The GF5 takes a bite out of student hunger

The GF5 takes a bite out of student hunger

Hi everybody! When my mom and I started the Geeky F@b Five series, we always knew that tackling student hunger was an important issue because it is a more common problem that I thought. 

When I was is grade school, I had no idea that some of my classmates would get food on Fridays to last them the weekend because they didn’t have much food at home.

In my own school district and most schools in our community, school nurses keep a food pantry at the school. They hand out food on Fridays for kids so they don’t go hungry over the weekend. The kids don’t have to share their food with anyone.  The meals consist of packaged and microwaveable foods like cheese and crackers, soups, cereal, and granola bars. When I volunteered with my mom at the River Bend Foodbank, we and hundreds of others, helped fill these weekend “backpack” food packages.  It sure seemed to me not that wasn’t much food to have for 6 meals, but our food bank only has so much food to feed thousands of families every week.

To help combat student hunger, one of the most exciting projects in our community is called the “The Student Hunger Drive.”  Schools compete to see which one can collect the most food and the winner gets a big party. In this book, we decided that the GF5 girls would focus on helping their new friend, Fiona, at their own school, Earhart Elementary.

Like Fiona, kids usually don’t like talking about their hunger. So we created her little brother, Freddy, who loves food and can’t stop talking about it! Fiona thinks he has a big mouth and is not ashamed at all.  But what’s important is that the GF5 wanted to help their friends and all kids who depend on their school food pantry. Even Hubble, our snarky kitty, wants to help, so in the book, he has to get over himself and sacrifice his favorite thing for the cause!  

I hope you enjoy this book! Does your school have a backpack program? To help maybe you and your friends could help donate time, food, money to your local food pantries to help students just like the Geeky F@b Five!

-Lucy

 

Some of my best friends are animals.

Some of my best friends are animals.

Hi, everyone! I am so excited about DOGgone CATastrophe because it’s all about ANIMALS!! Ever since I was little I have always loved all kinds of animals. I even wrote about white rhinos in third grade and wanted to save them. We don’t have rhino’s in my neighborhood, but my friends and I all have pets! Do you? I have 3 cats, one of my friends has an old dog and a puppy who is learning not to bite, another one has two cats and two dogs, my other friend has a puppy Husky and two cats.

They are  all so stinkin’ cute!  I love them all (except for the puppy that bites). This book was fun to write with my mom because it’s about pets finding homes.

Kids at one of the schools in my own town helped our local pet shelter by raising money for food and toys. They even went to the shelter to practice reading to the dogs and to play with them. Sometimes my brother goes to the animal shelter with his girlfriend just to pet the kitties.

The PickURPetz app in this book is so cool. We got the idea when one of the characters in Lucy’s class talks about his grandpa using the dating app to find friends!  So we thought, “What the heck? Pets are people too!”  The app the girls create makes it easy for people to find the pet that fits best in their home.

The girls use their skills to make an app which is hard to do, but as the Geeky F@b 5 always say, “When Girls Stick Together, We Can Do Anything!”

Hope you enjoyed reading!

Lucy

P.S. In the book, Sofia named her two cute guinea pigs Ada and Grace. Do you know why? Well, Sofia is a total computer geekette, and she named her furry little guineas after two famous women pioneers in computing. The first woman was Ada Lovelace, who was actual English royalty!  She was a mathematician who laid the foundation for computer coding. Ada lived in the 1800’s! 

The other amazing computer scientist, Grace Hopper, was actually a rear admiral in the US Navy. She managed the huge early computers and even came up with the term “computer bug” when she found in a moth in an early computer!! She died in 1992. Both women are amazing and paved the way for women to be successful in technology! -LL

 

On a Mission to Save the Monarchs

On a Mission to Save the Monarchs

Hi everybody,

I had so much fun writing this book with my mom.

When I was in the second grade, my teacher brought in monarch caterpillars in a cool lab where we could watch them go through their metamorphosis.

We had so much fun watching them form into the chrysalis. I loved seeing them come out, and their wings are super cool. But my favorite part was seeing them fly away into the sky! Knowing that they will be going to a safe place was a relief.

But, I also learned that Monarchs and bees are pollinators and very important to our food supply.

Have you heard that Monarchs are dying by the millions and that bees are also dying in their colonies? In my book, we talk about how and why habitats are being destroyed, and it made me think that we needed to save them.

I went home said, “Mom, we HAVE to save the butterflies!”

It is big dream that many people in our country and in Mexico are pursuing. People are planting special plants, creating safe spaces, and not spraying harmful chemicals in the hopes of saving our precious pollinators.

I hope someday people will discover that we CAN make a difference and build homes for them with special pollinator friendly plants.

That is why I wrote this book, because it’s something everyone should care about.

Go plant milkweed or discover other plants that bees and butterflies love for your corner of the country!

The Trouble with Hubble

The Trouble with Hubble

 

Lucy Lareau and her buddy, Tom Kitten.

 Hi and welcome to my very first blog.

Yeah, everyone asks, is Hubble real?

Yep!!!

In real life, Hubble is named Tom Kitten. When I was little, I couldn’t say “Kitten,” so I said “Chit-chin,” so his nickname is, Tom Chichin!

He is a Himalayan kitty, which is like a combo of a Persian cat (supper fluffy) and a Siamese cat (pretty gray ears and face). His flat face is very special to him. It really just looks like he ran into a skillet and it does not help him when he eats — the food has to be a mountain just so he can grab a tiny piece of food!!

Mom says he looks like an Ewok on Star Wars.

Tommy basically he thinks he knows everything; I mean he is sooo spoiled, so we all get over it!

Do you have a cat or a dog? Some people think that cats hate tummy rubs, Tom doesn’t have tummy rubs he has “Tommy rubs.” He lies on his back and stretches his legs up and out so we can scratch his armpits and chin. He’s a goof.

Another silly weird thing he does is he has a basket on top of our fridge, and he jumps way up there and sleeps in his kitty condo. When we say “Tommy!” his little smushed head pops up over the top but he won’t come down unless he feels like it, and when we open and close the ‘fridge, his little head shakes every time.

He loves my brother Gabe and lies on his bed, so we say that Tom has adopted Gabe.

Tom has done some really crazy things in the past. The most dramatic thing is he accidentally caught his fur on fire!

We were having dinner with company and we put candles on the table. In our house the cats are allowed on the table (yeah, I know it’s bad) so he jumped on the table and one of our good friends said “Oh, he is going to catch on fire!! my mom was like, “No, he won’t…,” then in like a half a second, he walked by a candle and a part of his tail caught on fire!

We all yelled, which scared him, so he got running and we had to catch him. HE was okay, but have you ever smelled burned hair? Ew!

Do you have pets with crazy stories? Share them with me on Facebook anytime. Hope you like the GF5 and you are always welcome to hang with our gang!

Lucy and Hubble