bright april

during her days of neighborhood challenges april insists on staying on the sunny side of life and her joyful menagerie of enjoying and going to school and learning everything she can

And while her older brother away in the military, a worker strike going on in the community where April lives inspires her father to come up with a plan to solve the problem.

Soon April herself becomes interested in becoming a top and winning Brownie Scout. She also learns the loyalty of the head scout who befriends her as a best friend later on.

Close To My Own Heart

This book brought back memories to me of my own experiences growing up as a Girl Scout near Tokyo, Japan and later as an adult woman becoming a Den Mother @ Webster Groves, MO. where I helped to sponsor a group of Girl Scouts, my daughter Tiffany among them for about four years. Starting out in scouting before I ever even entered the first grade in Japan, our first camping trip taught us everything from how to pitch a tent to how to spot faeries who would show up as invisible assistants to do everything from put out a fresh baked plate of chocolate chip cookies to cleaning up the campgrounds for us. I was faithful to Girl Scouting myself right up to the age of thirteen after I had dreamed regularly of becoming an advanced Cadette and sporting the dark green uniform dress. Just as her mother before her Tiffany's sash was splashed from top to bottom with every patch and award won possible.

Margueritte De Angelo

The author of the book Bright April whose mother gave her that nickname because of her sunshine countenance wrote and illustrated almost thirty child books altogether. Although this particular book was written in the 1940's and based on the German town of Philadelphia where the author lived, the groundbreaking award winning book offered a solution to an attitude of prejudice and portrayed love, acceptance and the offer of a hand of friendship. Angeli born in the late 1800's also won other awards such as several Caldecott awards. The greatest award of all, her gift of art and writing blessed many.