October 20 – International Sloth Day

About the Holiday

The AIUNAU, a non-profit dedicated to protecting all wildlife, established International Sloth Day in 2010 to raise awareness of the dangers facing these gentle animals who always seem to have a smile on their face. There are six species of sloth and two types—two-toed and three-toed. Each of the six species lives in its own unique habitat and has its own characteristics. While all species are seeing a population decline, the pygmy sloth is rated as “critically endangered” as there are fewer than 100 animals in existence. Sloths need protection from power lines, cars, and poachers who capture them to sell as pets as well as from other environmental issues that destroy their habitats. To learn more about the various species of sloths, visit AZ Animals.

Sloth’s Treehouse Inn

Written by Carrie Hasler | Illustrated by Christina Wald

Deep in the rainforest, a sloth named Santiago provided rest and comfort to animals from all over within the “gnarled branches that stretched to the sky” and “twisted roots that spread across the forest floor” of his Treehouse Inn. He was a caring innkeeper, always finding the perfect spot for each guest and their needs. One of his favorites was a blue morpho butterfly chrysalis that he gently checked on every day.

While there was usually plenty of room for everyone who visited, Santiago had noticed that his inn was getting crowded. When two toucans came looking for a place to spend the night, Santiago discovered why. The toucans told him that trees in large areas of the rainforest were being cut down, leaving the animals and birds nowhere to live. “The lush forest brimming with life was becoming nothing more than a swath of dirt and mud.” Hearing this made Santiago sad, and he found “he didn’t have the heart to turn anyone away,” so his Treehouse Inn was soon full.

But Santiago continued watching out for each one of his guests. He served tea every afternoon, provided games, and was happy to play slooow games of checkers with anyone who was willing. Before bedtime, Santiago told stories to young guests, who “didn’t seem to mind that the sloth was always the first to fall asleep, long before the story was over.”

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Image copyright Christina Wald, 2022, text copyright Carrie Hasler, 2022. Courtesy of San Diego Zoo Wildlife Alliance Press.

The crowded conditions soon led to some squabbling among the guests. The howler monkeys complained loudly, and the tamarins hogged all the fruit. Santiago knew the animals needed more room; they needed homes. Most of all, he worried about where the butterfly would go when it finally emerged from its chrysalis.

One morning, Santiago awoke to see the beautiful butterfly looking back at him. “They both stayed still for a very long time, something the sloth happened to be very good at.” Then, in a flash, the butterfly took off and soared away. Wanting to see his friend one more time to say good-bye, Santiago climbed to the top of the tree. From there he saw how many trees had been cut down. But he also saw something else.

In the distance, he saw people planting new trees—saplings and seeds. Young trees were already growing, and other plants that made up the forest floor were also sprouting. “Filled with hope, Santiago couldn’t wait to tell the others.” As the trees and plants reclaimed their place in the rainforest, the animals found new homes, leaving the Treehouse Inn quiet once again. and “even though business was slow, its very fine innkeeper was happy just the way it was.”

The front endpapers offer fun facts about animals of the rainforest and the back endpapers offer a key to the types of animals found in a vertical, double-page spread midway through Sloth’s Treehouse Inn. Frontmatter provides a map of South America that highlights the location of the Amazon Rainforest while backmatter includes photographs, information about the rainforest, the causes of deforestation, and what individuals, environmentalists, and governments are doing to save the Amazon. There’s also a guide to how kids can help protect animals and plants in their own community.

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Image copyright Christina Wald, 2022, text copyright Carrie Hasler, 2022. Courtesy of San Diego Zoo Wildlife Alliance Press.

In her well-crafted story, Carrie Hasler takes readers into the Amazon Rainforest—and to one tree in particular—to show them the vast array of wildlife and plants that call this unique region home as well as a major cause of habitat destruction. Through Hasler’s engaging storytelling, full of lyrical descriptions of the Treehouse Inn and its surroundings, kids meet Santiago, the innkeeper, who embodies the actual attributes of sloths in the wild—gentleness, caring, respectfulness to other creatures, and, of course, a slow, sleepy manner. Whimsical elements, such as the afternoon tea and games Santiago provides, will delight kids while inviting them to empathize with the growing number of guest who have lost their homes. Readers will also like following the progress of the blue morpho butterfly, whose departure leads to Santiago’s discovery of people’s work to replant the rainforest.

Christina Wald realistic illustrations burst with the color, light, and lush vegetation of the Amazon Rainforest. Each page will have readers lingering to view and appreciate the beauty of the rainforest and its denizens. As Santiago settles a group of poison dart frogs in just the right place to give them (and a tadpole) a pool and leaves to climb, the frogs appear as if they could simply hop out of the book. Turning from these types of gorgeous images, the two-page spread of trucks, machinery, and people with large saws cutting through the forest comes as a heartbreaking shock.

Wald’s show-stopping vertical illustration of the Treehouse Inn full of guests—from anteaters and tapirs below to a kinkajou, emerald tree boa, and hoatzin in the middle to a howler monkey and harpy eagle at the top—will have kids trying to spot all the creatures here and later in the book, while her clever checkerboard woven from leaves may inspire creative kids to make their own. The image of people replanting the clearcut forest area is inspiring and will prompt readers to learn more about how they can help.

An inspiring mix of fiction and nonfiction that will engage kids, Sloth’s Treehouse Inn would be a welcome addition to home bookshelves and is highly recommended for school and public libraries.

Ages 4 – 8

San Diego Zoo Wildlife Alliance Press, 2022 | ISBN 978-1943198139

Discover more about Carrie Hasler and her books on her website.

To learn more about Christina Wald, her books, and her art, visit her website.

International Sloth Day Activity

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Wildlife of the Amazon Rainforest Word Search Puzzle

You’ll find eighteen names of creatures who call the Amazon Rainforest home in his printable puzzle

Wildlife of the Amazon Rainforest Word Search Puzzle | Wildlife of the Amazon Rainforest Word Search Solution

**You can find Sloth’s Treehouse Inn at these booksellers**

Amazon | Barnes & Noble | Books-a-Million

To support your local independent bookstore, order from

Bookshop | IndieBound

Picture Book Review

October 13 – It’s Positive Attitude Month

Posted by Kath Carroll

About the Holiday

No matter how old (or young) you are there’s no getting around the fact that sometimes things are tough or don’t work out the way you planned. For kids, learning how to accept and even make the best of setbacks or disappointments is part of living a happier life. And that’s what Positive Attitude Month is all about. The holiday was established to encourage people to see the bright side of things since being upbeat can improve your health, lower chances of depression, make you more motivated, and lead to better relationships with family and friends. One way for kids to learn this skill is through reading, and today’s book—the true story about a little guy overcoming a few rocky patches of his own—is an adorable and joyful place to start.

I’d like to thank the San Diego Zoo Wildlife Alliance Press and Blue Slip Media for sharing a copy of Raising Don with me for review consideration. All opinions on the book are my own.

Raising Don: The True Story of a Spunky Baby Tapir

By Georgeanne Irvine

Get ready to open Raising Don and fall in love with this little Baird’s tapir, an absolute cutie with the sweetest of personalities to match. From the first pages—which show the wildlife care team at the San Diego Zoo eagerly anticipating Don’s birth, describe the moment of lucky serendipity when one member of the team witnessed this exciting event, and then reveal that Don’s mother, Luna, as a hesitant “first-time mom” rejected her calf—readers will find themselves invested in the future of “this endangered Baird’s tapir born at the zoo in more than 30 years.”

As the wildlife care team takes over bottle-feeding Don, children learn about the extraordinary steps they took to provide Don with some of Luna’s milk while ensuring that each animal was treated with affection. Discovering that Luna enjoying being scratched with a soft scrub brush while being milked and Don being fed after first having “his back scratched and his face rubbed before he would take his bottle” and getting a belly rub afterwards will make readers with pets of their own smile at this universal favorite.

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Tapirs, kids learn, have noses that are “similar to an elephant’s trunk, only shorter.” Don used his little trunk “for smelling as well as picking up things like branches and bits of lettuce.” But Don was also as playful as any toddler and after eating “often grabbed the bottle with his tiny trunk and tried to run off with it!” Next, when Don was only a week old, the specialists introduced him to a shallow pool. Tapirs are good swimmers, but they need to be taught—just like kids.

In no time, Don was “running, jumping, and belly flopping into the pool.” He even liked to blow bubbles in the water with his trunk. Children then see photographs and read about how Don was gradually introduced to a deeper pond in the habitat where he would eventually live with guanacos, capybaras, and a llama—and, of course, rewarded with “extra back scratches and belly rubs for being such a good swimmer.”

Soon Don would be old enough to be moved to his habitat, so now it was time for him to make a friend. The wildlife care specialists picked out a sweet-tempered capybara, Bristle, with whom he “took naps in a cave, shared ficus leaf snacks, and soaked in the pond together.” Don also met an elderly tapir who, over time, taught him good manners and other particulars about being a tapir.

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But Don learned some other lessons about life too. Even when Don was a baby and the guanacos and the llama saw him through a fence, they didn’t like him. And when, later, Don approached them in the habitat, they bullied him in the way llamas do—by spitting and kicking at him. Don simply took to avoiding them and sticking with his good friend Bristle.

In these first months of life, Don discovered his favorite foods and learned to accept regular examinations from the care specialists that would keep him healthy. “Tapirs have sensitive feet and need them looked at every day to make sure there aren’t any cuts, scrapes, or bruises.” As he grew older, Don became more independent and confident. He celebrated his first birthday with his favorite foods and a swim. Soon he’d be moving to the Nashville Zoo in Tennessee. “There, he would meet a female tapir and hopefully become a father someday.”

And what about Luna? She has given birth to and is taking care of Don’s sister, named Taiyari (which “means ‘our heart’ in the language of Mexico’s Huichol people”). Now, Don and his new best friend Juju, a female tapir, live in a spacious habitat with shade trees and a pond. Don, as you might imagine, has “won the hearts of his new caregivers,” and someday soon he and Juju will “become parents of their own precious calf, helping to bring more of these endangered animals into the world.”

Back matter includes fun facts about tapirs, a map showing where they live, the dangers to wild tapirs, and a list of ten ways readers can do to help wildlife.

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Full of joy, humor, and personality, Georgeanne Irvine’s story about one plucky tapir born at the San Diego Zoo will capture readers’ hearts. The fervent love felt by Irving and the wildlife care specialists for Don and all the animals at the zoo radiates from the pages. With lively language and detailed, yet easy-to-understand descriptions, Irving reveals the day-to-day attention Don enjoys as well as the ways the specialists became his surrogate mothers.

Children also learn about the thoughtful methods zoo caregivers use to introduce animals to their particular habitats, behaviors, diet, and other animals. Children will respond to the parallels between Don’s experiences while learning skills and making friends and their own, examples that provide wonderful teachable moments and opportunities to fully appreciate the natural world as well as their place and responsibilities in it.

Endearing photographs of Don from babyhood and throughout his first year allow readers to follow his progress and see first hand his adorable, spunky personality as well as how he learns to swim, discover favorite foods, make friends, gets health examinations, and finally moves to Nashville and meets a new best friend.

Nature nonfiction at its finest, Raising Don: The True Story of a Spunky Baby Tapir is sure to be a favorite choice for all animal lovers as a read aloud or for independent reading. The book offers a wide range of learning and discussion opportunities for teachers, educators, and homeschoolers and is a must-addition to home, classroom, school, and public library collections.

Ages 7 – 10 (Younger children will also enjoy this book as a read aloud taken in parts)

San Diego Zoo Wildlife Alliance Press, 2022 | ISBN 978-1943198146

To learn more about the San Diego Zoo and the San Diego Zoo Wildlife Alliance, visit their website.

About the Author

Georgeanne “George” Irvine has devoted her career to raising awareness about animals and wildlife conservation. She is director of publishing for the San Diego Zoo Wildlife Alliance, where she has worked for more than four decades, as well as the author of over two dozen children’s books about animals, including the award-winning Hope and Inspiration collection. Photographing and learning about animals in their native habitats are passions for George. Her worldwide adventures have taken her to many of the wildest places on Earth—from the jungles of Borneo and South America to the mountains of China and the forests of India to the Outback of Australia and the savannas of Africa.

About the San Diego Zoo Wildlife Alliance Press

San Diego Zoo Wildlife Alliance Press is the book publishing division of San Diego Zoo Wildlife Alliance, a nonprofit international conservation leader, committed to inspiring a passion for nature and working toward a world where all life thrives. Through its publishing efforts, San Diego Zoo Wildlife Alliance Press seeks to motivate and inspire multiple generations to care about wildlife, the natural world and conservation.

Positive Attitude Month Activity

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Tapir Mom and Baby Coloring Page

If you love Don, you’ll love this adorable coloring page created by Honduran graphic designer Jen Chibi! Just download and print—and don’t forget to give the baby stripes and spots like Don!

Tapir Mom and Baby Coloring Page

**You can find Raising Don: The True Story of a Spunky Baby Tapir at these booksellers**

Amazon | Barnes & Noble | Books-a-Million

To support your local independent bookstore, order from

Bookshop | IndieBound

Picture Book Review

October 11 – Celebrating the Book Birthday of Madani’s Best Game

Posted by Kath Carroll

Thanks to Eerdmans Books for Young Readers for sharing a copy of Madani’s Best Game with me for review consideration. All opinions on the book are my own.

Madani’s Best Game

Written by Fran Pintadera | Illustrated by Raquel Catalina | Translated from the Spanish by Lawrence Schimel

“Our whole neighborhood knows it: no one plays soccer like Madani does.” Thus, a teammate of Madani’s begins the story about this friend who captivates the neighborhood (and sometimes it seems the whole world) with his barefoot ball-handling prowess. Madani has elevated the team’s game to “the best soccer we’ve ever seen.” After Madani has scored a “Gooooal!” the sound of the cheers soars above the playing field and “…crosses through doorways, rushes past the magazine stand, slips down alleyways, swirls around the fountain, and, growing fainter and fainter, climbs the steps up to Madani’s house.”