Fun With Kids: Read For Books charity drive, Charlie The Sweeper book
SINGAPORE – Make family time all the more special with these ideas and activities.
Read For Books donation drive
Encourage your kids to keep reading, as their hobby could help children from less privileged households.
From July 1 to 31, the National Library Board’s donation drive Read For Books will give a book to beneficiaries for every 10 people who read for at least 15 minutes.
The charity effort has been held annually since 2016 as part of the National Reading Movement.
For 2024, the beneficiaries are children from the WondeRead and kidsRead initiatives and social service agency MindSG, which cares for persons with intellectual disabilities and their families.
Low-income families with babies and toddlers will be given starter kits under the Ready to Read @ NLB initiative.
Anyone can take part in the book donation drive by registering as an individual, school or organisation. Read at any venue and submit photos of the activity.
Find out more or sign up at str.sg/urLT
Charlie The Sweeper picture book
Charlie The Sweeper author and illustrator Sarah Ang wants readers to know that everyone has unique traits. PHOTO: EPIGRAM BOOKS
Charlie, a sand bubbler crab, is in awe of other creatures’ talents. He is “just a sweeper”, as he tells a sea krait and a hawksbill turtle.
But, thanks to a tern, Charlie discovers that he is also an artist who makes beautiful patterns on the beach.
With her second picture book Charlie The Sweeper, Singapore author and illustrator Sarah Ang wants readers to know that everyone, including themselves, has unique traits.
She had come across “artworks” by sand bubbler crabs at a beach. “Then, I asked myself: ‘But do they know that they are amazing?’” says the 43-year-old.
The story is dear to her heart as she feels a kinship with Charlie, thinking that others are more remarkable.
“Once, at a gathering, I introduced myself as ‘just a homemaker’,” she recalls. “The person I spoke to responded: ‘You are not just a homemaker.’ That struck me and stuck with me till today.”
Ang was a scientist before she became a freelance illustrator and stay-at-home mum to three girls aged 12, nine and seven.
Her first children’s book The River That Brings Us Life, about the clean-up of the Singapore River, was published in 2022.
In Charlie The Sweeper, she includes a glossary about the creatures featured in it.
Buy a copy at $14.90 on publisher Epigram Books’ website at str.sg/nhXT
Disney Junior’s Ariel
Animated series Disney Junior’s Ariel is inspired by the story of The Little Mermaid (1989 and 2023). PHOTO: DISNEY+
Mermaid princess Ariel is inviting pre-schoolers to go under the sea with her in a new animated series on Disney+.
Disney Junior’s Ariel is inspired by the well-loved 1989 animated film The Little Mermaid and its 2023 live-action update.
It follows eight-year-old Ariel’s adventures in the underwater kingdom of Atlantica.
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She is joined by familiar sidekicks, Sebastian the hermit crab and Flounder the fish, who look the same as from the movie 35 years ago.
But there are surprises elsewhere. For example, fan-favourite villain Ursula the sea witch is now Ariel’s loving aunt. Look out for new characters too, such as Ariel’s best friends, mer-children Lucia and Fernie.
Four half-hour episodes, each comprising two stories, are now available on the streaming platform.