Spenser Loves St. Louis — Melanie Brooks

A small dog, Spenser, and his mother explore the history and geography of St. Louis, Missouri. He discovers fun animals: bald eagles, butterflies, and Clydesdale horses. He visits the Gateway Arch and the new Cardinals baseball stadium. He enjoys frozen custard at Ted Drewes and learns about the Mighty Mississippi River. This is the second in a series of childrenAEs books that offer children and the adults in their lives fascinating, challenging, and compassionate learning experiences about different cities and regions of the United States. These stories of Spenser base their appeal on his personality and the fact that he does very cool things with his traveling companion, his mother. Spenser possesses character traits that children can relate to and that adults want children to emulate: curiosity, compassion, and a sense of adventure. He details his travels so children can learn the history, culture, and geography of different parts of the US. He encourages children to participate in community activities to feed hungry children like the St. Louis Food Bank. Spenser practices environmental stewardship and models good citizen behavior. In this book, Spenser learns about conserving electricity by turning off the lights, something every child can learn to do. Activities and tasks in the book offer the opportunity to earn points. A 100% point score enables the young reader to become a member of SpenserAEs Honor Roll. This and other activities including free lesson plans for teachers can be found on his website at www.spensernation.com.