Casey Rislov's Blog, page 2
April 21, 2016
Children’s Book Week Voting of Books
Voice your choice! Voting for the Children’s & Teen Choice Book Awards is open now through April 25 at ccbookawards.com!
April 14, 2016
Family Story Telling Time
What creatures fascinate you? What places do you want to visit? What surprises you or scares you? All of these questions help create stories.
A game we have been playing recently is taking turns telling the same story. Someone starts with a character and setting and passes the story off when just enough detail has been given. The next person might talk about what the character likes to do, what he sees or even a problem. Then the 3rd person can take this information into another direction.
You can quit the story at any point. We have taken one turn each with the 4 of us or taken many. We might take turns by being next to the person talking or being chosen by the last person talking. No specific rules. Just exploring a fun way to make up stories together. Lots of smiles. Lots of laughs. Try it!
April 7, 2016
Books that Helped Shape the Writer I Am Today
Books can help shape our lives. Do you want to learn something? Is imagination a daily get away for you? Do you want a new perspective that life hasn’t given you yet? Books can do this! Books are beautiful, interesting, give knowledge, allow you to travel, can take you to another place real or fantasy and many other reasons for entertainment or growth.
Picture books that have influenced me as a writer are usually full of color, imagination & fun and words written make you want to read it again. They can be nonsense books like Dr. Suess has written or ones of love like Love is a Handful of Honey by Giles Andrea. Silly and fun loving books I enjoy that I know influence me are The Magic Hat by Mem Fox or Who Ate All the Cookie Dough by Karen Beaumont. Lessons learned in clever ways are Little Blue Truck by Alice Schertle or Bear Feels Sick by Karma Wilson. These are favorite books of mine and there are so many to list but these always stand out. May you find inspiration of any kind in books that find there way in your hands.
March 23, 2016
Everyone Can Enjoy Reading
Books are portals to many worlds- ones that are real and may never visit to the ones of fantasy and fun. I think most people fall between enjoying fiction and nonfiction at any given time. Sometimes we want to learn about new things we may never see or how to try something new of interest. But sometimes we want to get lost in worlds made up and characters you want to know or try to understand. Books help us understand the world from these different perspectives. It gives us a little more knowledge and a little more understanding. A great teacher will figure out what their students might enjoy from the world of so many books! Young children love rhythm and rhyme, colorful pictures and things that make them laugh. As the child ages, they want to understand the world more through real ideas and emotions in stories that present characters that keep their interest so they can understand even more. These are my ideas and I agree with many in this NPR blog write up. May reading keep your soul young but wise at the same time.
March 10, 2016
Goodreads Book Giveaway
Starts March 17th!
Goodreads Book Giveaway

Open the Doors to You
by Casey Rislov
Giveaway ends April 17, 2016.
See the giveaway details
at Goodreads.
March 8, 2016
TIME….
My thoughts on TIME……
❁Allows for reflection and change
❁Can heal
❁Can create new dreams
❁Can give us forgiveness for past regrets
❁Helps uncover who we are and who we were
❁Can allow us to realize sometimes we help drive our destinations but other times we cannot chose our fates
❁Gives us blessings and hardships
❁Brings us friends for a lifetime or for a moment
❁Gives us family to hold close
❁Brings insight and wonderment
❁Shows us to enjoy little moments now
❁To discover & work towards big goals
❁To be proud of who we are and where we’ve come from
❁To live in the moment now but to remember our past and help build our future
❁To look around and find new discoveries
❁To savor the moments with little ones as they too will grow up
❁To enjoy what’s here and now and what it could become
January 5, 2016
Grief & Loss Article Worth Reading
“Grief must be witnessed. These three modeled (Joe Biden, Kathie Lee Gifford & Sheryl Sandberg) that even though life does end, our love does not. They have shown us that life continues after loss. I hope you will turn to your loved ones right now and acknowledge all that they have dealt with in loss. Notice their courage, their authenticity and witness their grief.”
December 24, 2015
Merry Christmas!
December 10, 2015
Two of My Favorite Things!
December 1, 2015
The Title (Cowboy Poetry)
By Garland C. Kennington
They’re known as buckaroos in the Great Basin
And as vaqueros out California way
They’re called pen riders in the big feedlots
And cowhands in Wyoming, they say.
But there is a title that each of them covets
It’s a title that’s not freely given.
It’s a title that has to be earned over time
It’s a title toward which each is driven.
And if in your life you are privileged
To ride with one of these men
It’s best to watch and to listen
And learn all the things that you can.
He’ll teach you the ways of the horse and the cow
He’ll teach you to ride and to rope
He’ll teach you the ways to care for the land
And how to read ear marks and brands.
He’ll show you how to treat women
In a kind and courteous way
He’ll teach you respect for this country
But, you won’t learn it all in day.
He will have earned the respect of his neighbors
By the way he lives every day
He’ll be known and admired by the way that he works
Not just by the things he may say.
He may never hear that he’s earned it
And wouldn’t acknowledge it even if he did
For the title of cowboy is special-
It’s not handed to just any old kid!
(In Wyoming’s Cowboy Poets & And Their Poetry)