Disclosure: I received this book for free in exchange for my honest review. Inside this post you will find my affiliate links. If you click on those links, I may or may not earn a small commission from qualifying purchases at no additional cost to you.
As a mom, I’m always looking for books that entertain children while teaching meaningful life lessons. Those are the stories that stay with a child long after the last page has been turned.
When Charlie was little Hugo The Happy Starfish series of books allowed me to do that. This is why I wanted to share ONE STEP AT A TIME by Suzy Liebermann does exactly that. Even though Charlie is grown we’ve kept the books in his keepsake tote to share with our friends and family and future grandchildren I hope to have one day.
In this adventure, Hugo discovers a candy wrapper featuring a giant chocolate mountain. Once he learns the mountain is actually the famous Matterhorn, he decides he simply has to see it for himself. For a tiny starfish, that dream seems almost impossible, but Hugo refuses to give up. Instead, he learns that every great journey begins with a single step.
My family loved the message this story shares. As we all know Children are often faced with challenges that seem too big to handle, whether it’s learning to read, riding a bike, making new friends, or tackling schoolwork. This story gently reminds them that they don’t have to accomplish everything at once. By taking one small step after another, even the biggest mountain can eventually be climbed.
The colorful illustrations are bright, cheerful, and full of details that will capture a young reader’s imagination. Hugo continues to be an engaging character who makes learning important life lessons enjoyable instead of feeling like a lecture. The underwater scenes are beautifully illustrated, and they help bring Hugo’s adventure to life.
One feature I especially appreciate is the inclusion of coloring and workbook pages in the paperback edition. These activities help reinforce the lesson of perseverance while giving children an opportunity to interact with the story in a hands-on way.
Whether you’re a parent, grandparent, homeschool family, classroom teacher, or librarian, this book offers a wonderful opportunity to start conversations about patience, determination, commitment, and believing in yourself. The lesson is presented in a way that young children can easily understand. You will see these books in our Summer Gift Guide and also our Back to School Gift Guide.
As someone who has homeschooled and spent years encouraging children to keep trying even when life gets difficult, this story touched my heart. We all face mountains that seem impossible to climb. Sometimes those mountains are much larger than we ever expected, but Hugo reminds us that success doesn’t come from giant leaps. It comes from taking one faithful step at a time.
I think that’s a lesson children need today just as much as adults do. If you’re building a library of books that teach character while still being fun to read, ONE STEP AT A TIME is a wonderful addition. I look forward to seeing what adventure Hugo takes us on next.
About the book:
Hugo is a little starfish with a big sense of adventure. One day he finds an empty candy wrapper with a picture of a huge chocolate mountain. Hugo discovers that his chocolate mountain is in fact a real mountain, which is called the Matterhorn and is located in Switzerland.
He decides to set off on a journey to find this mountain – a huge challenge for a little starfish!
Join Hugo as he climbs the Matterhorn, finds the secret of perseverance and learns to take one step at a time.
This book is a great tale to teach commitment.
ONE STEP AT A TIME is a story about the need for perspective, whatever mountains we face. This book is the perfect way to each kids to divide big challenges into little chunks and to take things one step at a time.
Teaching children life skills can be tricky, but with this exciting children’s book series your children will come across some of the most important lessons there are to be learned. Like Hugo, their journey to the real world will be full of character lessons along the way.
In Hugo, children, parents, and educators will discover a lovable and engaging role model with whom they can identify.
The book consists of 29 gorgeous illustrations showing a colorful and magical underwater world. The paperback book includes 10 coloring and workbook pages in order to intensify the learning process.
Children will laugh at the delightful characters, hold their breaths in suspense and love to read these stories over and over.
The series is suitable as a read aloud book for preschoolers or a self-read book for older children.
Hugo the Happy Starfish books were developed in conjunction with the author’s teaching experience at an International Baccalaureate® School and they support the different learner profiles and attitudes of the IB PYP curriculum.
Get your copy today and be sure to look out for more quality Kindle and paperback books published by HAPPY LANGUAGE KIDS PUBLICATIONS!
www.SuzyLiebermann.com
Meet the Author: Suzy Liebermann
A native of Germany and former resident of the Dominican Republic, Mexico, the Islands of the Bahamas and Switzerland, Suzy Liebermann—now living in the USA—has travelled the world in pursuit of language, art, and culture.
Having found it, she now shares it with the world’s teachers, parents, and children through educational literature. Leveraging her decades of global experience teaching in German, Spanish, French, and English with a degree in foreign language translation and a master’s degree in business management and international business, she launched Happy Language Kids Publications in 2010 as an interactive language learning program for children and their young-at-heart elders.
This program is particularly aligned with the aims and values she upheld as a teacher of cultural art and foreign language at a prestigious International Baccalaureate World School.
Character Development for Children
Believing that happiness can be learned, feelings can be understood and that building character based on a positive attitude leads to happy, content, self-confident and successful human beings, I have created this exciting series of charming books about HUGO THE HAPPY STARFISH.
The series of books on character education aims to help educate children about their feelings, their attitude, their choices and the consequences that follow and includes an introduction to the Spanish language, lessons of character, ecological alertness and life skills—all amid a backdrop of a colourful island and mystical underwater world.
I have always had a love for teaching and helping others. Being able to share the wisdom of the right attitude through my stories gave my life a new goal to make a difference in the world.
Today I live my dream of helping others to find the right attitude for life – because life gets so much easier with the right attitude. We might not be able to control life’s circumstances or other people’s actions however we can control our attitude towards them.
With lots of LOVE and HAPPINESS,
Suzy Liebermann
Thank you,
Glenda, Charlie and David Cates
