If you have a lower elementary aged child, get ready for some wiggly teeth! This book is the perfect fit for those first wiggly tooth experiences. My 1st grader loved this and my preschooler is convinced that he has loose teeth just like Chipmunk. When Chipmunk’s awesome front tooth starts to wiggle even though he takes great care of it, he wonders what is going on. His initial confusion turns into understanding and joy when he realizes all the other kids his age are going through the same thing he is. Chipmunk is a little naive for my taste- what child doesn’t know about losing teeth- but maybe there are some kids like that out there. That particular fact didn’t seem to bother my kids one little bit, and they gave this book a big thumb’s up- and that’s what it’s all about! Do you have any tooth wigglers at your house?
First I want to say thank you to all who participated. We had several who participated from outside the U.S. What a thrill to know that Purple Day really is an international day for epilepsy awareness. We raised another $50.00 for CURE!!!!!!!!!! For my family, Purple Day went well despite 2 of my 3 children being sick, my husband arriving home from a business trip at an unearthly hour in the morning and of course, to really top it off, a few seizures at my brother’s wedding reception.
My daughter, my grandma and my grandpa who also has epilepsy - related to age and stroke
I am nervous to write this post. Actually, I am T-e-r-r-i-f-i-e-d with a capital T and here’s why. I know I am being irrational, but every time I start to post more on our blog, my daughter has a seizure. I know that writing a blog post has nothing to do with her having a seizure, but I still can’t help myself. There is this desperate part of myself that I have to keep in check that wants to control the seizures when really I can’t. I can give her the medicine and make sure she sleeps well, but that’s about all the control I have. Most of the time I let the rest go, but lurking in the back of my mind is the vivid image of her turning blue. Then checking to see if she was breathing, and not seeing her chest move or feeling any air coming out of her mouth as she lay on the floor of the school’s main office. Talking to the principal while the secretary called for the paramedics. Paramedics rushing in with oxygen and other life-saving equipment that I don’t even want to think about. All this in my mind while I try to remember to let her live like the seven- year-old girl that she is.
My brother and his beautiful bride along with my daughter. Their wedding colors were Day-Glo colors hot pink and lime green - one of the co-inventors had epilepsy
A big part of me wants to shelter her and keep her in a box. A magic box that would prevent seizures. Can someone invent that, please? I’d almost sell my soul for that, but then I remember that she is a child with dreams and hopes for the future. Did I ever tell you about her love for swimming? Seizures can be deadly especially when swimming or bathing. One of my co-workers lost her nephew with epilepsy to drowning during a seizure at his high-school graduation party. I try to push all of these thoughts out of my mind and I let her swim anyway. The more rational part of myself realizes to not let her take risks could be more detrimental than her actual seizures.
Although, her body decided to celebrate Purple Day with some seizures, it wasn’t so bad. Just a few absence seizures not a full on tonic-clonic seizure. All of her Tonic-clonic seizures have been preceeded by absence so it made me nervous, very nervous. There are people who have several hundred seizures a day or seizures that go into status on a regular basis, but I still cannot get over how scared and vulnerable the seizures make me feel. It makes my heart race every single time. Even for the short ones. After talking to the nurse at her neurologist’s office we determined that she was having break-through seizures due to a recent growth spurt. In the last several months she has gone through two shoe sizes, a new violin and several pairs of pants. So it would seem she needed an increase in her medication.
I feel like I am being extra brave just posting about Purple Day and we really did have an excellent day.
Princess Amerah at school for Purple Day
For the ultimate celebration, I invited Princess Amerah aka Justine Greene, to come to my daughter’s school and read part of her book, Princess Amerah and the Magic Dress, for Purple Day. She graciously agreed. Justine happens to have a brother who has epilepsy. It was so wonderful of her to come and share not only her beautiful book and her wonderful singing voice, but she told my daughter’s class about her brother’s experience with epilepsy. In fact he was the model for a character in her book, Walter the Watermelon Man.
Princess Amerah and my daughter and her friend who has Dravet Syndrome, a rare form of epilepsy
Her book is amazing. Princess Amerah and the Magic Dress is currently sold out, but if you visit her website you can get on the waiting list for when the revised version comes out. I can hardly wait for the book to come out.
Thank you again for all who participated!!!!!!!!!!
Please contact me by June 3rd with your address and which book you would like either When you Reach Me or The Day Glo-brothers so I can mail out your book, otherwise I will draw another person.
Bookscoops is again thrilled to announce that we are participating in Purple Day, an international day to promote epilepsy awareness this year. For those of you new to our blog, we are two sisters – Cari and Holly who read and review books to promote literacy. Cari’s daughter was diagnosed with epilepsy in October of 2009 and this has been an interesting journey as her family and daughter have come to terms with diagnosis and what it means. Our whole family plans to celebrate Purple Day again this year and one of our brother’s is getting married on Purple Day.
Why Bookscoops is going purple?
Well like we said, Cari’s oldest daughter was diagnosed with epilepsy almost a year and half ago. She has Generalized Seizure Disorder and experiences Tonic-Clonic Seizures, formerly known as Grand Mal as well as Absence Seizures. She is very bright and full of potential. Epilepsy is only part of her as a human being as she loves to read and is bi-literate in English and Spanish. She also enjoys spending time with friends, swimming and playing the violin. Recently, she started karate and enjoys practicing her kicks and punches around the house. One of my biggest frustrations is the lack of information and misconceptions surrounding this disorder and particularly the lack of funding it receives. I feel that one of the best ways to help her deal with this is to raise awareness. Her life with epilepsy can be made easier and safer as more people know about this common disorder and learn how to respond with appropriate first aid.
Photo of Cari's daughter by Jessie Lynne Photography, click on photo to visit her website
In addition, we wanted to raise awareness about epilepsy because it is the second most common reason people see a neurologist behind migraine. Epilepsy affects 50 million people world wide and about 3 million people living in the United States have epilepsy. More people have this condition than multiple sclerosis, cerebral palsy, muscular dystrophy and Parkinson’s disease combined and every year more people will die of epilepsy than breast cancer. Unfortunately, a lot of myths and false ideas are still being perpetuated about epilepsy (such as it is a mental condition or that epilepsy is contagious). Some of these misconceptions have caused many people to become isolated and live in fear and shame that someone will find out about their condition and many people have faced discrimination based on their medical diagnosis.
Who Can Participate and How to Participate?
There are number of ways to participate in our second annual Purple Day Challenge and because we love to promote literacy we are combining both reading and Purple Day starting on Monday Mar 7th and ending on Sunday, March 27th. While our blog focuses on children and adolescent literature we are inviting anyone to go purple!!!! So that means any person, author, book blogger or blogger who wants to promote Purple Day may participate. To make this easy on you (and us) choose any or all of the following.
1. Post the Purple Day Button on your blog, facebook or tweet about our challenge on Twitter, starting on Monday, March 7th through Sunday March 27th and write a post promoting Purple Day. Please note we have received permission to use the Purple Day logo as part of this challenge. If you choose this option you must read and agree to the copyright notice on the Purple Day website by using the logo you are stating that you have read and agree to their terms of use. Two sizes of buttons are at the bottom of this post.
2. Read a book about epilepsy and post a review. For a list of books for children go to Epilepsy.Com. Use the Reading for Purple Day Button to declare your participation & link to this post.
3. Read a book by or about a famous person with epilepsy and post a review. Don’t forget to use the Reading for Epilepsy Awareness button. Cari’s daughter’s favorite so far is The Day-Glo Brothers: The True Story Behind Bob and Joe Switzer’s Bright Ideas and Brand-New Colors, which also is a Cybils winner for 2009. Some names you might know are Harriet Tubman, Alfred Nobel and Charles Dickens and more recently actor Danny Glover, football player Alan Faneca and track star, Florence Griffin Joyner known as Flo Jo. For a more complete list visit The Epilepsy Foundation or if you’re a fan of Wikipedia see the List of Famous people with Epilepsy, which to be honest seems to be the best documented list we’ve found so far.
4. Read a book that promotes self-confidence and acceptance in children and post a review. Suggested books so far with a very appropriate title, Purplicious by Victoria Kann and Elizabeth Kann and Little Skink’s Tail by Janet Halfmann, illustrated by Laurie Allen Klein & again don’t forget the Reading for Epilepsy Awareness Button.
5. If you or a family has dealt with epilepsy write a post sharing your experience.
6. Wear purple on March 26th and tell people why you are wearing purple.
7. Click on the link to watch a short interview with Katie Couric and write about what the things that you learned you in a blog post, or if you don’t have a blog put it in the comments for this post.
8. Have an idea not listed above submit it and we’ll give you another entry. So if you think of something put a comment in the comments below.
For every entry we receive, Cari will donate 25¢ per entry for a total of fifty dollars to a non-profit organization that works towards epilepsy awareness and/or research and Holly will match Cari’s donation. Multiple entries are possible. One entry equals doing one of the seven items listed above.
Our Goals for this Challenge
Our goal is three-fold 1) to promote Purple Day and raise epilepsy awareness, 2) to dispel myths surrounding epilepsy and 3) to compile a more comprehensive list of books that portray epilepsy and/or people with epilepsy accurately, especially for children. Finally we do hope to raise some money for epilepsy awareness.
How to Enter and When Does it End?
Sign-up in the comments below telling us who you are and what you are planning on doing to participate. Make sure you leave a link to your blog. If you post about this challenge please leave us a link in the comments to your post and we will put together a list of everyone who participated with links to their blog posts as the week progresses. The Purple Day mini-challenge begins on March 7th and ends March 27th , midnight MST.
The good feeling that you are helping other people become aware of a disorder that affects millions of people world wide.
Last year we raised $50.00 to donate to CURE. This year we would like to raise more, remember Cari is willing to donate .25¢ up to a total of fifty dollars and Holly will match her donation to a non-profit organization that works towards epilepsy awareness and/or research for each person who commits to participate by doing any of the 8 options above. See above for details of how to enter and participate.
Interested in sponsoring our Literacy and Purple Day challenge?
If you are an author/publicist and have a book that you think would go well with Purple Day we will consider doing a review of your book and/or host a giveaway. Please contact us at caribookscoops (at) ymail (dot) com or hollybookscoops (at) ymail(dot)com.
Non-profit Groups that promote Epilepsy Awareness, Education and Fund Research
Consider donating to one of the groups below:
Purple Day – Founded by Cassidy Megan, a child with epilepsy to promote global epilepsy awareness.
CURE Citizens United for Research in Epilepsy – raises money for epilepsy research.
Epilepsy Foundation an organization dedicated to advocacy, education and research.
Epilepsy Association of Utah – The group in Cari’s state dedicated to educating the public and supporting persons and their families with epilepsy.
We have provided two sizes for the button. If you would like to use the Purple Day Button you must read and agree to the copyright notice on the Purple Day website by using the logo you are stating that you have read and agree to their terms of use.
First off Holly and I would like to say thank you to all who participated. We feel that our first Purple Day Mini-Challenge was a success and we could not have done that without the help of some loyal readers, family and friends. Not everyone was comfortable making comments in a public forum and I received several emails telling me that people were participating. We would like to spotlight the blog posts, authors, book bloggers and others who participated this year.
As this post is a bit late, I also wanted to give you an update on my daughter. Although it seems like whenever I do an update she has another seizure so I am a bit nervous. We are almost 3 months seizure free. Her last seizure was in mid-April, during the night. We are cautiously optimistic that her medication is starting to work, but again we won’t really know for several more months. The goal is to go at least 6 months seizure free and then 12 months, and at that point we will be fairly confident that the medication is working. Other than that we have enjoyed the summer, including swimming, reading, violin lessons and waiting for baby #3 to make his debut. Thanks again for all your support we hope by raising awareness we can bring more light to this disease and contribute to a cure with a monetary donation. Here are the participants:
Blogposts
Jessica – A good friend of Cari’s, who did the photo of Cari’s daughter, if you live in Utah check our her photography website.
Cynthia in Northern Utah – Daughter Ashlyn recently diagnosed with epilepsy. She went all out even decorating her front door purple.
Cristina @ Being Bertrand, Overcoming Movement Disorder – Her son has epilepsy and an undiagonosed genetic disorder, and Cari met her through Lynn @ Infant Bibliophile. Cristina invited her to attend the Epilepsy Conference in Utah, for which Cari is very grateful.
Book Bloggers
Natasha Maw @ Maw Books, real life friend of Cari. Our children play together. Here are the links to her post about Purple Day and her review of Little Skink’s Tail.
Stephanie @ Stephanie’s Written Word Whose daughter, Leah has epilepsy and Stephanie reviewed Becky the Brave, A Story About Epilepsy.
Britt @ Confessions of a Book Habitue – Had a baby the week of Purple Day and still managed to participate. You go girl! Our daughters are good friends and love playing together.
Laurel Snyder – Author of Any Which Wall, Up and Down The Scratchy Mountains and many more fun sounding titles. She also has had epilepsy from childhood. She wrote a lovely post about having epilepsy. As many of you know seizures occur when the brain has abnormal electrical activity. My favorite quote from her blog post ‘We are all human. Electric. Some of us more electric than others…”
Janet Halfmann – Author of Little Skink’s Tail, a family favorite.
Again we’d like to thank everyone who participated in Purple Day. We are excited to announce that we raised an even $50.00 to donate to Citizen’s United for Research in Epilepsy – CURE founded by Susan Axelrod. I chose CURE because of their relenting efforts to unravel the mystery of epilepsy and ultimately find a cure. From an article written by Susan Axelrod entitled Agony, Hope and Resolve as part of a feature Newsweek did on Epilepsy called The Mystery of Epilepsy: Why We Must Find a Cure.
“We must accelerate research efforts in the field now and address this age-old problem with the urgency and intensity that it merits. Despite the broad public impression, seizures are not a trivial inconvenience. Each and every seizure carries with it the risk of brain damage, physical harm or even death. Until society accepts this and recognizes epilepsy as the serious health problem that it truly is, progress will continue to lag. Too many young brains will be forever affected. Too many lives will be lost.”
Thanks again for everyone who participated and we are deeply touched by those who participated. We plan to do this next year and hope to raise even more money to help find a CURE.
Please note we are doing another challenge for Purple Day including two book giveaways of When You Reach Me by Rebecca Stead and The Day-Glo Brothers by Chris Barton. Click on the link or the button to read our current challenge. Spread the word and use our button.
Bookscoops is thrilled to announce that our blue theme is going purple this week!!!! My sister, Holly, and I are excited to host a Purple Day challenge. I recently learned about Purple Day, an international day to promote epilepsy awareness held on March 26th. Purple Day was started by a 9 year old girl in Canada named Cassidy Megan. Cassidy wanted to let other people with epilepsy, especially children, know that they are not alone. My daughter was very excited to learn that other children have epilepsy and our whole family plans to wear purple that day. We even went out and picked out a purple shirt for Dad. Holly and I decided to host a Purple Day challenge on our blog to join in Cassidy’s efforts to increase epilepsy awareness world wide.
Why is Bookscoops going Purple for Epilepsy?
My oldest daughter was diagnosed almost 5 months ago with epilepsy. She has Generalized Seizure Disorder and experiences Tonic-Clonic Seizures, formerly known as Grand Mal. This has been a painful journey as I have watched my daughter struggle with this disorder. She is very bright and full of potential. Epilepsy is only part of her as a human being as she loves to read, spend time with friends, swim and play violin. One of my biggest frustrations is the lack of information and misconceptions surrounding this disorder and particularly the lack of funding it receives. I feel that one of the best ways to help her deal with this is to raise awareness. Her life with epilepsy can be made easier and safer as more people know about this common disorder and learn how to respond with appropriate first aid.
Cari's Daughter in Purple - Photo by Jessie Lynne Photography click on photo for current giveaway
In addition, we wanted to raise awareness about epilepsy because it is the second most common reason people see a neurologist behind migraine. Epilepsy affects 50 million people world wide and about 3 million people living in the United States have epilepsy. More people have this condition than multiple sclerosis, cerebral palsy, muscular dystrophy and Parkinson’s disease combined. Unfortunately, a lot of myths and false ideas are still being perpetuated about epilepsy (such as it is a mental condition or that epilepsy is contagious). Some of these misconceptions have caused many people to become isolated and live in fear and shame that someone will find out about their condition and many people have faced discrimination based on their medical diagnosis.
Who Can Participate and How to Participate?
There are number of ways to participate in our first annual Purple Day Challenge and because we love to promote literacy we are combining both reading and Purple Day starting on March 21st and ending on March 31st. While our blog focuses on children and adolescent literature we are inviting anyone to go purple!!!! So that means any person, book blogger or blogger who wants to promote Purple Day may participate. To make this easy on you (and us) choose any or all of the following.
Post the Purple Day Button on your blog starting on Sunday March 21st through Saturday March 27th and write a post promoting Purple Day. Please note we have received permission to use the Purple Day logo as part of this challenge. If you choose this option you must read and agree to the copyright notice on the Purple Day website by using the logo you are stating that you have read and agree to their terms of use. Two sizes of buttons are at the bottom of this post.
Read a book about epilepsy and post a review. For a list of books for children go to Epilepsy.Com.
Read a book by or about a famous person with epilepsy and post a review. Cari’s daughter’s favorite so far is The Day-Glo Brothers: The True Story Behind Bob and Joe Switzer’s Bright Ideas and Brand-New Colors, which also is a Cybils winner for 2009. Some names you might know are Harriet Tubman, Alfred Nobel and Charles Dickens and more recently actor Danny Glover, football player Alan Faneca and track star, Florence Griffin Joyner known as Flo Jo. For a more complete list visit The Epilepsy Foundation or if you’re a fan of Wikipedia see the List of Famous people with Epilepsy, which to be honest seems to be the best documented list we’ve found so far.
Read a book that promotes self-confidence and acceptance in children and post a review. Suggested books so far with a very appropriate title, Purplicious by Victoria Kann and Elizabeth Kann and Little Skink’s Tail by Janet Halfmann, illustrated by Laurie Allen Klein.
If you or a family has dealt with epilepsy write a post sharing your experience.
Wear purple on March 26th and tell people why you are wearing purple.
Click on the link to watch the 60 Minute Special on Epilepsy and write about what the things that you learned you in a blog post, or if you don’t have a blog put it in the comments for this post.
Have an idea not listed above submit it and we’ll give you another entry. Cari’s niece is making 600+ purple ribbons for her school. So if you think of something put a comment in the comments below.
For every entry we receive, Cari will donate 25¢ per entry for a total of fifty dollars to a non-profit organization that works towards epilepsy awareness and/or research and Holly will match Cari’s donation. Multiple entries are possible. One entry equals doing one of the seven items listed above.
Our Goals for this Challenge
Our goal is three-fold 1) to promote Purple Day and raise epilepsy awareness, 2) to dispel myths surrounding epilepsy and 3) to compile a more comprehensive list of books that portray epilepsy and/or people with epilepsy accurately, especially for children. Finally we do hope to raise some money for epilepsy awareness.
How to Enterand When Does it End?
Sign-up in the comments below telling us who you are and what you are planning on doing to participate. Make sure you leave a link to your blog. If you post about this challenge please leave us a link in the comments to your post and we will put together a list of everyone who participated with links to their blog posts as the week progresses. The Purple Day mini-challenge begins on March 21st and ends March 31st, midnight MST.
Rewards for this Challenge:
We would love to offer prizes, but at this point we don’t have anything to offer except the good feeling that you are helping other people become aware of a disorder that affects millions of people world wide. We might consider it for future years. However, remember Cari is willing to donate .25¢ up to a total of fifty dollars and Holly will match her donation to a non-profit organization that works towards epilepsy awareness and/or research for each person who commits to participate by doing any of the 8 options above. See above for details of how to enter and participate.
Non-profit Groups that promote Epilepsy Awareness, Education and Fund Research
Consider donating to one of the groups below:
Purple Day – Founded by nine-year old Cassidy Megan to promote global epilepsy awareness.
CURE Citizens United for Research in Epilepsy – raises money for epilepsy research.
Epilepsy Foundation an organization dedicated to advocacy, education and research.
Epilepsy Association of Utah – The group in Cari’s state dedicated to educating the public and supporting persons and their families with epilepsy.
We have provided two sizes for the button. If you would like to use the Purple Day Button you must read and agree to the copyright notice on the Purple Day website by using the logo you are stating that you have read and agree to their terms of use.
Bookscoops 
