Why Most Christmas Gifts for Kids Simply Wind Up Collecting Dust And How To Pick Great Christmas Gifts For Kids

Online, November 28, 2010 (Newswire.com) - With so many new hyped up Christmas gifts for kids each year, it is hard to know what the kids will like. Parents and kids are often easily lured into buying the latest electronic craze, toys with many bells and whistles, and complicated remote controls. However, research shows that these are not the best Christmas gifts. The more bells and whistles and electronic gizmos a toy has, the more likely it is to collect dust in your home shortly after Christmas. So which gifts for kids are the ones to put on your shopping list this year?

Have you ever noticed that your kids often have more fun playing with the boxes, wrapping, ribbons, empty cereal boxes and milk cartons? Have you ever wondered why that is? The more simple a toy is, the more a child gets to use his or her imagination. So, it seems, the more flashing lights, the more buttons, the more pre-recorded sounds and gadgets, the less room for a child's imagination.

In a year when the economy is still concerning many families, we can't help but to consider what type of Christmas gifts for kids will not only delight on Christmas day, but will entertain and spark your child's imagination the whole year through. At a minimum, consider buying some classic children's books or fun and educational kids books for your little one's stocking this year. Just think, for less than $20, you can have a shiny, hardcover kids book that has the power to transform the heart and soul of your child for years to come--not just on Christmas day!

In our search for great kids books, we found a brand new children's book series that should be part of every family's personal library. Just released in September, The Secret Life of Mitch Spinach http://www.MitchSpinach.com is our number one christmas gift for kids or at least a great stocking stuffer depending upon your budget.

The authors of The Secret Life of Mitch Spinach have two young children, a girl and a boy. Months before their first child was born, they began to delve more deeply into infant and maternal nutrition and kids healthy eating. Health and wellness were priorities for their family, and they wanted to give their children the healthiest start possible. When their daughter started Kindergarten and was bombarded with junk food on a daily basis, they decided to do something about it. After doing a review of the literature and not find kids books with good healthy role models, they set out to create new kids books that would not only entertain kids but motivate them to eat more fruits and veggies. "We know how difficult it is to raise healthy children in a fast-paced, junk-food-filled world", says Jeff Hillenbrand, "so we decided to combine our expertise in health (Jeff holds a BS in exercise science) and writing (Hillary holds a BA and MA in English and is an English teacher) to created Mitch Spinach, a healthy role model for children." http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=T_0i2jyNFiQ

They wrote the first kidsbooks in the series, The Secret Life of Mitch Spinach, with a passion to help abate the trend in nutrition-related diseases, such as type II diabetes, childhood obesity, ADD, ADHD, and chronically low immune systems. As parents, they know that kids don't like to be lectured about eating. However, they also knew that kids desperately needed a cool hero who espouses a healthy lifestyle for them to emulate. "We hoped that parents would catch the allusion to their old friend Popeye, and kids would love hearing about the new super kid on the block, Mitch Spinach", says Hillary Feerick.

"We were lucky enough to collaborate with renowned family physician and best selling author Joel Fuhrman, M.D., whose books we had read and utilized in our journey to healthy eating as a family", says Jeff Hillenbrand. In fact, each book in the Mitch Spinach series contains a healthy recipe and a "Secrets for Parents and Teachers" section, written by Dr. Fuhrman, that explains many of the nutritional concepts alluded to in the book. Dr. Fuhrman is a board-certified family physician, author, and nutritional researcher who specializes in preventing and reversing disease through nutritional and natural methods.

While many books for children focus on a child's dislike of a certain food (usually a vegetable), the Mitch Spinach kids books is devoid of that type of negativity and instead transforms healthy eating into a behavior to be copied in order to gain "super" powers like those of Mitch Spinach. The Secret Life of Mitch Spinach is a new kids books series that has the power to significantly change the way that children eat because it actually prompts children to ask for healthy food without preaching to them about the benefits of a healthy diet. Good health begins in childhood, and scientific evidence suggests that the food children eat in the first ten years of their lives can have a critical and profound effect on their life-long health.

The authors of the innovative kids books also created the The Mitch Spinach website http://www.MitchSpinach.com to serve as a resource for parents, teachers, and kids. It offers creative, multidisciplinary lesson plans and outlines the importance of sound nutrition. Kids can print educational games, such as crossword puzzles and word searches that pertain to the healthy foods used in the books to reinforce what they have learned.

We believe that these kids books make the ultimate Christmas gifts for kids and or stocking stuffer and in addition it will help your family adopt a healthy lifestyle. When your kids start asking you for broccoli, carrots, or flax seeds because they want to be like Mitch Spinach, your own healthy choices will seem effortless and fun! And with all the holiday cookies, candies and junk food we eat, The Secret Life of Mitch Spinach will help you keep your New Year's resolutions!