by Loni Stel

Created on: October 31, 2010   Last Updated: November 01, 2010

Cracker McMunkle Crow is a delightful little children's book!  It’s another one of those books that disappeared after barely taking it out of the mail envelope. This time my ten year old daughter whisked away a book "I" was suppose to read first and review!  I caught her reading it as she was giggling through it.  I finally got to read it, and loved it!

Cracker McMunkle Crow by Leah Swan is the story of a quirky black crow, Cracker McMunkle.  He goes on treasure hunts to add things to his “Grand Collection”. But  his treasure hunting comes before his family and friends, even hurting some of them, including playing “finders keepers” with a necklace he found off a little girl who pleaded for it back.

Though Cracker McMunkle Crow is not a "Christian" book nor does it have Bible verses quote,  it taught great lessons through out that gave great opportunities to talk about what we would and should  do and for some, what God would want us to do.  This would be great for public school teachers to read and discuss in their classroom as well and develop into some teaching tools for writing assignments.  

At the end of each of the 15 chapters in this 59 paged paperback book are "Natural Nuggets of Knowledge" - science facts for that chapter. One thing I learned is that crows can actually tell humans apart by their facial features. They also will literally drop nuts onto roads so cars would drive over and crack them!  WOW!  It was fun learning this with my children . . . we could even work it into some science lessons for homeschooling!  Our children have been paying attention a lot more to black crows.  We've not noticed any dropping something on the road yet!  The black and white illustrations in this book are by Kristen Hooper are also delightful!

Though a short book, it's packed full of character value and learning lessons.  I can see it bringing great discussions . . . and probably even teasing if someone would be referred to being like Cracker McMunkle Crow!   I hope that the author, Leah Swan, continues with writing more books of this character value like this and a great learning experience.  What a great way to influence children!

A complimentary book of, Cracker McMunkle Crow was provided at no cost to me by the publisher, Little Cygnet Press, in exchange for my honest opinion of it.

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