I wrote in my Diversity for Daisies post about my project of trying to find books for each of the 10 Girl Scout Daisy Petals.  But of course, there’s more to the Daisies than the petals, which cover values.  We’ve also worked on things with practical life skills applications, like the Between Earth and Sky journey, the Safety Award, and two of the financial literacy leaves – Making Choices and Talk It Up.  I’m a little disappointed that I wasn’t able to find diverse titles for all of these, but they have all been engaging books related to the topic at hand.  They’re good for bringing some important real-life topics in a fun way, whether or not the child in your life is a Girl Scout.

Sunday Shopping by Sally Derby. Pictures by Shadra Strickland. Lee & Low Books, 2015.
Full disclaimer: Shadra Strickland was on a panel discussing picture books at Kidlitcon this past November.  I was so intrigued that I came home and immediately checked this book out of the library.  I loved it. My daughter loved it.  There’s a touching story of a special weekly ritual between a grandmother and granddaughter with illustrations that are an ingenious blend of oil painting and collage.  It’s also great for bringing up financial literacy and budgets with kids.  Another great choice to this (thanks, teacher blogger whose name I’ve lost track of!) would be A Chair for My Mother by Vera B. Williams.

Nurse Clementine by Simon James. Candlewick, 2013.
More than anything, Clementine wants to be a nurse.  When she gets a nurse kit for her birthday, she immediately proceeds to bandage each member of her family up.  Her father, mother and dog all submit to be bandaged without complaint, even if they’re clearly unhappy when told to leave the bandages on for a week.  Only her accident-prone younger brother runs away from Clementine – at least at first.  The Quentin Blake-style scratchy pen and watercolor illustrations were perfect for this light-hearted book where the humor comes both from Clementine’s bandaging style and the making and breaking of a pattern.  We read this for the Safety Award, of course, and followed it up with practice putting on adhesive bandages correctly and putting together backpack-sized first aid kits.

Butterfly Park by Elly Mackay. Running Press, 2015.
This was one of the three books we read over the long process of earning the Between Earth and Sky journey, which covers compromises and relationships (we read Ladybug Girl and Bumblebee Boy by David Soman and Jacky Davis for this; the more recent Ladybug Girl and the Best Ever Playdate includes an African-American girl as the other main character and would also work for this topic) as well as butterfly development (we read Cybils finalist Handle with Care by Loree Griffin Burns.)  In this story, our young heroine moves to a neighborhood that has a Butterfly Park with no butterflies.  She is the catalyst that causes her neighbors to come together to make a garden that will attract the butterflies the park is named for.  It’s perfect inspiration for kids, and illustrated with luminous art that everyone wanted to keep looking at.