Jeanne Duprau’s The City of Ember, about a post-apocalyptic world filled with hope and innocence, is a story after my own heart. I had actually seen the movie first, which usually would make reading the book a whole lot less attractive to me. However, I was entranced by the movie, with our young heroes Lina and Doon trying to find their way… Read More
If you can read, write or blog today, give thanks. My heart goes out to the people of Haiti. Please consider supporting Doctors Without Borders in Haiti.
My kid’s eyes lit up when I told them I entered a Secret Agent Contest. They were a bit disappointed to find it was a secret literary agent contest, and that the agent probably wasn’t wearing a mask, dressed in all-black and carrying spy gear. I suppose the agent may be wearing all-black, but probably not the mask. Usually these… Read More
An interesting post by fellow blogger Bane of Anubis got me thinking (he’s good at that). We talked yesterday about how covers influence which books your children (and you!) may pick to spend your time with. Once you get your kids past the cover, the pacing of a story may well determine if your child sticks with the story or bails out. Now to me,… Read More
All things being equal, would you pick . . . THIS OR THIS? In an ongoing conversation about what draws boys to books, the influence of cover art came up. Covers are the interpretation of a book by an artist (hopefully one that has read the book), and is usually driven by the publishing company, rather than the author. One… Read More
Many of the books I have reviewed so far are fiction, and it is indeed difficult to find fiction with a high reading level that will still be comprehensible to young readers. Then again, you could just offer books about how to blow stuff up. I stumbled across this post, which suggests some very challenging reads. In particular, I was drawn to… Read More