Be inspired.....

Quote of the day:

"To be inspired is great, to inspire is incredible."

We have a wonderful post today from our guest blogger Natalie Finnigan.  Thanks Natalie for sharing your wisdom for our readers today.

Unusual Inspiration

Everyone has heard of books that have inspired them. Normally it is adult books that have inspired you to work harder, aim higher, love more freely, live better etc, but children’s books can be equally inspiring. Many talk of true friendship, the power of doing the right thing, have morals and strong messages. I’ve recently been reading “Hugless Douglas” and have found inspiration in a different way, which got me thinking.

Yes the moral of the book was good (you can have lots of best friends who love you), the story line engaging and the characters cute (my son and I love the flying/bouncing bunnies) but the unusual inspiration came from a more sedate source. The cows! In the story, the cows are making frothy top milk smoothies for all their friends (banana and strawberry milk smoothies) and, like many parents, I sometimes struggle to get my child to eat all of the right stuff - enough fruit/milk/good things. Milk had recently been a problem in our house…until this book. Now Alex loves frothy top milk smoooooothies (strawberry ones at least) but it was the book that inspired him to try them with enthusiasm.

This got me thinking, we look for the morals, the themes, the strong story lines in the books that we’re reading. We like the rhymes, the repetition, the quirks, the illustrations but are we missing another dimension? Do we look for inspiration for activities to try (making milk smoothies), or fun things to do (making gruffalo crumble or mud gruffalo faces in the woods - maybe even treasure maps!), because, if not, we are potentially missing a great source of inspiration for things our children may greet with enthusiasm that they, otherwise, might dismiss.

About the Natalie:

Natalie Finnigan was born in Suffolk, England, and re-discovered her love for writing rhymes after the birth of her son, Alex, in 2010. Having already published two short, rhyming picture books based on three characters (Alex, Dragon and Spider), Natalie is enjoying branching out into other picture books and is currently writing a pre-teen novel to be used as a teaching text for English as a Foreign Language.

Read on and read always!  Get inspired today to do something great.