Tag: picture book

Meet Scotty, star of When A Brave Bear Fights Cancer, by Carola Schmidt

Scotty: You can see me being brave in a new book called  When A Brave Bear Fights Cancer: A Get Well Soon Gift, by Carola Schmidt. In the book, I’m a little bear who gets a bad sickness called cancer. I am scared because cancer is scary, but I’m trying very hard to be brave. The book is to help kids feel much more brave, like me, when they are getting treatment.

It is illustrated by Mark O’Dwyer who is my Guardian . All the bears in our house helped. You can see Big Gus in the laboratory, and Stitches and Paddy who are patients too in the ward, and Little Teddy who is my very own teddy bear who I got for my birthday. The next picture is me with Little Teddy and Dr Caddy and Nurse Bree.

Me Scotland The Brave sitting with Dr Caddy and Nurse Bree. I am holding my own Little Teddy.
Dr Caddy, Me, and Nurse Bree

Here is the story of how I got my name.

I was the first bear to arrive in Mawson’s house after Mawson. My job was to sit in the microwave oven and get warmed up. Then I would cuddle people when they were not well and make them feel warm and better. Mawson was amazed that I went calmly into the oven. “You are so brave’”, he said. ‘And I wear trews’, I said proudly. 

Mawson told me about Scotland. He said everyone in Scotland is brave and it’s also where trews come from. So my name became Scotland The Brave. Mawson assured me that people in Scotland don’t sit in microwave ovens, so I stopped doing it. Nowadays, I am brave in all kinds of other ways. I also deliver the post.

Me, Scotland The Brave with my postie hat and my truck
Scotland The Brave, Postal Bear

Here’s me with my postie hat and post box and my trusty truck. You can see me again sitting in this chair when you look in the new book!

Scotty’s Guardian: Thank you Scotty. And now a word about When A Brave Bear Fights Cancer. Carola Schmidt is an award-winning author of children’s cancer books, and uses her experience as a pediatric oncology pharmacist to write scientific books for Springer Nature. You can usually find her on X @_CarolaSchmidt. And you can find Scotty and his friends and Me, Mark, right here on this WordPress Den and at Baffled Bear Books.

More Links: Amazon UK and Amazon Australia and Brazil and  Canada and India and Japan and Mexico and Sweden and Amazon all over the place.

You have wandered into Mawson Bear’s web-den. Mawson is a Ponderer of Baffling Things (between naps) and the Writer-Bear of Dreamy Days and Random Naps and of It’s A Bright World To Feel Lost In  and She Ran Away From Love.

Tell me a story, Babushka received a great Kirkus Review!

“Timely, with relevance to today’s difficult Ukrainian struggle as history is repeated.” — Kirkus Reviews Full review here. [PRE-ORDER] Buy it in pre-order here. [BOOK TOUR] Join us here if you can post a review anywhere. You’ll receive an ebook and a media kit! [WORLDWIDE GIVEAWAY] Find the clickable KittyBerry hidden in the cover here […] that is, click on the link just below.🙂

Tell me a story, Babushka received a great Kirkus Review!

The direction Baba’s story takes surprises herself as well as her granddaughter. This folk tale ‘about memories and families’ begins with a lovely cottage in the Ukraine and a little girl ‘poor of money but rich of soul.’ But all too soon the Monsters come. And everything changes forever. 

Mawson Bear reads about what happens to a little girl in the story that Babushka tells. The cover is from an older edition

What will happen to our princess and all the other children in this frightening world. After sad events, the little girl finds a matryoshka doll, and inside the doll a message of hope. Will the children be able to escape to safety? Listen closely, as Babushka unfolds her story.

Mawson’s Guardian says: This story is set during ‘The Holodomor’ in the Ukraine in the 1930s. I had no idea about the Holodomor. Here I am learning about it from a kids book. And its well worth grownups reading it too.
In 1932 in the time of Stalin, Soviet soldiers stripped the Ukraine of so much grain that millions died of famine. They transported thousands of people to Siberia. It is a hard story of awful history, here shown in a deftly written children’s picture book.

With this story of drama and hope, Carola Schmidt has, I think, created a wonderful little book that confronts a hard part of history that will intrigue grownups as well as children.

Boumund Bear and Mawson read three of Carola Schmidt’s books, Tell Me A Story Babushka, Babushka is Homesick and Chubby’s Tale.

About the Author: Carola Schmidt, the author of the Babushka Tales series, is a Pediatric Oncology Pharmacist. She has written scientific books on paediatric oncology and also, for children and their families, Chubby’s Tale . Mawson and friends proudly read and reviewed Chubby’s brave story here. You can find Chubby on Twitter and on Facebook.

Carola’s Amazon Author Page is here where you can find these books and her other titles listed.

You can also read here about: Babushka is Homesick.

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