Tuesday, March 8, 2016

Cocoa Kids Take Pole Position at California's Premier Car Museum

PALISADES, NY (March 6, 2016) -- Valorena Online, L.L.C. has announced the newest title in The Cocoa Kids Collection©"Eddie and the Hot Cocoa Hot Rod©" is now available at the Petersen Automotive Museum Store in Los Angeles.
"We're thrilled to share our new relationship and product placement with one of America’s premier car museums," said Author/Proprietor Valerie Williams-Sanchez. "With Petersen Automotive Museum's amazing array of classic cars and rich Teacher/Student - STEM programs, we feel this relationship is a perfect fit for our product and brand." STEM stands for Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics.
The Cocoa Kids Collection© targets kids in middle-childhood and puts minority and multi-racial children center stage in stories that tackle big issues with wit, whimsy and chocolate. Self-published and community-funded, the books feature the “Cocoa Kids” – Isaiah, Eddie and Lorena – characters whose learning adventures teach and entertain. The books’ brightly colored imagery and fictional narratives encourage literacy among commercial publishing’s most underrepresented audience: children of color.
In this story, Eddie is a city kid whose obsession with cars and race car driving interferes with his math studies. But, when substitute teacher, “Mr. Math,” arrives with a shared love of hot cocoa and sports cars, Eddie decides to give math one last run.
Current and historic Black race car drivers (including F1 racing phenomenon Lewis Hamilton, NASCAR's Darrell "Bubba" Wallace, Jr. and Wendell Scott, the first Black race car driver inducted into the NASCAR Hall of Fame) are introduced among Eddie’s real life inspirations to never give up.
Targeting the similar demographic as the book series, the Petersen Museum’s Education Programs offer students K-12 unforgettable interactive experiences. With age-appropriate tours led by expert docents that align with STEM-integrated pre- and post-visit curriculum, the museum's programs offer innovation from a unique teaching partner. 
In December of 2015, the Petersen Museum reopened with a redesigned façade, new galleries, and hundreds of beautiful cars on display. Among the top American museums of its kind, according to Autoweek, the Petersen’s changing exhibits and curated selection includes more than 300 cars that illustrate the history, industry and artistry of the automobile and its impact on American life and culture. To learn about the Petersen, visit www.petersen.org
Valorena Online​, L.L.C.​ offers marketing communications content creation and curation as well as strategic marketing communications solutions. The company was incorporated in New York by the author​, Valerie Williams-Sanchez - www.VWilliamsSanchez.org, who​ is a Southern California native and doctoral candidate at St. John's University, with an interest in Literacy Education. Through Williams-Sanchez's book platform she explores the transformative potential of language and literacy and the accompanying implications for educational and social change. The Cocoa Kids Collection© is her first, three-book collection.​ 
The author wishes to thank the following donors: Ciara Cox, Jamie L. Kitman, Sandra Lynch, Valerie Salembier, Judy Sampson, Lorena Sanchez, Christianna Sherbanee, Arlene Sontag, and Fran Williams. To learn about the privately funded, self-published books, visit www.CocoaKidsCollectionBooks.com.
#AllKidsNeedBooks​


(This article was updated June 22, 2020.