Keeping Clean.

Elizabeth Levin is a professor of psychology at Laurentian University.

The Looking After Me series is a six-volume set of short stories designed to inspire a healthy lifestyle in young schoolchildren. Designed to complement health education, each story has activity suggestions for parents and teachers. In Eating Well, James and Ethan learn the importance of a balanced diet. Grandma teaches Emily and Tom the value of staying fit in Exercise. Soon the whole family is more active and less time is spent watching television or playing video games.

With all the recent media attention on the need to wash one’s hands as a way of avoiding the flu, Keeping Clean is a useful addition to the children’s literature in this area. Kurt and Karim learn how animals keep each other clean; did you know a bird eats scraps from a crocodile’s teeth, which keeps the teeth clean? However, some of the advice provided might seem questionable, such as shampooing only once a week and drying thoroughly after bathing to prevent skin itching.

Safety reminds the reader of various situations that can pose risks and the heroine, Molly, recalls the rules about dealing with strangers when an unfamiliar man offers her candy.

Taking Medicine tells the story of how Jimmy learns about different medicines and how to take them safely. Jimmy moves from thinking that drugs can offer magical cures to recognizing that taking the wrong drug can make you very sick. He learns that drugs often require special instructions as to when and how to take them and that all drugs should be stored securely. Jimmy also learns about prescription and over the counter medications. Unfortunately, the story contains a reference to giving a child cough syrup, a procedure that is no longer recommended by Health Canada.

The final book in the series is Teeth. Marta learns about taking care of her teeth when she worries that because one of her own baby teeth is loose she may need to have it extracted, which happened to her dog Billy after he developed a decayed tooth. While the dental tips, such as brush twice a day, are valuable, this book begins with a questionable reference to doggy chocolate treats; since dogs should not be fed chocolate, this minor error starts the book off on the wrong path. For discussion purposes in the classroom and where a teacher can be sure to correct any errors, these books may have some merit but due to the inaccuracies described and others, these are not a first-choice purchase.