Children's Book Sneaks in Advice for Smart Cookies

A Delicious Reason to Read to Your Child

You probably know that advice usually doesn’t get you very far with kids.

Even babies seem to be wired to sense unsolicited advice and are equipped with the mechanism to ignore or avoid it.  Children have this uncanny way of figuring out when you’re about to dole out advice and activate their built-in auto shut-off mechanism almost involuntarily.

So, what is a well-meaning parent to do if he wants to teach his child about being punctual or patient, or about compromise or caring for others?

Parenting experts will tell you that you should keep trying to find those windows of opportunity to plug in advice( even if huge chunks of it miss the mark) and continue to set an example yourself. And by all means, listen to them. They probably know what they’re saying 73.8% of the time.

But if you find yourself tearing your hair out after vain attempts at getting your kids to stop fighting or helping around the house, maybe it’s time to fix your hair and go pick up a copy of One Smart Cookie – Bite Sized Lessons for School Years and Beyond.

Children’s Book Teaches Kids to Bake
(… and encourages good behavior! But, don’t tell them! )

Like me, if you sense the aroma of freshly baked cookies wafting from the pages, you are likely to be disappointed. Sorry, the book offers no free samples.

But it does keep its promise of offering bite-sized lessons for your tots in a manner that may actually hold their attention and win their approval. And maybe even coax them into listening, compromising, waiting patiently or (gasp!) sharing with their siblings and friends.

One Smart Cookie(Author: Amy Krouse Rosenthal, Illustrators: Jane Dyer, Brooke Dyer, Published By: Harper Collins) offers sincere, sensible advice using simple, short sentences, strong vocabulary and irresistible illustrations in a non-condescending way that makes it easy to take in stride.  

So, if you’re wondering how to explain ’being prompt’ to your first grader or struggle to get your squabbling twins to compromise, I suggest you make your first stop at the book store.

The way I see it, One Smart Cookie is as appropriate for your two-year old as it is for your teenager. It would make a wonderful back-to-school, birthday or graduation gift.
And in the unlikely event that your kids see through your sneaky plan and refuse to take the bite-sized advice, all is not lost. Take comfort in the fact that at the very least, they would have learned to bake.