Glow Word Books

Glow Word Books Blog

Short Kids Poem: What do you want to be?

short kid's poem
My teacher asked her students
“What would you like to be?”
The answers we came up with
Were not a shock to me.

Sam wants to hide hyenas
In other people’s pants.
And Pat will teach a werewolf
The basic moves of dance.

John will study rowing
Just like his dear old dad.
They’ll cross a chocolate river
On dinghies painted plaid.

Blake will train ten tigers
To paint with just their tails
While Todd will stack six seagulls
On top of thirty quails.

Some of these jobs might shock you
Or frighten or appall,
But I think they are normal
Because I’ve done them all.



Enjoy this poem?

Check out my book My Sister Steals My Toys. It contains 109 other funny poems I wrote.

The problems with a television birth

television birth

TV is a form of entertainment, so it makes sense that television births usually feature crazy scenarios. But it’s sad that many people go into labor believing their birth will be like TV. For example, TV births always start with their water breaking, but most water doesn’t break until a woman is in serious labor. My water broke six hours into labor (all over the midwife’s shoe!) when I was just about done.

I don’t understand why TV women yell at their husband during birth. Yes, birth was painful — but my husband was my support network. I needed his love to keep me going. Why would I yell at the man who was rubbing my back, calming me down with his soothing voice and helping me remember how to breath. TV does a major disservice to woman by telling them to yell at their partner instead of sharing the moment of love. It’s like yelling at your mum for hugging you after you fell off your bike.

I could list more and more examples, but I think they can all be summed up by this idea: birth is not a medical emergency — it’s natural process that your body was designed to accomplish. There’s no need to include all that craziness in your idea of birth.

Why are we giving away poems and madlibs?

free poems
As you probably noticed, we’ve started to write a free kid’s poem every Tuesday and online madlibs every Wednesday. Why would an indie publishing company give away their work?

First, we want to take care of our readers. How many of you have called a giant company and waited on hold just to be told you had pushed the wrong number in the menu system and would have to wait on hold again? That is everything Tasha and I hate about heartless businesses — so we’re choosing to run Glow Word Books differently. We want gratitude to be the foundation of our business. We appreciate that you took time from your busy day to read one of our books or blog entries, so our way of saying thanks to you is a free poem.

Laughter is the best medicine. It’s cliche, but my wife and I believe that most problems can be resolved with a good laugh. When you’re in better spirits, you have more energy to tackle issues that are tricky — you also have more emotional energy which means more patience. Whenever we’re annoyed, we always try to solve it first with a laugh. Hopefully our writing can help you to take on the world.

You get what you give. We believe that what goes around comes around. We want to live in a world where people share poetry, short stories, laughter and ideas. The best way to create that world is to follow your own advice.

Online Madlibs: Giant Squirrel

Mad Libs! Jumble of pencils
Fill out these questions to generate your own silly mad libs letter instantly online! (Hint: a Verb is an action. An adverb usually ends in “ly” and describes an action (like slowly). A noun is a person/place/thing. An adjective describes a person/place/thing.)

Adjective:

Phrase:

Profession:

Adverb:

Food:

Thing:

Person:

Thing:

Emotion:

Food:


This is a silly online story that will be completed with your words. Please answer the questions below and click the generate button to read the story with your words included!

Why I gave up magazines

i gave up magazines
I gave up reading magazines a year ago. I always had a love-hate relationship with them… I would binge on them from the corner store and then wonder whatever possessed me to get them. I knew the pictures were photoshopped, the models were anorexic and that I would never look like either — but that didn’t make me give up the magazines. It just made me read them differently (with more curiosity and less jealousy).

I never liked the amount of advertising. Pages and pages of commercials — even before the table of contents. Pages and pages of products between the stories. However, I have a degree in marketing so it was interesting to see what techniques (mainly sex) they were using to sell products.

What ultimately made me give up magazines was the advertising in the articles. A friend’s company got in a big magazine not because they were the best at what they do, but because their public relations people struck a deal to do a story. The stories were a ruse! The best places to travel were paid advertisements. The top tips were propaganda from the highest bidder. Everything in the magazine was fake. I was paying money to read advertisements.

So I gave them up… and now spend more quality time with my son!

I did nothing and everything

sea toy
I normally write for an hour before bed. It’s not my most productive time of day, but beggars can’t be choosers. I’m just happy to have a consistent time for books each day.

But last night my son wasn’t interested in sleeping. He thought bedtime was a fabulous opportunity to jump, finish up a few rounds of peek-a-boo and play with toy fish. You know what? He was right. Some things are more important than sleep or writing.

Why your profession shouldn’t matter

be nice to cashiers
Why is your profession always the first thing people want to know about you?
Is it an easy conversation starter? Is it more interesting than the weather? Is work so universal that it’s the only way to bond with strangers?

Regardless of the reason, I think there is a more nefarious side about sharing your profession: make make assumptions about who you are and what you’re capable of.

My experiment with professions
When I lived abroad in New Zealand, I had a blank slate because literally nobody in the country knew who I was. That was extremely terrifying, but fabulous for experimenting with my idea of self and who I wanted to be. I have had a variety of careers in my past, so when I introduced myself to new people, I selectively mentioned a previous profession.

Technical work was fabulous for finding a place to live. I sounded responsible and respectful — but most people weren’t interested in talking further about what I did.

However, it was hard to make friends in the hostel talking about keyboards and mice so I introduced myself as a writer to them. I think people assume good story-tellers make for interesting friends.

My Professional Surprise
The biggest surprise actually came from working a retail job in New Zealand after just quitting a technical one in America. As a computer technician, I had Harvard PhDs asking me for advice because they trusted my opinion and saw me as their equal — even though I didn’t have a big-name degree. As a cashier everyone assumed I was a dumb slacker whose job would hopefully be replaced by a vending machine. I had personally made the line long to spite them and had stolen all the $5 bills so they had to get five ones instead.

What did I learn from all of this?
The first lesson I learned is that we are all people — regardless of our profession. As Simon mentioned earlier this week in my wife’s post about labeling people, we should see people as “a fellow human who happens to do a job” rather than a stereotypical, inhumane role. I don’t understand why we put so much emphasis on what we’re trained to do… it’s just training.

The second lesson I learned is to be nice to all people (even cashiers!) because they’re people. Their job is just where they’re working, not who they are. If you start talking to cashiers, you’ll realize they have hopes, dreams and aspirations… just like you…