Raves and reviews for Ernestine:
From KaBOOM!
"This book is a joyful and funny reminder to kids and parents alike about the importance and power of play. ...Our children will all be happier and healthier if we lessen all those lessons and get out to play."
--Darell Hammond, New York Times best-selling author and CEO of KaBOOM!, a national non-profit dedicated to creating community play spaces within walking distance of every child in the US.
From Dr. Alvin Rosenfeld
“This charming children’s book about Ernestine, the over-scheduled poster child of today, has a lovely message delivered in an elegant and straightforward way: Maybe we would do better if we could add some real play back into our hurried lives. Maybe living life to the fullest has to include time to imagine and just be. I love this book; it is a wonderful accomplishment, beautifully – and playfully – illustrated. Bravo!”
--Alvin Rosenfeld, MD, co-author, “The Over-Scheduled Child,” Lecturer, Harvard University School of
Medicine
From Author Tammi Sauer
"Ernestine Buckmeister is on the go-go-go every day of the week. When she's not yodeling, knitting, tuba-playing, and karate-chopping, she's busy doing water ballet, sculpting, and mastering yoga poses. But...she longs for something more. In this wildly funny take on the life and times of an over-scheduled kid, Ernestine is a character worth celebrating."
--Tammi Sauer, award-winning author of
Cowboy Camp, Chicken Dance, Mostly Monsterly, and Mr. Duck Means Business
From PW
Lodding makes her children’s book debut with an addition to the growing bookshelf of titles about overbooked and overworked children. And like many of its predecessors, its message is more for the parents making the schedules and paying for the after-school classes than for kids who, like Ernestine, innately know that bouncing on a trampoline and playing imaginary games outside beats an exhausting week packed with organized activities. Both Lodding and Beaky (the Hailey Twitch series) deploy abundant humor to make the story’s earnest message more palatable.
Lodding’s prose is studded with punny quips and names (Ernestine’s instructors include sculptor Clay Lumpkin, yodeling expert Little Old Lady Hoo, and yoga guru Prakash Pretzel). For her part, Beaky provides
acrylic caricatures that really take off once Ernestine and her nanny start to mix up her schedule (Ernestine is seen playing tuba during swim lessons and accidentally giving her knitting teacher a karate kick) and when Ernestine’s parents try to track her down after Ernestine and Nanny O’Dear play hooky on a grassy hilltop.
From Author Christine Hohlbaum
“Take life by the scruff of the neck and shake it for all it’s worth!” That’s what my mama likes to say. But how can you grab life and give it a nudge if you don’t have any strength? Play is the best way to access your scruff-of-the-neck vision.
This October author Linda Ravin Lodding and illustrator Suzanne Beaky will release a most delightful tale of Ernestine Buckmeister, the most overbooked child on the planet. Her well-meaning parents assign her to daily afternoon lessons ranging from yoga to yodelling to knitting to karate. She longingly watches her neighbor Hugo bounce around his yard while she dashes from one appointment to the next (with the help of her nanny, aptly named Nanny O’Dear). One day she strikes all her time commitments to watch the clouds and
discovers a whole new world of creativity in the park. Once again Nature plays a central role in capturing our amazing imaginations. When the parents learn Ernestine has gone missing from one of her lessons, they attempt to track her down at each of them. By the time they end up in the park, they are frazzled. It’s a beautiful moment of realization that life can be lived to the fullest by simply being who you are.
The Busy Life of Ernestine Buckmeister is a great power of slow read for kids ages 4 to 8 and the parents who love them.
From The Corner on Character blog
The Importance of Being Ernestine
Think you know what it means to be over-scheduled? Think again. My Flashlight Press preview copy of The Busy Life Of Ernestine Buckmeister by author Linda Ravin Lodding came in today's mail and I cannot wait until October, when Ernestine makes her debut on the children's literature stage, and you get to meet the queen of the extracurricular.
The scene is all-too familiar: this precious prodigy can't ever play with her friend over the fence because she's rushing off to the next event on her calendar, kindly kept by Nanny O'Dear. Her parents, who've advised "live life to the fullest" and "make every moment count," have her scheduled solid with something extra every day of the week - sculpting and swimming, taking musical arts and martial arts, yodeling and yoga, knitting and no free time. She is one busy beaver!
And guess what? Just like a beaver, she'd rather be playing around outside. So Ern concocts the perfect plan to ditch her personalPDA and, when she doesn't show up on schedule one day, her parents get to walk in her shoes for a spell, crossing the bridge she built between what the child-in-her needs and what her parents want for their little girl. Not only do they get a healthy dose of empathy, but they ultimately learn a very valuable lesson about the importance of being Ernestine.
The eye-catching illustrations by Suzanne Beaky totally pop off of the pages, adding a marvelous magic to this terrific text. Put this one on your wish list; it'll undoubtedly serve an important reminder (that you'll want to revisit time and time again!) about encouraging your busy beavers to engage in purposeful play.
From Once Upon a Book blog
"...Linda Lodding does a wonderful job of pulling the reader into the story with a reminder to “live life to the fullest!” A goodmessage, certainly. But before long, Linda has the reader questioning this motto and how people can take it to unhealthy extremes. After all, how can poor Ernestine live life to the fullest if she never has time to play?
I must confess an immediate attraction to Suzanne Beaky’s colorful illustrations. The characters’ expressions are poignant without becoming exaggerated. The character placement and attention to detail encourage the reader to imagine and relate with all the silly and funny elements, while emphasizing a real concern over burning out due to an overabundance of activities. My favorite illustration, by far, is of Ernestine with her arms thrown wide open, inviting the characters around her and the reader to stop and inhale.
I love it when I stumble into – or have sent my way by well-meaning souls – a book that speaks to adults as much as it speaks to children. Linda Lodding does this very well. She reminds adults, children, and the parents and caregivers who love them about theimportance of play without being preachy. While this book is aimed at children ages 5 and up, I highly recommend it to parents and caregivers as well for its insight into the mind of a child who is suffering more than benefiting from a packed schedule.
This picture book encourages the reader to ask questions such as: What does it mean to live life to its fullest? How can we encourage our children to live life to the fullest? Why are learning activities such as the ones Ernestine participates in considered essential to having a full life? What is the importance of play?
I’d like to thank Linda for sending this wonderful book my way for review. It came at the most opportune time where “busy” has become synonymous to my name. It has reminded me to stop and inhale and remember what is most important. And to get back to blogging kidlit!"
From Pink and Green Mama blog
Your book looks adorable, I love the message you’re sending. It’s our parenting philosophy for our two girls. Right now is the time for
them to be kids and play; they can have schedules and busy routines later in life when they’re adults (if they want to).
-- MaryLea Harris
As they encourage their daughter to “live life to the fullest” and “make every moment count,” Ernestine Buckmeister’s parents haven’t a clue that their over-scheduled child has no time for that all important activity: play… imaginative, self-directed play! In reply to their well-meaning directive, Ernestine can only yawn from exhaustion. By the end of this revealing romp through her adult-inspired week, Ernestine, her parents and her nanny have all learned the importance of child’s play. Hopefully, parents reading this delightful book with
their children will absorb this lesson, as well. --Davis James, Lower School Librarian, Pace Academy, Atlanta, GA
" >> Click on "Green Eggs" for fun with Ernestine
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Maria from Salem, MA (USA)
