Tuesday 14 April 2009

The Best Me I can Be.

I came across these great books in Cairo. I've never seen these books in the UK and the publishers, Sunflower Books are located in Nasr City, Cairo.

The series is called The Best Me I Can be written by David Parker.
The titles are as follows:
I'm a Good Friend!
I Show Respect!
I Will Keep Trying!
I Care About Others
I Accept You As You Are.
I can Share.I can Coorperate.
I Am Generous.
I Am Responsible.
I Am Positive

Here's an excerpt from I Accept You As You Are, (my favourite).
I Want to be special, important- just me.
With so many others, how can that be?
Some children have different color skin.
Some are tall, and some are thin.
Some see with their fingers
[the picture is of a child reading Braille] or talk with their hands.
Other children ride because they cannot stand.
I may not know their names or their family, but all the children who I see are important just like me.


The Parental Note from I show Respect, (Maymoonahs favourite - although she calls it 'I show respex') reads: This book is about respect. Respect is a very difficult concept to explain to young children. Long before children understand what respect is, they need to learn some of the behaviours associated with it. Repetition is a wonderful way to teach this. It is the goal here through repetition to teach, review and reinforce some of the behaviours of respect.

Each book also comes with a 'Try This' idea to help you and your child to interact with the book.

The books cost me 1 British Pound each which really is a bargain since quality childrens books are hard to come by these days.

I've searched online and it seems there arn't many places that these books are available, Amazon has one or two available and so do Scholastic.com. The main website is hellodavid.com to purchase the books, that's if you wanted those particular titles mentioned (there are more titles than that though.)

If anybody from Manchester would like me to bring some books back for them (or anybody from outside Greater Manchester if you are likely to see me or my husband at some point,) you can leave your Name and Number in this comments section (I will not display them) or you can email me. Please state the titles and how many you would like.

6 comments:

Abdullah said...

Salam Umm Maymoonah, may Allah aza wa jal reward you. What ages would you say the books can be used for and can brothers leave their details?

Umm Maymoonah said...

Walaikumusalam
JazakAllah Khair, Yes you may if you are from Greater Manchester and you know my husband.

I'd say the books can be used with children between the ages of 3 and 8. I'm reading them with my daughter who is 3 and I intend to read them to my neice who is 7 - or get her to read them to me.

The books vary some of them have longer sentences.
I feel that they provide much flexibility for discussion. For example, for the younger child you will read them the book, you will discuss the more simpler and obvious things in the pictures such as putting things in the bin, a child in a wheelchair, sharing food.

The older child may read the book to you. You could discuss deeper issues. For example my 7 year old neice knows a lot of sign language as she has a deaf classmate, so I will talk about the Braille instead, perhaps show her some real braille (make your own or at the library), for further discussion I might take her to see the Braille Qur'an we have at one of the Masaajid in Manchester. And even talk about Abdullah Ibn Umm Makhtum- the blind Sahabi who would give the Athaan.

For the older child, the picture t of putting something in the bin may not interest them but you could talk about the enviroment instead.

Umm Maymoonah said...

The sisters who contacted me I will try to email you in a few days inshaAllah.

Sister Rahana: I recieved your message but you didn't leave your contact details?

Also I forgot to mention two small things from two of the books that may be an issue for some people...

In the 'I am Positive' book there is one page that says, 'Today I can wake up and say hello to the sun.'

And in the 'I can keep trying book' there is one picture with a girl playing a violin.

The rest of the book in both cases is good is good and I am simply going to re-design the pages and stick over the text, ie, 'today I will wake up and thank Allah or the sun.

I appreciate that older children may pick up on this or notice if a page in the book has been altered.

Apologies for not pointing this out sooner as I have been quite busy.

Umm Zaidah Nusaybah said...

Assalamu alaikum umm M,

how are you and family? I hope you are making the most out of your stay in Egypt inshaAllah.

I would like these books for Zaidah inshaAllah. Please bring me as many as you can because they look great!

ummkamilah said...

Asslamulakum
hope your all well sorry havent been in touch, inshalla your enjoying your break in Egypt
If its possible could you get me the books as well jazakhalla kher

Umm Maymoonah said...

*thank Allah FOR the sun. :-)