Blog Tour Giveaway & Review of The Christmas Cats Chase Christmas Rats by Constance Corcoran Wilson

Publisher: Quad City Books

Format Read: paperback

Source: The author in exchange for an honest review

Release Date: October 22, 2013

Buying Links:  Barnes& Noble | Amazon*

* affiliate link; the blog receives a small commission for purchases made through this link. 

Blurb from goodreads:

The Christmas Cats Chase Christmas Rats is a Seuss-ical tale for young children which builds upon the moral of the first Christmas Cats book to once again teach children a valuable life lesson.

In this second Christmas Cats adventure the lesson to be learned is: In life, always keep an open mind. Don't accept stereotypes as true or let the unfounded opinions of others prevent you from finding out the truth for yourself. We all need to act without prejudice and learn to accept each other as individuals.

The Christmas Cats learn that rats, too, should be judged as individuals. Another message: all of us should try to help others.

Written for the author's four-year-old granddaughters, Ava and Elise Wilson, with the assistance of talented professional illustrator Gary McCloskey, The Christmas Cats continue to have adventures while attired in their familiar silly hats from Book One (The Christmas Cats in Silly Hats).

Learning to accept others in a non-judgmental, open-minded fashion is a lesson we all must learn. If children can internalize this behavior while young, learning to help others and to do good works, the world will be a better place.

Bea's Thoughts:

I'm not a huge fan of moralistic stories for children but the cover was so appealing, I couldn't resist. The artwork all throughout is appealing and had me smiling and sometimes laughing. The illustraions are clear, simple, and show a sense of humor. The message is a little heavy at times but I think the cute and humorous style will make it less obvious to young kids. The rhyming is fun too though sadly no made up words despite the comparison to Dr. Seuss. The text and illustrations will provoke lots of questions and discussion and I think many kids will want to read this multiple times.

One thing that did disturb me was the casual acceptance and endorsement of animal testing (the rats in the story are lab rats). The pictures make it look as if lab rats have an easy, safe life. Surely Wilson's message of acceptance and tolerance could have used a different path? If you can ignore that, then you;ll probably enjoy the story and of course, it's a great topic of discussion with children.

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CONSTANCE WILSON graduated from the University of Iowa with a degree in English and Journalism, but she began writing for her hometown (Independence, Iowa) newspaper at the age of 10 and was Editor-in-Chief of her high school newspaper. She continued her education, including a Ferner/Hearst Journalism Scholarship and a Freshman Merit Scholarship at Iowa, and then at Berkeley, WIU, NIU and the University of Chicago. Connie holds a Masters (+30) in English, Journalism and Education. Her career path led to teaching 7th and 8th grade language arts (Silvis, Illinois) and teaching writing at 6 IA/IL colleges or universities, including a class teaching film at Black Hawk Junior College. She then established the second Sylvan Learning Center in the state of Iowa and a Prometric Testing site, in conjunction with ETS of Princeton, NJ. She has taught writing and literature classes at all 6 IA/ILQuad City colleges.

Constance (aka Connie) was Midwest Writing Center Writer of the Year, Content Producer of the Year for Yahoo, and Illinois Women’s Press Association Silver Feather Award winner (Chicago chapter.) She was named one of the “10 Most Creative Teachers in America” in a TAB Scholastic Books competition. Her Sylvan Learning Center (#3301) in Bettendorf, Iowa, was named Best Business of the Year by the Bettendorf Chamber of Commerce that year and the free reading program for poor kids she established was the largest scholarship program of its kind among a 900-member chain, for which she was personally awarded a Bi-State Literacy Award by then sitting First Lady Barbara Bush in 1993.

Constance lives in East Moline, Illinois with husband Craig and in Chicago, Illinois, where her son, Scott and daughter-in-law Jessica and their four-year-old twins Elise and Ava reside. Her daughter, Stacey, a graduate of Belmont University in Nashville, Tennessee, recently returned from a year spent living and working in Australia and now lives and works in Nashville, Tennessee.

Find Constance online:

Website: www.WeeklyWilson.com
Christmas Cats Website: http://www.thexmascats.com/
Twitter: https://twitter.com/ConnieCWilson
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/connie.c.wilson?fref=ts
Pinterest: http://pinterest.com/conniecwilson/

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GIVEAWAY

Thanks to the author I have a copy of "The Christmas Cats Chase Christmas Rats" to give away. It's open internationally. The book is available for giveaway in print & ebook.  Print copy is restricted to the U.S. only;  U.S. winners can choose either print or ebook and the  ebook is available for international winners.

The giveaway will run through December 23rd, 11:59PM EST. Please read my Giveaway Policy.  To enter, comment below and tell me your favorite (or your child's favorite) Dr. Seuss book or children's Christmas book. I'll use random.org to choose the winning comment. Please leave a way for me to contact you. 

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