Posts by Janet Ann Collins

Did you know nursery rhymes weren’t originally written for children? Many of them were coded political statements back when freedom of speech didn’t exist. For example, I believe Humpty Dumpty was about overthrowing a king. And, back in the Middle Ages, most people didn’t have the kind of musical instruments we often use. The common…

Carl Watson is an educator who has written a book about a boy who has become deaf.The plot is interesting and, at times, exciting and the characters are believable. Some of the descriptions of signs he uses are a bit difficult to picture because those descriptions need to flow without taking the reader out of…

Recently I’ve been reading a series of books from the library by Trudi Truett. The series is called Explorer Academy and it’s about a group of kids who travel around the world to be learning, but must also cope with evil villains and scary dangers. Each book (I’ve only read some of them so far)…

Kelly Yang has written a book all Middle Grade kids should read. Three Keys is about Mia Tang, who lives and helps her parents with the Calivista Motel in Southern California. Mia Tang has friends of various ethnic backgrounds and some of them are likely to be deported to Mexico. This well written book helps…

Today is the first day of the month of May, and is often called May Day. May Day is known as a call for help because the French phrase, m’ aide’ (I’ve forgotten how to spell it correctly) meaning ‘help me”, is pronounced like May Day. When I was a kid sometimes I’d see performances…

I’ve shared this story on Earth Day in previous years, but think it might be new to some people who read it. Back in the 1970s I was working at California School for the Deaf when we had an infestation of head lice. None of us had ever heard of those critters before since they…

A few decades ago I had never heard of gluten, but now it is mentioned everywhere. When I tell people I have food allergies they assume I can’t have gluten. (I can.)Actually, people who react to it have a sensitivity, not a true allergy. But gluten is mentioned often, and some of the labels saying…