Kelsey Rae Dunckel - If Monuments Could Talk

🍂 Harvest Days: Giving Thanks Around the World by Kate DePalma 🌎

“Harvest” is the time of year when communities gather the crops they’ve been growing all season and give thanks for the food that will carry them through the year. 🌾 In the United States, Thanksgiving grew out of harvest traditions too — a time to share a meal, give thanks for the land’s abundance, and gather with family and friends. 🍽️

This beautiful picture book travels around the globe, highlighting how different cultures celebrate harvest time with food, music, dance, and gratitude. With rich illustrations and kid-friendly text, it’s a perfect Thanksgiving read-aloud for talking about thankfulness beyond one day of the year.

✨ A few of the harvest celebrations inside:

🇧🇴 Bolivia – Martes de Challa (Carnival)
🇮🇷 Iran – Mehregan
🇰🇷 South Korea – Chuseok

💛 Why I love this book as a children’s author & librarian:

• it includes a timeline showing when each harvest festival happens on the calendar.
• it offers interactive discussion questions that make it easy to talk about gratitude, seasons, and celebrations with kids.
• the back invites further research into each festival, culture, and tradition—perfect for curious young readers (and grown-ups!).

📚 If you’re looking for a Thanksgiving book that goes beyond one table and one country, Harvest Days is a beautiful way to show kids how families around the world give thanks.

🎥🌟 Sneakpeak at my new series “Reading with River” now on YouTube! 📚🐱

In this series, River and I explore books that build early reading skills, promote compassion and understanding, and encourage learning and exploring! 📖

This is my first long-form video on YouTube, and I’m excited to create and share more content for caregivers and educators to utilize for their littles’ education! 👩🏻‍🏫

Welcome! I hope you enjoy! And please don’t forget to like, comment, share, and subscribe for more Reading with River! 👍✍️📲📩

Link to my YouTube channel can be found in my bio! ⬆️

🌍💛 Happy World Kindness Day! 🌎💛

Today I’m sharing two beautiful children’s books that remind us that small acts of kindness can make a big difference.

📖 Human Kindness: True Stories of Compassion and Generosity that Changed the World by John Francis — shares real stories of people who changed history through empathy, courage, and care. From environmental heroes to everyday helpers, it shows kids how kindness can encourage others to be kind and how kindness can make big change!

💬 Giving real moments in history, this book provides real-world examples of kindness and doing the right thing.

📖 Kindness Makes Us Strong by Sophie Beer — part of the Cool to Be Kind board book series — celebrates the simple ways kids can be kind every day: sharing, helping, listening, and loving. Perfect for toddlers and preschoolers learning that kindness comes in many forms.

💬 Bright and bold, this board book develops sight word recognition while teaching littles about active ways to be kind.

🔔 How did you show kindness today?! Comment below! ⬇️