Jack Given and his wife Joan live in the Hershey (Sweetest Place on Earth) area in South Central Pennsylvania. Although they had several Golden Retrievers, they found themselves adopting a pure white, blue eyed short hair cat named Snowball. Snowball’s owner went to jail and Snowball needed a new home. Learning that Snowball was deaf (as are 95% of  pure white, blue eyed cats), Snowball was renamed Luddy in honor of Ludwig Von Beethoven who, like Luddy, was also deaf. Jack and Joan are PaPa and GiGi to 4 grandchildren who have been an on-going fun and joy as they have been privileged to live in the same community and share in their growing up years.

I wrote Luddy Loves Life because I believe that reading enhances cognitive abilities by improving vocabulary, comprehension skills, and critical thinking, which are essential for developing a higher IQ. Luddy Loves Life has a focus on the reader improving intelligence in a variety of areas:

In addition to Linguistic Intelligence (word smart), some of Luddy’s experiences foster Spatial Intelligence  (picture smart), Bodily-Kinesthetic Intelligence (body smart), Interpersonal Intelligence (people smart),and Naturalist intelligence (nature smart): 

I originally had the idea for Luddy Loves Life when I was a volunteer reader for a class of gifted students and I was appalled at how many books talk “down” to children and are not geared to stretching their  intellect and curiosity.