I Can Do It!

Book 3 in the Walnut Grove series encourages children to believe in themselves!

Lehman, Dana.
I Can Do It!
May 2010.
Lehman Publishing.
Review copy provided courtesy of publisher.

The characters of Walnut Grove return to teach readers another important life lesson in I Can Do It! After Bucky's near drowning experience in I DOUBLE Dare You!, he learned to take responsibility for his own actions and came to the decision to take swimming a bit more seriously. After spending a great deal of time practicing and learning how to swim, Bucky feels confident in his ability to swim and catch a frog on a lily pad. While some of his Walnut Grove friends discourage him from doing so upon remember his last swimming adventure, Bucky believes in his ability to swim now and eager sets forth, proving that his belief in himself, coupled with lots of hard work has enabled him to learn to swim.

In I Can Do It!, the Walnut Grove characters return to experience a new adventure, visiting a magic forest. It is there that Silly learns the important lesson to believe in himself. After displaying fear of being hurt while building a tree house, Willy lets Silly's friends know that he has become invisible because he "doesn't have the confidence to believe in himself." With much encouragement from his friends and the reminder that he is in a magical forest, Silly begins to believe in himself and eventually does help out building the tree house.

The important lesson to be learned is that belief in yourself is a form of magic - if you believe you can do it, you WILL do it... this is a very important lesson for children who hesitate and seem unsure of themselves, allowing them to find the confidence to try! Definitely a great book for households, libraries and classrooms, as you never know when a child will need this form of encouragement and message!

Reading/Learning Activities:

• In their summer journal, have your child write a list of new things they would like to try/achieve this summer. This will give them a purpose to do something productive each day and to track their success as it is achieved.
  
• Choose one of the topics mentioned in their summer journal and encourage your child to believe in his/herself by trying something new this summer. Ask them about something they would like to do but are a bit fearful of - use words of encouragement and gentle prodding to help them realize that their belief in themselves will enable them to achieve a personal goal! Keep a scrapbook of your child's attempts to achieve their goal - including failures from day one until the day they reach their goal. This will be neat to turn into a book and a great reminder of the summer's achievements!

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