A Rainbow of Thanks
A Rainbow of Thanks is a children’s chapter book for ages 8 and up and it follows a young girl one day as she travels the world on a rainbow.
Kate has just turned 11 and is about to have the adventure of a lifetime! While out playing, she steps into a rainbow and is magically transported to another place on the planet. Everywhere she goes, she meets a child of a different nationality who tells her about their cultural beliefs about rainbows.
When she finally gets home, she has quite an amazing story to share, but there are some who don’t believe her. Yet in the end, the proof arrives just in time and leaves the adults in her life with dropped jaws and shocked expressions.
Travel, tradition and trials, Kate goes through it all.
Chapter Excerpts
Introduction
Hi. My name is Kate. I’m 11 years old, just had a birthday, and boy that was a strange weekend! But before I tell you about my most incredible weekend ever, I should probably take a few steps back to last Friday morning.
It all started in English class with my teacher Mrs. Guffy; my friends call her Mrs. Tuffy because she always gives us a ton of homework. And today, she decided to assign us homework… over the weekend… on my birthday! And not just any homework, a hand-written report!
I had to write a report about another culture of people on my birthday weekend! Like there is really anything out there besides America and China. America is where I live, and China is where all the cool toys and clothes come from.
But anyways, she swore there were more civilizations out there, and she gave us the rest of the class time to go to the library and find a book about one to write our report on.
So I went to the library with my class and asked the librarian to point out a book about a culture, and she started rattling off a whole list of places that as far as I knew, had nothing to do with cultures.
“Who do you want to know about? The Chinese, Japanese, Malaysian, African, Egyptian, Australian, Russian, Norwegian, Canadian, Mexican, Polynesian, Indian, Arabian, Irish, German, English, Scottish, Dutch, Native American, Latin American, Indonesian, Danish, the list goes on. You know there are two hundred and forty eight nations in the world and even more nationalities.”
“Oh, I don’t care about nationalities,” I informed her. “I just want to know about other cultures.” After all, Mrs. Guffy didn’t say anything about nationalities, so why should I do any extra work?
“Well,” She spoke up, “different civilizations and nationalities have different cultures. You must first pick a nationality if you are going to study their culture.”
“Oh.” I said glumly. Boy was I confused now! How on earth do you go about deciding on a nationality when all you’re interested in is cultures for your report?
“It really is an amazing project.” she said, “You know there are a rainbow of cultures to choose from.” She smiled as she walked away. Yeah, she can smile, I thought to myself, she doesn’t have to write this report. So I jotted that down; “A Rainbow of Cultures” and that was the beginning of my report. I figured I’d finish it before class on Monday. Hey, you know as well as I do that everybody does it.
“Now don’t forget,” Mrs. Guffy interrupted as the bell rang to go home. “Your reports are due on Monday, so you’ll have to work on them this weekend.”
Ugh!
So like I said before, it was my eleventh birthday, and my parents were having a party for me that night. Little did I know, it was a family party where my great aunt Bertha, my uncle Lenny, my grandmother Edna and my grandfather Merle were the main guests. Don’t get me wrong, I love them and all, but I was kind of hoping for something a little more young; like a pizza party with my friends from school or a roller skating party, or anything other than a nice dinner with the family. I mean, you only turn eleven once. But that’s what I got – family.
And speaking of what I got, you won’t believe what my presents were. Can we say last century?
Keep reading? Buy the book. 🙂