Thanks to Monty Python, Harry Potter, and several attractive, male, British actors who shall remain nameless . . . (I’m just sayin’) . . . AND pretty much the entirety of World War II, I am a confirmed anglophile. So, when Terry Pratchett opens Only You Can Save Mankind with “a boy named Johnny Maxwell. He’s English, but then, no… Read More
From that superior News Source, The Onion, I bring you some insightful analysis on whether violent video games are adequately preparing our children for the post-apocalyptic world coming in 2012. Are Violent Video Games Adequately Preparing Children For The Apocalypse? Bane, I’m thinking of you, my friend. This, of course, begs the question: If your child is actually a mutant… Read More
The day: it got away from me. Today, the kids were home from school. It’s the day after Martin Luther King Jr. Day, but they’re still here. Who authorized this? This means that today I am the Human Source of All Knowledge (HSAK). Like the interwebs, only easier to use. Just ask Mom a question and the secrets of the… Read More
Today we have a guest review! My lovely blogger friend Rhonda has graciously agreed to give us a recap of The Ruins of Gorlan, from The Ranger’s Apprentice series by John Flanagan. Speaking of covers, this one creeps me out in a Darth Sidious and his lurking pet monster kind of way. In other words, awesome. RL: 7.0 CSM: n/a… Read More
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
Mini-cat. Mini-laptop. Even with a million kitties and a million years, I’m thinking no good is coming from this.
The New Year apparently brings out a blogger’s inner need to have contests. I won’t be hosting one here today, but I wanted to point my fellow writers in the direction of a few good ones, if you haven’t already heard. Also: later this month, I may have some giveaways of my own. First and awesome, Kitlit.com is hosting a fab… Read More
The Lightning Thief is a rip-roaring hero quest, with one sassy pants Percy Jackson our reluctant hero of the day. The Lightning Thief is Book One of The Olympians series (there are 5 books) and is crammed full of monsters, Greek gods (they’re still around, hanging out in New York) and half-blood heroes, the oft-neglected sons and daughters sired by… Read More
Why? It’s my favorite question. Hopefully those shiny new resolutions you made on New Year’s day still have their luster. I love making resolutions, even if they don’t survive to see February. Resolutions are a way of affirming the things that matter to us, the people that we strive to be: Yes! I want to be that person! The one that… Read More
The shiny new decade has inspired me. This blog is for my fellow writers. I think the most important part of being in the business of writing, is to know why you are in it. By what measure will you consider yourself successful? There is a saying that “writing is the only business where no one considers you ridiculous if… Read More
Thank you to all the wonderful folks who left comments in our campaign to spread awareness of the great work of Heifer International. I’ve decided to donate my full pledge amount – because I can’t say “no” to the llama! I made my donation through Rothfuss’ Team Heifer page, so that he would match my donation with another 50%. How… Read More
I’m drawn out of my Holiday Hiatus by Nathan Bransford’s holiday charity drive to help Heifer International. If you haven’t heard of this fab charity, they give meaningful gifts of hope to hungry families around the world through livestock, training, and other assistance. Heifer takes the words “Give a man a fish, you feed him for a day. Teach him… Read More
On Christmas Eve, we always read ‘Twas The Night Before Christmas, by Clement C. Moore, with the bowl-full-of-jelly Santa and “up to the housetop the coursers they flew!” My kids have come to enjoy it, even if they don’t understand it. Heck, even I had to look up “coursers”, a word which here alludes to Santa’s fleet footed reindeer, but… Read More
I recently plugged The Frog Scientist, by Pamela S. Turner, on my list of holiday rec’s, but I wanted to do a proper review on this wonderful non-fiction book that reads like a story. The book follows scientist Tyrone Hayes and his experiments as he attempts to discover why frogs all over the world are disappearing. With over a hundred species… Read More
Thank you to Caroline for the sweet blogger-love award! Rules on this one (notice how all of a sudden I’m a pro at this?) are simple: Tell a story about your childhood reading life, and pass it on to five blogger-friends. The Indie Bookstore: When I was 8-12 years old (back before the word tween came into existence and roughly in the… Read More
Dark Omen came home from 5th grade and told me his classmates were “worshipping” him today because he reads the Wall Street Journal. “Worship” is apparently 5th grade speak for, “Dude, you’re really cool” and it strikes me as awesome that these kids think it’s “cool” to read, of all things, the newspaper. Not any newspaper, mind you, but The… Read More
RL: 4.2 CSM: 10+ Rating: PG Content: Peril of characters 100 Cupboards, by N.D. Wilson is a charming story about a boy who finds a magical cupboard in his room, hidden behind a wall, where each small door leads to somewhere . . . else. This is also a story about twelve year old Henry breaking away from his very overprotective… Read More
Background: Wormburner (aka son#2) has been reading Artemis Fowl. Setting: Last night at dinner . . . Wormburner: “Dad, did you know fairies have jet packs?” Dad: “Um, no?” Wormburner: “And they vibrate!” Wormburner starts vibrating in his seat. Mom explains: “Fairies vibrate at a speed that renders them invisible to the human eye. Don’t ask me how I know… Read More
The recent discussion about how to Keep Boys Reading, spurred a thought in my mind about how to lure lapsed or reluctant readers back into reading. Lapsing out of reading can happen to any child, even advanced readers. Just because they can read ahead of their grade, doesn’t mean they will. I’m convinced that finding the perfect book, maybe even… Read More
I think it is important to never talk down to kids. Their brains are small, but mighty. Even an eight years old’s brain has as much raw computing power as an adult, and is probably better at learning than the ossified brains of their parents. They simply haven’t been on the planet as long. Seriously, that is your only advantage, parents, so… Read More
I have always given books for birthdays and Christmas. I could mostly get away with it with the kids – even if they looked askance at it, at least the parents appreciated the effort. And it was much easier when the kids were little – who doesn’t need another book, when you can read through Dora the Explorer in less than 10 minutes, or… Read More
Ah, as the Books Reviewed list grows, I find myself in need of more room! So, this page will be the placeholder for Books Reviewed by Ink Spells (with the occasional guest blog by Dark Omen). Also see a list of Books to Keep Boys Reading, which are not reviewed books. If you’d like to suggest a book for review, please… Read More
Natalie Whipple, writer and blogger-friend, wrote an awesome post that ran very close to my heart. It was about the (mis)conceptions that boys don’t like to read, or stop reading when they reach puberty (if not before). I agree with her very well made argument that keeping boys reading means making sure writers write and parents find books that boys want… Read More
My son, Dark Omen, started reading Tom Swift when he was six. We had several of the stories left over from Dad’s youth, the only books he read as a child, according to him. Tom was a swashbuckling boy-genius inventor who, along with his wealthy family, owned Swift Enterprises and had access to all kinds of gadgets, labs, and explosive… Read More
Lovely readers, the wonderful folks at Upstart Crow Literary pointed me to this video, the latest idea about how to bring e-readers to kids (in this case, through an iPhone App/Picture book mating): Now this book doesn’t have words, or really a story. It’s more of a touchscreen demo of the possibilities that could come. I’ve blogged about e-readers, and other… Read More
NaNo (National Novel Writing Month) update: Well, I finished NaNo and it was a bit of a wild ride. Clocking in at 58,878 words, the last two being THE END, I wrote a YA (young adult) paranormal novel in a month. No vampires, I promise. And it wasn’t that hard. I’m not saying it was easy, but in retrospect, all it really… Read More
Many people enjoy a certain author and find they like all of that author’s books. This is especially true of genre writers, but also with more literary authors. This is partially due to the author’s Voice. Voice is something that writers continually struggle to master – it is the language, dialogue and mannerisms that make a character, or a book in general, have a… Read More
Today, we have a guest blogger! Dark Omen (aka my 11 year old son) will be reviewing Book 2, Flyte, of the Septimus Heap series, by Angie Sage. Flyte: What to Look Out For by Dark Omen Flyte, the second book in the Septimus Heap series by Angie Sage is a good story. It has clearly defined good and evil… Read More
For the most part, here on Ink Spells, I will only review stories I have read myself. However, to give you an idea of other books that have passed the Mom Muster, I’ll be continually adding to this list of books the munchkins have read. Only you can save mankind, by Terry Pratchett Alex and the Ironic Gentleman, by Adrienne… Read More
Hot off the Google Alerts presses . . . Thanks to Rachel at Big Little Brains for pointing out the uses of Wordle for advanced readers! In case you’ve never seen wordle before, it’s a website that will take any batch of text and turn it into a very cool looking word mosaic! The more frequent the word, the larger it appears… Read More
Nintendo is a popular video game company, famous for creating popular games like Super Mario. While the first system was designed to be plugged into the TV, the Nintendo DS console is a handheld device that allows the gamer to take adventure with them wherever they go. Although this has seemingly made the old consoles obsolete, many of the older… Read More
In my search for those literary gems at the higher reading levels for our advanced readers, I stumbled across The 10 Greatest . . . series. These are non-fiction books, but there’s one for just about any interest your kids may have, AND they have fairly challenging reading levels. Short bursts of interesting subject matter, at reading levels that will… Read More
I stand in constant amazement of the creativity of little minds. As I finished each chapter of my novel, I read it to my children. I could tell which characters captured their imagination, as they started to show up in the on-going narrative play in our household. My kids thought nothing of sending my characters off on wild, universe-conquering adventures that were completely unrelated to my… Read More
RL: 6.0 CSM: 9+ Rating: PG-13 Content: Puppy love, chaste kiss, drunk adult Savvy, by Ingrid Law, is a charming tale chock-full of down-home-isms that give a feel for the Nebranska-Arkansas setting of this coming-of-age story. Mibs, a twelve year old girl about to turn thirteen and get her very own savvy, tells the story of the misadventures of her and… Read More
I went to a writer’s conference this weekend, the Society of Children’s Book Writers and Illustrators (SCBWI) Prairie Writer’s Conference. It was an amazing and intense day of break-out sessions and speakers and a chance to meet other writers, published and unpublished, as well as agents and editors. While writing is, by necessity, a solitary pursuit, the community of writers… Read More
Ink Spells talked about ratings before, and now I want to delve into some of the differences between visual and print media. Parents are used to monitoring what movies their children see, with the MPAA ratings system helpful in a general way to scout out visual land mines that might be awaiting you at the theatre. Common Sense Media rates movies as… Read More
I love, nay adore, the Lemony Snicket series. I’ve read the books, twice with two different kids, met the author (in character, as Mr. Snicket), and even heard him sing. And play the mandolin, which in this case means a small musical instrument with a pear-shaped body and a fretted neck. RL: 6.3-6.7 CSM: 9+ Rating: PG Content: Dark humor,… Read More
How to you keep your children supplied with books? In our household it’s a steady round-robin of the local public library, the teacher’s book collection, the school library, and excursions to the bookstore. And of course my well-used account on Amazon.com, and increasingly BarnesAndNoble.com. Occasionally, I will borrow books, but more often I give them away – back to the… Read More
Even the plush are affected. This is choke-on-my-own-spit funny, people. That is all. p.s. Thanks, Penny!
Do you find your child only reading one kind of book, or are they a literary omnivore? My first son, the now-infamous Dark Omen, was a dedicated adventure book reader. He would dabble in non-fiction on occasion, but for any serious curling up time, it had to be Tom Swift or Artemis Fowl or Peter the Starcatcher. Epic adventure, spaceships… Read More
Sue’s Work-in-Progress RL: 7.3 CSM: n/a Rating: PG Content: peril of characters Ink Spells recommends Sue’s WIP for readers 8+. Ink Spells reviews provide five different pieces of information for you, my lovely blog reader, to assess whether a book is right for your young reader. Note the operative word there: YOU. YOU are the one who is in charge… Read More
I want to pass on the love to some fellow bloggers, bestowing upon them the Kreativ Blogger award. Check out these blogs for cool stuff about books, writing and more: I already talked about Great Kids Book blog, and the awesome work Mary Ann is doing over there in finding books for kids – check her out! Dale Pease is… Read More
CSM: 9+ RL: 4.8 – 5.6 Rating: PG Content: Death of a major character, peril, dark themes Margaret Haddix is the talented author of many children’s books, bringing a compelling voice to complex, and sometimes dark, themes. The Shadow Children series is one of those thought-provoking reads that appeal more to older tweens (ages 9-12). The setting is a dystopian future world where poverty… Read More
My ten year old turns eleven today: Happy Birthday, Dark Omen! No, Dark Omen is not my pet name for my now eleven year old son. That would be wrong. Dark Omen is the title he has assumed for himself, after many discussions about Internet safety and not putting your personal information out where the Internet Bad Guys can find… Read More
If you’re like me, it is impossible to keep up with the kid’s reading. Not that I don’t try. I keep a close eye on what they’re reading because I think parents have the ultimate say on the media (books, games, movies) that their kids consume and I try to be a responsible parent that way. Then there are the… Read More
Blogger extraordinaire J.J. Bennett, who juggles four blogs – a chick flix blog Chick Plix, a blog for her WIP (work in progress) YA (young adult) book The Path, a blog for her Middle School library, and her main blog Jennifer J. Bennett – has sweetly bestowed the Kreativ Blogger award on Ink Spells, and had this to say about moi: Susan Quinn… Read More
This blog is about great books for kids, mostly about reading them, but occasionally about writing them as well. I am hip deep in revisions on my Middle Grade Science Fiction book (working title: BYRNE RISK), but am taking some time to write a first draft of a YA (young adult) paranormal novel during NaNoWriMo – the frightening acronym that… Read More
My new blogging friend, Mary Ann Scheuer over at Great Kid Books, has a lot of, well, great books for kids that she has reviewed. I have not read these books, but she has done a fabulous job of reviewing them, and I’ve added some information about reading levels and ratings where appropriate. The Tree That Time Built – Poetry… Read More
I love Science Fiction (SF). I love it with a passion that really defies reason, and stops just short of dressing up and being one of the wacky fun people that go to the conventions. I’ve read SF since I was an advanced reading child myself, and I hope to review some of the classic SF tomes in upcoming blogs…. Read More
Thanks to the wonders of Google Alerts, Ink Spells will have an on-going feature that will look at news that may be of interest to Advanced Readers, and the parental units and teachers that guide them. Of course, that old-fashioned relic of the past, the newspaper, can be a great source of challenging reading material. But this blog post is… Read More
RL: 4.5 CSM: 10+ Rating: PG Content: Puppy Love THINGS NOT SEEN by Andrew Clements is a sweet book about a boy who wakes up invisible. The reading level on this book is not likely to be challenging, even to younger readers (8-10). The protagonist is a sassy teen and there is some very innocent puppy love as… Read More
I truly love young adult (YA) books, but I don’t think they are appropriate for the middle grade (ages 8-12) readers this blog is focusing on, no matter how advanced their reading level, or even their intellectual understanding of the world. Young adult books are attracting more and more adult readers. Twilight is an obvious example, and I enjoy sharing… Read More
Part of finding good books for advanced readers is finding books that engage their brains. This isn’t just about complex vocabulary or richly turned phrases – it’s about books that make you think. Non-Fiction is a fabulous way to get little brains chugging, and I think this is part of why so many kids who are advanced readers are drawn… Read More
RL: 5.0 CSM: N/A Rating: G Content: Suitable for 8+ ARTEMIS FOWL is a fast paced book, perfect for kids who like their Faeries souped up with jet powered fairy-wing packs and Trolls extra-large sized. While I’ve only read the first book in the series, eldest son loves the rest of the books and actively hunts down anything… Read More
I blogged before about what it means to be an advanced reader, and how the reading level test your child takes can mean different things. But how are reading levels for books calculated? My kid’s school uses a program called Accelerated Reader, which assigns a reading level and reading points to the hundreds of thousands of books in their database…. Read More
RL: 5.4 CSM: 9+ Rating: G Content: Suitable for all ages FRINDLE by Andrew Clements is a great example Book Candy – a great, simple read. FRINDLE won’t likely challenge your children’s reading or comprehension – its clear, clean prose makes it a very accessible read. However, this fantastic little story about a boy who is… Read More
Maybe your child started reading early, or started with her peers and then zoomed ahead. Maybe a teacher told you he was an advanced reader, or showed you some Reading Level numbers to prove it. Many schools test for reading level to help guide students as they learn to read. Either way, if you’re interested in this blog, you likely… Read More
The most popular children’s books. Ever. The boy wizard who charmed the world. Hardly needs recommending, right? J.K. Rowling has created an amazing world and my boys love romping through her playground. But the series is a great example of books that get more mature as you go through. For this blog, I dug out my ragged cheat sheet on… Read More
Ink Spells was pushed out of the nest by a comment made by MamaSavage Rhonda on Super Agent Nathan Bransford’s blog, “Who will write for my son?” Her son is an advanced reader, and she struggles to find books appropriate for him. I am so that mom! With three boys, ages 6, 8 and 10, all reading above grade level,… Read More