Estimated reading time: 3 – 5 minutes
Eric Mathe’s new book, Tommy Turtle: Exercise is Fun! uses a combination of words, engaging animal characters, and colorful illustrations by Rey Marz to teach kids an effective exercise routine. Even more importantly, the illustrations and instructions are carefully designed by this author/illustrator duo to demonstrate the correct way to do each exercise in a fun, visual, easy-to-understand way.
If your little couch potato could use some gentle encouragement from an expert trainer, this book is just the thing you need.
Watch this interview on News 9 with Eric Mathe:
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That’s nice because from what I gather, the most exercise kids nowadays get is moving their thumbs while playing psp or nds, or using mobile phones.
.-= Lucrecio Emerito?s latest really cool blog post…I Just Had A Page Rank Of 2 But? =-.
We’ve come a long way from our parents saying “Go outside and play!”, followed by our protests of “But there’s nothing to do!”
Imagination and boredom are a childs folly.
Climb a tree
Make a fort
Play hide-and-seek
Get a few kids together for a pick-up game of baseball
Ride your bike, explore the nieghborhood
Play in the rain, jump in the puddles
But there’s GOT to be something better for a child than a regimented workout.
.-= William Whapham?s latest really cool blog post……on Stump, Westminsters Best in Show =-.
I’d have to look at the book with my own eyes, but it seems to me that the best way to encourage kids to get active is with characters that they are familiar with and enjoy. In my day, it was the Ninja Turtles and the Power Rangers. Their martial arts encouraged kids to go outside and be active.
However, I applaud the effort of the people behind this book. If the book makes a change in even one child, then it has become a valuable addition to the universe.
.-= Trey – Swollen Thumb Entertainment?s latest really cool blog post…Eliminate Failure From Your Vocabulary =-.
Well, Trey, I don’t see the Ninja Turtles and Power Rangers out there encouraging exercise…
And for anyone else, the cost and red tape of licensing those characters for a book that does would be ridiculously prohibitive. Tommy Turtle and his friends are adorable. Using original art, Mathe is able to ensure that they’re shown using the proper form, but also shows the fun in exercise – it’s not just a dreary “how to” like you’d hand out in P.E.. Children, at this age, are usually willing to accept new storybook friends, particularly in the form of cute, anthropomorphized animals. And if pretending to BE a turtle, a rabbit, or a lion gets them more engaged, so much the better – they’re exercising their imaginations along with their bodies. (The key to success, for any character in a book, is the reader’s interest and ability to identify with it. This is true for both protagonists AND antagonists – we just generally want our finer natures to prevail.)
Is this book a cure-all for childhood obesity and lack of activity? No. But if it reaches young readers and helps some of them? It will have been a great success.
.-= Holly Jahangiri?s latest really cool blog post…A Puppy, Not a Guppy! =-.
Exactly. That’s a great way to end up with a repetitive stress injury by the age of 15, too. What I love about this book is that it shows the RIGHT way to do each exercise. Form is so important (to achieve the maximum benefit and to avoid injury) but it’s something too often taken for granted, especially with kids (they’re so resilient, unlike us older folks who might break, sprain, or dislocate something the first time we do it wrong). Even adults could learn from this, but it’s written for younger kids and makes exercise look like fun. Get ‘em while they’re young – maybe good habits WILL stick.
.-= Holly Jahangiri?s latest really cool blog post…A Puppy, Not a Guppy! =-.
Sad to say, Bill, this sometimes depends on the neighborhood. Knowing you have three registered sex offenders just two or three blocks away doesn’t give a parent the warm fuzzies about letting their kids “explore the neighborhood.” And too few lots have climbable trees (I actually planted and grew one for our kids – it’s wonderful, perfect – and they don’t like to climb it).
I agree with you – in principle. It’s just not always that easy. I remember running wild around the neighborhood with at least 3-5 other kids every day, and we knew which TWO people in the entire neighborhood disliked kids and wanted us to stay off their yards, and we did – we were AFRAID of them! We wouldn’t have vandalized their homes in rebellion. We weren’t afraid in the “gee, they have a gun and might shoot us” kind of way. More like the “they might call the cops and we’d get in trouble just for LOOKING at their yard” way. But the rest? No fences – the entire neighborhood was our “back yard.” Fall and scrape a knee? No one would’ve thought of SUING a neighbor because their kid fell over a rake in someone else’s yard, right? Or broke an arm falling out of the neighbor’s tree. Kids just did those things. That doesn’t work so well, most places, today.
It seriously doesn’t work well in a drought at 110 degrees.
But I’m NOT saying you’re wrong. Just that I wish this COULD be easier.