Inclusive Books for Kids
An award-winning indie house based out of Edmonton, Alberta, Canada.
Coming June 2024
“An inspiring tale about inclusion and empowering girls, Big Dreams is sweet, heartwarming, and profound … this is the kind of book all parents should introduce to their kids.”
- Readers’ Favorite Awards
Picture Books
Girls in male-dominated sports
Includes words of inspiration from female coaches in pro football, including Tanya Henderson, the 1st female coach in CFL history. Pre-order to make sure to reserve your copy!
Autism Acceptance
Selected as one of Kirkus Magazine’s Top 100 Indie Books of 2023! Winner of a Mom’s Choice Gold Award®, a Gold Award through Readers’ Favorite Awards & the recipient of a Kirkus Star.
Inspiring Self-Love and Wellness
10% of the proceeds of book sales from this title are donated to CASA Mental Health, a non-profit providing mental health services to children and their families in Alberta.
Giving Back
10% of the proceeds of The Self-Love Book are donated to CASA Mental Health, a non-profit providing mental health services and supports to children and their families in Alberta.
Journals
Inspiring Self-Love in Kids
The perfect companion journal to The Self-Love Book! Filled with tons of prompts to encourage daily reflection in children to inspire positive mental health and wellness.
Celebrate neurodiversity in your class!
FREE lesson plans with over 15 different classroom activities using Masterpiece as the read-aloud inspiration. All activities are directly tied to the curriculum in science, social, health/SEL, LA, art & more!
Early Learning Books
Over 32 different emotions represented
Filled with realistic photographs of children showing different expressions.
Realistic Colour Collages
Each page shows varying shades and different textures.
Encourages number recognition
Included are activity pages for children to trace numbers to 10
2D and 3D Shapes
Filled with images of different shapes of different sizes and colours
Uppercase Letters
Fantastic for early literacy as the focus is on phonetic letter sounds instead of letter names! Consonants are blue and vowels are red.
Lowercase Letters
Companion book to the above title. Simple with a single photograph for each letter. Realistic photographs and Montessori aligned.
The Books
Awards & Media Recognition
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Masterpiece is a Kirkus Star book! This is one of the highest honours to receive in the book industry and recognizes books of exceptional merit. Only 2% of all indie books receive a Kirkus Star!
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A Mom’s Choice Awards® Recipient. This program is globally recognized for establishing the benchmark of excellence in family-friendly media, products and services. Mom’s Choice evaluates products and services created for children, families and educators.
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Featured in the June 15th edition of Kirkus Reviews Magazine (pg.144)
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Featured in the Bookmarks column in The Edmonton Journal.
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Gold Medal from the Readers’ Favorite Awards.
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Masterpiece is a Top 3 Finalist for BOOK OF THE YEAR, granted through The Golden Wizard Book Awards. The judging panel is made up of qualified childcare practitioners, teachers, award-winning authors, illustrators, and professional writers.
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Awarded The Golden Wizard Book Prize.
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Top 3 finalist for the 2022 Females in Fiction Award! This award is granted through Hindi’s Libraries, a Worldwide Book Donation Non-Profit.
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Founder Alexandra Hoffman was recently featured on the website, Watch That Scene, which features a various creatives, from authors and artists to musicians and actors.
Meet the Founder
Alexandra Hoffman is a teacher, mom and the primary author behind the books published through Wishing Star. She started the house with one mission in mind: publish books that inspire kindness, inclusion, social awareness, understanding, empathy, curiosity, innovation and discovery.
From the Blog
Bookstores that Carry Wishing Star Books
Global Masterpiece Day
Founded by Alexandra Hoffman, Global Masterpiece Day is a project that inspires inclusion in classrooms everywhere! On this day, teachers and students honour autistic thinkers and share how differences make each of us a masterpiece.
In 2023, in the inaugural year, Global Masterpiece Day was celebrated in over 40 schools across Canada, the United States and the UK, with almost 1,000 students participating.
In the Dec.15 issue of Kirkus Magazine, Masterpiece was included on the list of their picks for the Top 100 Indie Books of 2023.