Traveling Tootsie by Karen and Kathy Honaker Book Tour, Guest Post, & Giveaway! {4/7/23}

Review By LAWonder10:

Join in the excursions of “Traveling Tootsie”! This is an outrageous, yet cute, book about a boy and a girl, very busy parents, and a Teddy bear that comes to life.

I feel it is slightly too old for most 3 or 4-year-olds. It is too wordy. However, I do believe it is a very good book for older toddlers and young elementary-age children.

I feel it is a little much to visit so many places on one trip for an older mind, but especially for young children.  I feel it would be more effective to visit fewer palaces with more details about each place.

The places’ names will have very little recognition to the very young mind.

The illustrations were simple and brightly colored, which will attract very young minds to “look at the pretty pictures”. I feel the early elementary students will enjoy the words and “pretty pictures”.

The Hardback book is well made, with quality paper, and seems well bound.

I offer a Four Stars rating for this book.

I was gifted this book with no pressure for a positive review. This is my honest review.

Who knew a love of children’s books would start by going to the dentist? With a cavity, in what felt like almost every visit to the dentist, it could have been a traumatic place for a child, but, instead, it was a place of excitement!

We moved when we were 1 1/2 to a new town, and our dentist was in our previous Chicago suburb. Going to the dentist meant we got to drive by the house we used to live in when we were born, pass the preschool our older brother attended when he took us for “show and tell,” and sometimes stop at an old friend’s house/a promise of Dunkin’ Donuts on the way home. We always tried to arrive early to our appointment so we could find “The Little House” or “Mike Mulligan and His Steam Shovel” in the stack of books at Dr. Peterson’s office.

Twice a year we looked so forward to going to the cozy waiting room and finding our favorite books. There were many others as well. We remember a book about a dragon, “Don’t Put Me in the Zoo,” and “The Berenstain Bears.” We imagined how amazing it must have been to live in a tree house! Even the Archie comic books were a joy to read to keep the anxiety down. We would argue about who would have to go back to the dentist’s chair first because the other one got to stay in the waiting room with mom and read another book.

Having a twin sister with so many of the same memories from childhood has been a unique experience. We each remember different details that complete many of the stories of growing up in Illinois. Reliving the memories of having our own Traveling Tootsie as children were such a joy to capture during our writing process.

We hope this book brings happy memories to our readers, and we hope that children and their families can start their own Traveling Tootsie tradition to remember for a lifetime.

We also hope this book and tradition can make it easier for kids when their parents have to travel, whether it’s a short overnight trip or an extended deployment. We’ve bought many copies of our favorite childhood books for baby showers and for our own children, over the years. Our children are teenagers now so we slowly got rid of books as our children outgrew them, but we have kept copies of the ones that are special to us.

Our dream is that “Traveling Tootsie” becomes one of those books to keep for many children and adults in the years to come. We also aspire to have Tootsie visit several other cities. We can’t wait for new adventures!

Sadly, our children’s trips to the dentist when they were you didn’t involve a waiting room full of books to discover. They had Ipads, video games, and a few toys. Things sure have changed so we truly hope “Traveling Tootsie” is a book that kids will want to share over and over again with their parents.