Melinda Hardin

Published in 2013, Hero Mom by Melinda Hardin and illustrated by Bryan Langdo is a book I read every year for Month of the Military Child. This is best geared to my kindergarteners and first graders. The illustrations are terrific, depicting a military mom deployed and showing different aspects of her job. So many books are geared toward men in the military, however for those students whose moms are deployed this book sharing is a sense of pride. The author compares the moms to superheroes, show more a perfect comparison for our young students. I appreciate that the illustrations represent many ethnicities. show less

A little boy describes what his father does during his time being deployed, and why he is a superhero. There are very little words in this book, but it still made an impact with the help of the wonderful illustrations that went along with it. I thought this book was great, and I loved how it was for the "itty bitty" readers. There are so many parents that are deployed and it might be hard for young children to fully understand why their parents leave. This book does a beautiful job of show more explaining deployment in a very simplistic manner, while also keeping it fun and cute. show less

After reading this book I decided that I like it quite a bit. The Illustrations were very detailed and went with what was said on each page. For instance, on the page where it said “He can’t fly well, sometimes he can” the illustration was of army men jumping out of a plane with parachutes on their backs. My favorite thing about this book was how it challenged each reader to think about what the children of soldiers go through, and how they view their military parents as superheroes or show more someone to look up to. The big idea of this book was for it to relatable for children whose fathers are in the military. It talked about the many things that their father might do like traveling for long periods of time, the clothes they wear and some of the equipment thy use. show less

I love this book for several reasons. First, I think that it's central message is a powerful one. It addresses that not all hero's wear capes and that several children grow up without a parent at home all of the time because of their duties to the military. The language in this book is light, which allows it to take serious concepts (guns, tanks, etc.) and make them not so scary. The illustrations that accompany the text are detailed and colorful. The plot explores the different aspects of show more military life by comparing them to things a superhero would have, which is a cute way of explaining all of these things. show less