Review – Chickadees, Bumbelbeez, Pussy Willow Trees and Two and a Half @JeffreyPolitsky @BookPubServices #5paws

StoreyBook Reviews 

Chickadees Book Cover

Synopsis

Chickadees, Bumbelbeez, Pussy-Willow Trees and Two-And-A-Half, by Jeffrey Politsky, is a vibrantly illustrated adventure book meant to inspire children to follow their urges to explore and to appreciate diversity. It is recommended for ages 4-9.

“Kids who still have their parents read to them really like the book, as do kids who are independent readers,” says Dr. Politsky. “The reviews of parents and children who have read the book are very favorable: adults really like the message and the children just love the story. I hope many more children will get to read it.”

The book starts off when “One day a little brown monkey with dazzling olive green eyes, a friendly smile, and a long curly tail asked his father if there was more to the life than just hanging around with other monkeys and eating bananas.” Before long he meets a lovely grey cat and a majestic blue pelican each on their own quests. Together, they explore a foreign island and when their journey takes them into a private swath of land, they befriend a local dog who takes them further than they ever imagined.

Chickadees, Bumbelbeez, Pussy-Willow Trees and Two-And-A-Half emphasizes several significant values, which help us subsist and ultimately thrive: learning through independent exploration, the need for friendship, the importance of respect and tolerance for other cultures, languages, and lifestyle diversity, along with a healthy understanding of the powers of mother nature.

goodreads-badge-add-plus

Buy the Book – Fifty percent of the proceeds of the sale of each book will be donated equally to research programs dedicated to the study of dementia and memory dysfunction, and to the study of breast cancer.

Review

This may be a children’s book but what a tale it weaves with some good life lessons disguised within the pages about diversity and acceptance.

This is the tale of 3 animals that take a journey to an island off of Maui to see another part of the world than where they live. Along they way they meet up and experience the island together and come in contact with other animals and learn something from each of them and each experience.

This would be a great book to read with your children because it is longer (but at most a paragraph per page) and discuss the adventures of the animals.

The illustrations are beautiful and depict the stories well and we give it 5 paws up.

pawprintpawprintpawprintpawprintpawprint

About the Author

Dr. Jeffrey Politsky grew up in Toronto, Canada. He obtained undergraduate and graduate degrees at the University of Toronto and his medical degree at the University of Western Ontario before moving to Vancouver for his residency training in Neurology. He moved to Boston in the late 1990’s to complete his epilepsy fellowship at Massachusetts General Hospital and has lived in the United States ever since. Today, Dr. and Mrs. Politsky live in New Jersey with their two children and two giant schnauzers. While he has written numerous articles and chapters related to the neurologic sciences, Chickadees, Bumbelbeez, Pussy-Willow Trees and Two-And-A-Half is Dr. Politsky’s first serious non-academic venture.

Dr. Politsky began writing Chickadees, Bumbelbeez, Pussy-Willow Trees and Two-And-A-Half on Formantera, one of the Balearic Islands in the western Mediterranean Sea off of the east coast of Spain.

“As I began pondering what makes free-form travel so interesting, I decided to try and create a story that would be appealing to youngsters. All of my back-packing adventures, like so many other travelers, had common themes: selecting a location, landing in a foreign place and feeling very foreign, attempting to understand the culture and fit in, survival, discovery, problem solving, raw happiness. I incorporated several of my own experiences in the text,” says Dr. Politsky. “I decided to weave into the story the linguistic nuances that my grandfather used when he would joke with my brother and me when we were youngsters – in essence we would ask him a question and he would answer using neologisms and in a manner that made absolutely no sense at all and then start laughing in a jolly fashion, quite amused with himself. I cherish my memory of my grandfather. His good nature and terminology stuck, much of it is incorporated in the book. In fact, some of his favorite expressions make up the book’s title.”

Dr. Politsky’s grandfather died in 1989 of complications related to multi-infarct dementia.

Tony Santiago illustrated the book with Dr. Politsky’s children and grandfather individually represented in the characters.

In 2011, Dr. Politsky’s wife was diagnosed with breast cancer. She is fine now; but the process was quite an ordeal. Anyone who has been through this or a similar experience understands this. Dr. Politsky sees and treats patients every day with epilepsy and related neurologic & medical conditions – in many cases illnesses appear like an unexpected storm and can turn people’s lives upside down and inside out like a tornado. By the end of 2012, Kim had been diagnosed, treated, and had achieved full physical recovery.

Facebook * Twitter * Goodreads

Recommended Posts

excerpt Science Fiction Young Adult

Excerpt – The Defectives by Jim Bates

  Synopsis Life for Lenny and Alex is not pleasant. It’s the 27th century, and they are living in an orphanage with thirty other boys like themselves. They are labeled Defectives. They don’t fit the accepted mold for the appearance-based society. They also live in an underground city like the rest of the world’s population. […]

StoreyBook Reviews 
Book Release LGBTQ+ romance Young Adult

New Release – If We Were a Movie by Zakiya N. Jamal

  Synopsis Booksmart meets Phantom of the Megaplex A sapphic story of first love, processing grief, coming of age, and academic stress. Rochelle “the Shell” Coleman is determined to become valedictorian, get into Wharton, and outdo her academic rival, Amira Rodriguez. But her college application lacks one thing: a job. When Rochelle lands a position […]

StoreyBook Reviews 
Book Release excerpt memoir nonfiction

Excerpt – Nothing Left to Lose by Jeff Richards

  Synopsis In pursuit of a meaningful life, Jeff Richards and his friend Rick Sager decide to start a commune out in the Rocky Mountains. It doesn’t go as planned. Instead of the self-sufficient ranch they envision, they can only afford a crumbling crash pad in Denver; half their friends who agreed to join them […]

StoreyBook Reviews