Studying Duty or Leaving For Toy Land

‘A responsible person is someone who takes care of her things.’
Israeli author Asaf Shani has been teaching and consulting individuals, groups, and firms on the subject of conflicts and negotiations. His deep understanding of human behavior and, more importantly, the skills needed to escape the pitfalls of conflicts, created the Jade Life Skills Series, of which there are almost ten published volumes. Jade is Asaf’s daughter and serves as the main character in the series. Willie Castro is the adept illustrator.Jade loves playing with her toys – Bernie the bear, Patch the crocodile, Sami the Octopus, Linda the doll, and Rafael the rocking horse. Though she plays games with them and serves them tea she neglects caring for them when they are not being used. At night she leaves the toys outside, a fact that disturbs her father very much. One day she makes costumes for all the toys and yet when it is dinnertime she leaves the toys in their costumes out side in the rain. Jade’s father has an idea – he suggests a play about Toyland he has written. When the curtain opens Jade sees toys wet and sick, and deciding to leave for Toyland. The other character in the play is Danny (the owner of the play’s toys who finds the note the toys left saying “Danny, you don’t treat us well, so we’re going to Toyland where we’ll be loved’. The play’s message moves Jade to change and she promises to take the responsibility for keeping her toys clean. Jade’s father is pleased – and Jade prepares for bed, clean, happy and at ease. Lesson learned – Jade’s toys are now always cared for and in her room instead of outside in the night.Not only is the story well written and illustrated, but also the interaction between Jade and her father make the situation real and relatable to children. This is a very fine lesson about responsibility, shared in an entertaining and meaningful way. ‘Asaf’s ability to accurately tease out the essence of each skill, along with his capacity for visualizing the theoretical concepts, create in this series a clear source of information that enables parents to teach these vitally important skills to their kids.’ So true! Grady Harp, October 18

Cute story with few important messages
What surprises me the most here was the second main character. This is my first book about Jade and I took it because it looked interesting but I didn’t know that it will be the father who will talk to Jade about responsibility. Usually, it’s a mother who talks to children about important thing in their lives, so this was a nice change to have a father who works with children too.The story is simple and straightforward and it is easy to understand for even small kids. The illustrations are great, my personal favorite is Sami the octopus.I like the way how the responsibility is presented: like caring for others. I think that a lot of people today skip that lesson in their childhood, or that they forgot it. Reading about Jade may teach them or remind them that caring about other people, who are not family or friends, is also our responsibility.

Amazing book on responsibility
Working with young children, keeping toys surprisingly is one activity that no one likes to do (though ironically they like to help adults keep their items). This book really helps my class of 4 year old to rationalise why displaying responsibility by keeping their toys is important in a light-hearted and fun way. Many of my class children could relate to Jade and the book encourages them to think critically of how a simple action of not keeping toys would negatively affect the posple and things around them. Highly recommend to parents and teachers.