The Little General

"The Little General Goes to School" is the first in a series of children's books under the title "The Little General." The series is on character development in younger children using scenario driven lessons. The Little General was inspired by our pet English Bulldog named Mattis after the great Marine General who sets such a great example in strength of character while leading Marines in combat. These lessons while fairly typical of any childhood reflect the life of the military child as a tribute to our military families. The illustrations in this book are the work of my God Daughter Marisa Avenetti who very wonderfully and masterfully adapted the facial features of Mattis who we refer to as "The Little General" to look somewhat like a boy but somewhat like a bulldog. The Little General finds himself in scenarios challenging his strength of character and leads the reader to walk with The Little General through the scenario and the lesson in character development.

The Little General series of books begins with "The Little General Goes to School." In this our first book, the Little General is confronted with two new dilemmas on his first day of school; bullying and a friend who is in foster care. The Little General whose caricature was masterfully created by my God Daughter Marisa Avenetti places the Little General in illustrations depicting school, family and friends as well as the scenarios directly relating to the character lesson. The Little General assesses the moral dilemma of bullying and instinctively makes good judgement calls based on good upbringing and takes actions which lead to an amicable solution. The Little General still follows up with his mother because the event was somewhat traumatic and his mother uses an analogy to ground the lesson in terms the Little General (and the reader) can understand. The illustrations by Marisa actually depict facial expressions which closely resemble actual children's facial expressions, although The Little General intentionally somewhat resembles a bull dog, and lends authenticity to the message of the book. This collaboration between my God Daughter and I was an absolute gift I will always treasure. We hope you will enjoy this and follow on books in The Little General series.