Stories and Novels
Peace Beyond All Fear
A Tribute to John Denver's Vision
This collection of short stories was featured on the home page....
by Hank Bruce
178 pages, 8 ½ x 11" trade paperback
ISBN 978-0-9797057-3-1 $19.95
Named 2008 Anthology Book of the Year
by New Mexico Book Cooperative
Peace Beyond all Fear is now available as an eBook on amazon Kindle. The price is only $2.99
You can download this Kindle edition even if you don't own a Kindle. All you need to do is download the app found on the book's page below to your PC, Laptop or other device and you can download any Kindle book.
http://www.amazon.com/Peace-Beyond-All-Fear-ebook/dp/B009EBN5J4
by Hank Bruce
178 pages, 8 ½ x 11" trade paperback
ISBN 978-0-9797057-3-1 $19.95
Named 2008 Anthology Book of the Year
by New Mexico Book Cooperative
Peace Beyond all Fear is now available as an eBook on amazon Kindle. The price is only $2.99
You can download this Kindle edition even if you don't own a Kindle. All you need to do is download the app found on the book's page below to your PC, Laptop or other device and you can download any Kindle book.
http://www.amazon.com/Peace-Beyond-All-Fear-ebook/dp/B009EBN5J4
Visits with the Old Indian Storyteller
by Tomi Jill Folk
196 pages, 8 1/2 x 11 trade paperback
ISBN 978-0-9797057
$19.95
Come, sit by the fire, and hear traditional stories and lessons from one who has so much to teach. And don't be surprised if some of the stories turn out to take you to distant lands, as well. For the one who tells the stories does not see them as belonging to any one group of people, but meant to be shared so we all can enjoy and learn from them.
Finalist in 2008 New Mexico Book Awards
196 pages, 8 1/2 x 11 trade paperback
ISBN 978-0-9797057
$19.95
Come, sit by the fire, and hear traditional stories and lessons from one who has so much to teach. And don't be surprised if some of the stories turn out to take you to distant lands, as well. For the one who tells the stories does not see them as belonging to any one group of people, but meant to be shared so we all can enjoy and learn from them.
Finalist in 2008 New Mexico Book Awards
Miracle of the Moringa Tree
Is this really a children's book? You be the judge. Actually, it is written for everyone who wants to help conquer the problem of hunger in so many parts of the world. Beautifully illustrated in rich colors, this title takes you along on the journey of two children who become Hunger Heroes, thanks to the generosity of a talking moringa tree. Come along and meet this tree whose leaves are like multi-vitamins, and whose seeds can be crushed and used to purify water. Almost everything written about Moringa is in technical language, but this book seeks to make this miraculous tree accessible to gardeners world-wide. In fact, as a map inside shows, it grows best where hunger is the greatest. But who ever heard of eating tree leaves? These, either fresh or dried and made into a powder, can be added to many foods and SAVE LIVES. Help the children spread the word!!
by Hank Bruce & Tomi Jill Folk
Illustrated by Miho Komatsu
Published by Petals & Pages Press
48 pages, 8 x 10" full color paperback
ISBN 978-0-9797057-9-3
Retail Price: $16.95Available from Amazon.com http://amazon.com/dp/1460949234
Notes for Parents & Teachers
This is a book with a purpose. It was created to help people learn about hunger and the moringa tree and how it can provide both nutritious food and safe drinking water. This tree can be one of the key solutions to global hunger, but we need to let the people know about it, and this can happen in the classroom, the livingroom and at the dinner table.
In this simple story two children, Amali (Hope) and her brother Njema (Good), become hunger heroes. In a drought stricken village in Kenya, starvation is knocking at every door. Mzee, the elder, tells the people not to give up and points toward the distant hills. That night the two children set off to find the food Mzee described. The next day they discover a moringa tree. This tree teaches them how to cook and eat the leaves, pods and seeds. She also teaches them how to purify the dirty water with the moringa seeds. Learning more about hunger and hunger solutions can be an adventure and a learning experience.
As a family, and in the classroom, discussion can lead to activities that span the curriculum including Social Studies, Language Arts, Math, Art, Music and Science lesson plans. You are invited to use the following suggestions to encourage critical thinking strategies and creative expression as well as open discussion about hunger, responsibility and working together. These are merely suggestions. What you do with these will depend on the age, functioning level and many other factors. The important element is to make it a pleasant experience where all are included.
Sharing, making the story an interactive experience
We encourage you begin by reading this story together with your children, or the students.
1. Before sharing the story, you may want to begin with a few questions about hunger, malnutrition and the causes of food insecurity.
2. You may want to pause frequently to allow children to share their thoughts and experiences, ask questions and define the problems and concerns being addressed in “Miracle of the Moringa Tree.”
3. You may also give each member of the family or class an opportunity to suggest what will happen next in the story. This can encourage thoughtful analysis of the plot and the characters involved. This can help instill sound reading habits that involve identifying key elements, following story line and making the characters come alive.
4. Allow opportunities for the children to ask questions, clarify what is happening and why. They can also have opportunities to respond to each other. Learning can be a dynamic participation sport where everyone gets to play.
5. Encouraging interaction without making it appear to be a test can be empowering. This can happen when discussion questions like the following are used.
You would put tree leaves in your salad, or on your peanut butter and jelly sandwich if ....?
Can children be hunger heroes?
How would you help spread the word about moringa?
Language Arts
1. As the story progresses all present can assume the role of one or more of the characters. For some families and classrooms this may involve taking turns reading. It may be fun to assume the role of various characters and read their lines. It can also become a memorable experience.
2. The children can make a list of unfamiliar words and their definitions. Does anyone in the family or classroom speak other languages, or is knowledgeable in other cultures? This is an opportunity to research other names for moringa. One teacher told us about how she had her students create a poster using over twenty different names for this life saving tree.
3. Perhaps everyone can work together to turn the story into a play. This will involve changing the sentence structure and deciding on individual roles. Will there be a narrator? What about sets? Can music be a part of the performance? Can this be done as a shadow play or puppet show?
4. As each character develops in the story write a physical description of that character. As a group discuss each character’s behavior. This can become a game when the participants write list of clues as their character description. Then they can take turns guessing which character is being described. This can be done like a TV quiz show.
5. Write a short poem about hunger, safe water or moringa that could be used to introduce other children to the subject. One teacher told us her students wrote a song about moringa.
6. Working in teams, create a commercial for moringa. This can be done as a video or as a print advertisement.
Social Studies
1. Have you ever eaten tree leaves?
2. What is Malnutrition? How does malnutrition affect an infant? A teenager? An elder?
3. Using the map on page 44 of “Miracle of the Moringa Tree” what is important about where moringa will grow well?
4. How can children be a part of the solution to hunger, malnutrition and a shortage of safe water.
5. Many families have researched recipes from around the world that use moringa leaves, seeds or pods. One of the most popular one we created is Moringa Chocolate Chip Oatmeal Cookies.
6. In different cultures moringa is used differently. Using a world map on a bulletin board show where moringa is used, what parts of the tree are used and how.
7. Connect with schools, churches, families or individuals in countries where moringa will grow and share information. Your family, or your class just may save a life, or many lives. This is what can happen when we share information and learn from each other.
8. How would you define a Hunger Hero?
Art
1. As a family, or as a class, create a moringa poster showing the parts of the tree and how each is used.
2. Create a board game that follows the journey of Amali and Njema and help them home with the leaves, seeds and pods from the moringa tree.
3. Make set of collector cards showing without words how moringa can be used. These could be used as a learning tool for children speaking different languages in different parts of the world.
4. Create a poster to illustrate the nutritional value of moringa leaves. This is shown on the back cover of “Miracle of the Moringa Tree.”
Science
1. It can be fun and easy to grow your own moringa plants. This can become a great gift idea too. You can be creative in designing and decorating a container for your young moringa trees. This can be a science project that can provide valuable information on how to best grow moringa in diverse climates.
2. Compare the nutritional value of moringa leaves with other common leafy vegetables like lettuce, cabbage, spinach.
3. What would be the advantage of growing moringa trees and chocolate trees together? What is an overstory tree? What is an understory tree?
4. Why is it important to dry moringa leaves in many parts of the world rather than canning or freezing them?
5. What do you think might be the advantages of using moringa seeds to purify water?
6. Where do we get moringa oil? What is it good for? This is another great subject for a science fair project.
7. What do we mean by the term “sustainable agriculture?”
These suggestions are only the beginning. Each family member, each student in the classroom can have great ideas that can help make these important subjects come alive. We invite you to share your moringa activities with us. We are all in this together and each one of us, regardless of age, can be a part of the solution, can be a Hunger Hero.
Thank you for being a part of the journey.
Tomi Jill Folk & Hank Bruce
by Hank Bruce & Tomi Jill Folk
Illustrated by Miho Komatsu
Published by Petals & Pages Press
48 pages, 8 x 10" full color paperback
ISBN 978-0-9797057-9-3
Retail Price: $16.95Available from Amazon.com http://amazon.com/dp/1460949234
Notes for Parents & Teachers
This is a book with a purpose. It was created to help people learn about hunger and the moringa tree and how it can provide both nutritious food and safe drinking water. This tree can be one of the key solutions to global hunger, but we need to let the people know about it, and this can happen in the classroom, the livingroom and at the dinner table.
In this simple story two children, Amali (Hope) and her brother Njema (Good), become hunger heroes. In a drought stricken village in Kenya, starvation is knocking at every door. Mzee, the elder, tells the people not to give up and points toward the distant hills. That night the two children set off to find the food Mzee described. The next day they discover a moringa tree. This tree teaches them how to cook and eat the leaves, pods and seeds. She also teaches them how to purify the dirty water with the moringa seeds. Learning more about hunger and hunger solutions can be an adventure and a learning experience.
As a family, and in the classroom, discussion can lead to activities that span the curriculum including Social Studies, Language Arts, Math, Art, Music and Science lesson plans. You are invited to use the following suggestions to encourage critical thinking strategies and creative expression as well as open discussion about hunger, responsibility and working together. These are merely suggestions. What you do with these will depend on the age, functioning level and many other factors. The important element is to make it a pleasant experience where all are included.
Sharing, making the story an interactive experience
We encourage you begin by reading this story together with your children, or the students.
1. Before sharing the story, you may want to begin with a few questions about hunger, malnutrition and the causes of food insecurity.
2. You may want to pause frequently to allow children to share their thoughts and experiences, ask questions and define the problems and concerns being addressed in “Miracle of the Moringa Tree.”
3. You may also give each member of the family or class an opportunity to suggest what will happen next in the story. This can encourage thoughtful analysis of the plot and the characters involved. This can help instill sound reading habits that involve identifying key elements, following story line and making the characters come alive.
4. Allow opportunities for the children to ask questions, clarify what is happening and why. They can also have opportunities to respond to each other. Learning can be a dynamic participation sport where everyone gets to play.
5. Encouraging interaction without making it appear to be a test can be empowering. This can happen when discussion questions like the following are used.
You would put tree leaves in your salad, or on your peanut butter and jelly sandwich if ....?
Can children be hunger heroes?
How would you help spread the word about moringa?
Language Arts
1. As the story progresses all present can assume the role of one or more of the characters. For some families and classrooms this may involve taking turns reading. It may be fun to assume the role of various characters and read their lines. It can also become a memorable experience.
2. The children can make a list of unfamiliar words and their definitions. Does anyone in the family or classroom speak other languages, or is knowledgeable in other cultures? This is an opportunity to research other names for moringa. One teacher told us about how she had her students create a poster using over twenty different names for this life saving tree.
3. Perhaps everyone can work together to turn the story into a play. This will involve changing the sentence structure and deciding on individual roles. Will there be a narrator? What about sets? Can music be a part of the performance? Can this be done as a shadow play or puppet show?
4. As each character develops in the story write a physical description of that character. As a group discuss each character’s behavior. This can become a game when the participants write list of clues as their character description. Then they can take turns guessing which character is being described. This can be done like a TV quiz show.
5. Write a short poem about hunger, safe water or moringa that could be used to introduce other children to the subject. One teacher told us her students wrote a song about moringa.
6. Working in teams, create a commercial for moringa. This can be done as a video or as a print advertisement.
Social Studies
1. Have you ever eaten tree leaves?
2. What is Malnutrition? How does malnutrition affect an infant? A teenager? An elder?
3. Using the map on page 44 of “Miracle of the Moringa Tree” what is important about where moringa will grow well?
4. How can children be a part of the solution to hunger, malnutrition and a shortage of safe water.
5. Many families have researched recipes from around the world that use moringa leaves, seeds or pods. One of the most popular one we created is Moringa Chocolate Chip Oatmeal Cookies.
6. In different cultures moringa is used differently. Using a world map on a bulletin board show where moringa is used, what parts of the tree are used and how.
7. Connect with schools, churches, families or individuals in countries where moringa will grow and share information. Your family, or your class just may save a life, or many lives. This is what can happen when we share information and learn from each other.
8. How would you define a Hunger Hero?
Art
1. As a family, or as a class, create a moringa poster showing the parts of the tree and how each is used.
2. Create a board game that follows the journey of Amali and Njema and help them home with the leaves, seeds and pods from the moringa tree.
3. Make set of collector cards showing without words how moringa can be used. These could be used as a learning tool for children speaking different languages in different parts of the world.
4. Create a poster to illustrate the nutritional value of moringa leaves. This is shown on the back cover of “Miracle of the Moringa Tree.”
Science
1. It can be fun and easy to grow your own moringa plants. This can become a great gift idea too. You can be creative in designing and decorating a container for your young moringa trees. This can be a science project that can provide valuable information on how to best grow moringa in diverse climates.
2. Compare the nutritional value of moringa leaves with other common leafy vegetables like lettuce, cabbage, spinach.
3. What would be the advantage of growing moringa trees and chocolate trees together? What is an overstory tree? What is an understory tree?
4. Why is it important to dry moringa leaves in many parts of the world rather than canning or freezing them?
5. What do you think might be the advantages of using moringa seeds to purify water?
6. Where do we get moringa oil? What is it good for? This is another great subject for a science fair project.
7. What do we mean by the term “sustainable agriculture?”
These suggestions are only the beginning. Each family member, each student in the classroom can have great ideas that can help make these important subjects come alive. We invite you to share your moringa activities with us. We are all in this together and each one of us, regardless of age, can be a part of the solution, can be a Hunger Hero.
Thank you for being a part of the journey.
Tomi Jill Folk & Hank Bruce
Stasha Dog's Secret Dream
At first she was afraid when the hot air balloons would fly overhead. Then one day Stasha discovered that they were piloted by friendly people, and that began her secret dream. This story activity book to color shows us about hot air ballooning in the Albuquerque, NM area from a small white dog's point of view. Full of information, and a story to tug your heart, Stasha will entertain people of all ages.
Written by: Stasha, with help from Tomi Jill Folk
Published by Petals & Pages Press
36 pages, 8 ½ x 11" Storybook to color
ISBN 978-0-9797057-8-6
Retail Price: $5.95
Review by Cynthia Davis http://www.cynthiadavisauthor.com/Review.htm
This is a cute "storybook to color" of one dog’s dream of riding in a hot air balloon. Stasha never saw a balloon before moving to New Mexico with her people. At first she was frightened, but then she developed a "secret dream that only my people know." Stasha wanted to fly in a balloon. Finally she gets a chance, but…you’ll have to read the book to find out if Stasha’s dream comes true.
Along the way to achieving her dream, Stasha shares information about balloons, ballooning, and the Albuquerque International Balloon Fiesta in a way children will be able to understand. The coloring book format of the book includes line drawings in black and white, by Hank Bruce, which are appealing to young readers. Even those just learning to read will enjoy coloring the pictures and having their parents read the story over and over. The cover has color photos of the actual balloons featured in the book and of Stasha herself.
Written by: Stasha, with help from Tomi Jill Folk
Published by Petals & Pages Press
36 pages, 8 ½ x 11" Storybook to color
ISBN 978-0-9797057-8-6
Retail Price: $5.95
Review by Cynthia Davis http://www.cynthiadavisauthor.com/Review.htm
This is a cute "storybook to color" of one dog’s dream of riding in a hot air balloon. Stasha never saw a balloon before moving to New Mexico with her people. At first she was frightened, but then she developed a "secret dream that only my people know." Stasha wanted to fly in a balloon. Finally she gets a chance, but…you’ll have to read the book to find out if Stasha’s dream comes true.
Along the way to achieving her dream, Stasha shares information about balloons, ballooning, and the Albuquerque International Balloon Fiesta in a way children will be able to understand. The coloring book format of the book includes line drawings in black and white, by Hank Bruce, which are appealing to young readers. Even those just learning to read will enjoy coloring the pictures and having their parents read the story over and over. The cover has color photos of the actual balloons featured in the book and of Stasha herself.
Oblivion
a novel place to live
What would happen if an abandoned ghost town, was suddenly owned by an artist, and inhabited by a group of individuals usually confined to the fringes of society? And what if the artist met a poet, frustrated by life in corporate America? And what if the mineral rights to the land beneath this town were so desired by a powerful family, that they would go to any lengths to acquire them? This full length novel explores all of these questions, and more.
Now available as a Kindle edition. Kindle price only 99¢
by Hank Bruce
234 pages, 6" x 9" trade paperback
ISBN 978-0-9797057-0-0
$19.95
When author Hank Bruce was a student at the University of New Mexico "in another century," he visited the ghost town of Madrid, NM, and started to consider all of these "what ifs." To his amazement when he moved back to NM in 2003, his Oblivion or Madrid as it is actually known, has become a haven for artists and musicians, a destination for tourists in the Santa Fe and Albuquerque area.
You are invited to join his imaginary village and meet some truly unique characters who are on the front line of the environmental movement, where people of all faiths and none work and play in harmony. All, that is, except for that one family, who tend to pose some very real problems.
Oblivion, a Novel Place to Live is now available as an eBook on amazon Kindle. The price is only $2.99
You can download this Kindle edition even if you don't own a Kindle. All you need to do is download the app found on the book's page below to your PC, Laptop or other device and you can download any Kindle book.
http://www.amazon.com/s/ref=nb_sb_noss?url=search-alias%3Ddigital-text&field-keywords=Oblivion+A+Novel+Place+to+Live
A brief excerpt from Oblivion can be found on Hank's author page at:
https://www.amazon.com/author/hankbruce
Now available as a Kindle edition. Kindle price only 99¢
by Hank Bruce
234 pages, 6" x 9" trade paperback
ISBN 978-0-9797057-0-0
$19.95
When author Hank Bruce was a student at the University of New Mexico "in another century," he visited the ghost town of Madrid, NM, and started to consider all of these "what ifs." To his amazement when he moved back to NM in 2003, his Oblivion or Madrid as it is actually known, has become a haven for artists and musicians, a destination for tourists in the Santa Fe and Albuquerque area.
You are invited to join his imaginary village and meet some truly unique characters who are on the front line of the environmental movement, where people of all faiths and none work and play in harmony. All, that is, except for that one family, who tend to pose some very real problems.
Oblivion, a Novel Place to Live is now available as an eBook on amazon Kindle. The price is only $2.99
You can download this Kindle edition even if you don't own a Kindle. All you need to do is download the app found on the book's page below to your PC, Laptop or other device and you can download any Kindle book.
http://www.amazon.com/s/ref=nb_sb_noss?url=search-alias%3Ddigital-text&field-keywords=Oblivion+A+Novel+Place+to+Live
A brief excerpt from Oblivion can be found on Hank's author page at:
https://www.amazon.com/author/hankbruce