One Special Day: A Story for Big Brothers & Sisters {Review + Giveaway!!}

“Does hav­ing a new brother or sis­ter make you into more than you already are? Spencer is about to find out. He’s as strong as a bear, funny as a mon­key, and as wild as a tiger. But on one spe­cial day, every­thing changes. Now Spencer is strong, funny, wild, brave, free…and gen­tle, too.“Dis­ney Publishing’s pic­ture book, One Spe­cial Day: A Story for Big Broth­ers & Sis­ters (writ­ten by Lola M. Schae­fer & illus­trated by Jes­sica Meserve) is absolutely precious–and couldn’t be more timely in our house with another lit­tle one on the way!

Hon­estly, I have a hard time with some of the sib­ling books out there and strug­gled with find­ing the “right” one 2 years ago when Big Brother was about to earn that title for the first time. I found many books where the baby was a lit­tle girl (and didn’t want that because we were hav­ing a boy) and lots of jeal­ousy issues pre­sented in many of the books. One Spe­cial Day doesn’t present that issue. Instead, it shows how you can be the same fun kid you’ve always been, but also be kind & gen­tle with your new baby sibling.

Through a series of absolutely gor­geous illus­tra­tions (I really think the illus­tra­tions help make the book extra fab­u­lous),  we see Spencer doing typ­i­cal “boy things”–like being as strong as a bear! But, after that one spe­cial day, we also see a gen­tle side to Spencer as he takes on the role of being a big brother!

It’s such a sweet story! And, in my preg­nant, hor­monal state, I actu­ally got a bit teary once we got to this point in the book. Thus far, this is actu­ally my favorite book for my boys about becom­ing a big brother!

As I men­tioned before, the illus­tra­tions are fab­u­lous and I LOVE all the ani­mals. But, more impor­tantly, I love the sweet nature of the book and the fact that there is no clear spe­cific gen­der of the baby. So, whether you’re hav­ing a boy or a girl (or don’t find out what you’re hav­ing ahead of time), the book can work! As a mom of boys, I also espe­cially love that the book focuses on being sweet & gen­tle with the baby. I think it’s extra great for boys to see that it’s good to have a kind & gen­tle side!

Here’s a note from the author on how the book is help­ful for older siblings:

“We never know what a reader will take away from a book. Of course, ONE SPECIAL DAY shows that the home­com­ing of a new sib­ling is a cher­ished moment — one that can pro­vide an oppor­tu­nity for the older sib­lings to embrace the new baby and wel­come him/her into the fam­ily. There are many play­ful books that show the bits of jeal­ousy that pop up, but per­haps there is still room for a book that offers the per­spec­tives of joy and kin­ship. I love the way Jes­sica shows all the fan­tasy ani­mals off to the side — still present, but not in the fore­front. I think that’s a great visual for chil­dren to see that for a few hours, or even a few days, the rou­tines of who we are and what we do are put on hold for the new baby. As a writer, I hope that older sib­lings take away a role as nur­turer and pro­tec­tor of their younger broth­ers and sis­ters.”

If you already have a lit­tle one (or more) and are expect­ing, this book is a must-have–especially if you already have a boy!! And, this would make a fab­u­lous shower gift–or gift for the older sib­ling when you go visit a new baby. I know it can be hard on the older sib­lings when the baby gets all of the atten­tion. So, this would be a fab­u­lous thing to bring to the older sibling(s) for some­thing special!

Right now, you can pur­chase One Spe­cial Day (A Story for Big Broth­ers and Sis­ters) on Ama­zon for $10.97. Or, you can.…

 Win It!!!

Give­away Has Ended!

One lucky Mom Endeav­ors’ reader will win an auto­graphed copy of One Spe­cial Day!

WINNER:

Con­grat­u­la­tions, Kelly!! Hope you enjoy!

Enter Closed

1. Sim­ply leave a com­ment telling me what sounds/looks best about the book to you!

(up to 5 entries per per­son: if you’re already fol­low­ing, thank you, just make sure you leave a com­ment & let me know!!)

Give­away will end on March 30th at 10pm PST. Win­ner with a valid entry will be selected at ran­dom using random.org and be noti­fied via email (win­ner will also be posted on this post). They will have 48 hours to claim their prize before a new win­ner is selected. Give­away open to U.S. Res­i­dents, 18 years and older.

Dis­clo­sure: I received com­pli­men­tary copy of book for review pur­poses from Dis­ney Pub­lish­ing through Fam­ily Review Net­work. As always, all opin­ions and expe­ri­ences are my own. *This post con­tains affil­i­ate links.