“Bluster Blue Jay: Not MY Fault!” takes a hilarious look at boastfulness, gratitude, and kindness. Parents looking for a kid-friendly book that teaches virtues will love this book.
Mother Melania Salem is re-launching “Bluster Blue Jay: Not MY Fault!” an animal fable that gives a genial take on boasting, patience, and thankfulness. "Bluster Blue Jay" is beloved by parents and children alike. It is available at Amazon and on Mother Melania's monastery's website.
More information on the book can be found here:
https://www.amazon.com/Bluster-Blue-Jay-Teaching-Children-ebook/dp/B09JKYW9GH/
and a free pdf download is available here:
https://dl.bookfunnel.com/bmwdj1mo6u
"Bluster Blue Jay" is the fourth book in Mother Melania's "Fearless and Friends" series. These modern-day animal fables teach virtue in a genial, child-accessible manner. The series is being re-launched in conjunction with the August 2022 release of the fifth book in the series "Slowpoke Sloth and Busy Beaver: Easy Does It!"
Each book in the series addresses certain virtues and their corresponding character flaws. In addition, they all strive to balance personal responsibility with compassion, while celebrating healthy community. "Bluster Blue Jay" contrasts the aptly named Bluster with the also aptly named Grateful the Crow. When Bluster gets lost on his way to Lookout Point, he blunders upon Grateful the Crow and Fearless the Fire Duck, who were also hiking up to Lookout Point. They graciously agree to take him on their hike and their patience and gratefulness are greatly challenged. But when things seem the bleakest, will Bluster surprise everybody and change his ways?
Cayce-Grace Halsell brings all the animals to life with her realistic yet endearing illustrations. The series is published by Holy Assumption Monastery.
Mother Melania has a background in agricultural research, theology, and education (elementary to college). This helped shape the creation of the books by allowing her to present deep topics in easily grasped forms.
Mother Melania wrote this series when she was helping out with the religion classes at an Orthodox Christian Classical School near the monastery. Among other things, these classes focused on teaching the traditional Christian virtues and vices. The challenge was to do this in an engaging, non-judgmental way. As Mother Melania had already written several series of children's books, she started looking for a premise for a new series.
The premise came when the sisters were returning to the monastery after being evacuated due to fire. On the way home, some of the sisters stopped at a novelty store to pick up toys for children visiting the monastery. Among the toys was a rubber duckie wearing a fireman’s jacket and hat. Thus was born Fearless the Fire Duck, along with his virtuous and not-so-virtuous friends.
Mother Melania hopes that these books will present the virtues as what they are - powers that allow children and adults alike to live the lives of joy and love that God meant them to live.
The author made a point of thanking the children of St. John of Damascus Academy for their part in the creation of the book, saying: "They helped bring this series to life with their input and general love of life."
Those interested in learning more about the series can visit here:
Children's Books by Mother Melania | Holy Assumption Monastery
