lemonade, and then wanting cotton candy. I don't know if the intended message of the book has sunk in, but it is certainly planting a "seed" of the importance of making good choices about how to use our time and money. We have read it several times, and she's also asked her sisters to read it to her.

One fun feature of the book is that there's a little star that follows Willow along and shows up on each page. One the pages where Willow makes poor choices, the star looks "distressed", on pages where Willow makes good choices, the star is happy and excited. I didn't even bother to point it out to her the first several times we read it, since the book was keeping her attention without it, but when Lexie read the book to her, she noticed the note about it, and pointed it out. After that Little Bit also enjoyed finding, and pointing out, the star on each page.

In addition to sending me a copy of Can't Wait Willow to review, I also get to host a GIVEAWAY!!!!!

If you would like to win your own copy of this beautiful picture book, do one, or all of the following:

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• Sign up for the Shine Bright Kids Newsletter and come back and tell me that you did.

The rules:  Please leave a separate comment for each entry. Only comments made on this blog will be counted, not comments on facebook or via e-mail. Please make sure I have a way to contact you, if I can't contact you, I will have to choose an alternate winner.Contest open to readers in the United States. Giveaway will end at 9:00 Eastern Time on Thursday, November 7, 2013.