Colorful, incredible Costa Rica

If you know a family heading off to Costa Rica, or even just one that loves nature and exotic travel, The Travel Adventures of Lilly P. Badilly: Costa Rica written and illustrated by Debbie Glade is certainly worth buying and bringing along.

Picture, if you will, a brightly colored mature millipede who has been bitten by the travel bug (pun intended) and you’ve got one of your main characters, Grandma Nellie O. Badilly. Nellie, along with her hubby ‘windy’ Grandpa Willie Z. (my 8 year old son Coleman’s fave) and talented Granddaughter Lilly live in teeny, tiny hole in Concourse A at the Miami International Airport. Soon they are stowaways inside a business man’s briefcase on a flight to Costa Rica despite Lilly’s tremendous fear of ‘millipede-chomping spiders.”

Knowing very little about Central America and in particular Costa Rica, I was surprised to learn courtesy of Lilly’s guidebook that there are over 800 different types of birds, hundreds of mammals and more than 35,000 different kinds of insects there. No wonder Costa Rica is experiencing a boom in eco-tourism. I had no doubt Lilly was going to encounter more than her share of scary spiders on their journey to the rain forest and Poas Volcanic National Park.

Everything seemed to be going according to plan until a storm and an injured beetle arrived on the scene. Glade weaves rhyme and humor along with fascinating facts seamlessly into this tale of an adventurous family getting themselves into a very sticky situation involving a cruel spider. Read how Lilly’s inventiveness and musical talent save the day and the vacation. You’ll laugh while you learn and will be looking forward to Glade’s second installment in Lilly’s series of travel expeditions.

Included with the book is an engaging audio CD filled with music (remember that Lilly plays the piano and loves music) and songs plus Costa Rican sound effects bringing Lilly’s adventures alive and making this a great gift for the entire family.

Readers can have FREE SHIPPING on Glade’s website. Just
enter FBS1208 (case sensitive) in the Shipping Code Box on the order page. http://www.lillybadilly.com/store.ph

Debbie Glade is the author, illustrator and voice talent of the award-winning children’s picture book The Travel Adventures of Lilly P Badilly: Costa Rica, published by Smart Poodle Publishing. She visits South Florida schools with her reading, writing and geography programs. For years, Debbie was a travel writer for luxury cruise lines. She writes parenting articles for various websites and is the Geography Awareness Editor for WanderingEducators.com. She blogs daily at smartpoodlepublishing.com and is running a writing contest for kids that can still be entered today. To learn more, click here.