Review: Six Take One

We’ve all gone along to parties that we didn’t really want to go to, right? But how often do we end up regretting our decision because someone was murdered during the party? (Hopefully never.)

Unfortunately, this is exactly what happens when seventeen-year-old Cassie’s on-again-off-again friend, Kiah, guilts her into attending a New Year’s Eve party at Johnny’s remote farm, where, among other things, there’s only limited internet coverage.

Before agreeing to go, Cassie elicits a promise from Kiah that they’ll leave by 11 pm. Kiah reluctantly agrees and says she’ll pick Cassie up at 7 pm.

From the outset, reluctance aside, things do not bode well.

Review: Dr Seuss Graphic Novel - Cat Out of Water & The Grinch Takes a Vacation

Introducing the first Dr Seuss graphic novel! 

Each title in this series has an individual author and illustrator.

The Cat in the Hat just wants to have fun. 

Fish initially convinces Sally and her unnamed brother not to open the door for Cat. 

His previous shenanigans caused chaos and an  inevitable reprisal for their combined actions.

So, the siblings pretend they are not home, but the shrewd Cat talks through the door until his persuasive suggestions change the course of their good intentions.

And they let him in.

Let’s get this party started is a powerful expression.  

Guest Post: Dan Rice on The Less Reluctant Reader

My third grader is a reluctant reader. But he's less reluctant than he was two years ago. While in first grade, he was violently opposed to reading, and all he would read, under protest, mind you, were the Bob Books by Lynn Maslen Kertell. These are simple books for beginning readers and were great for getting him started on reading, but we needed to find more complex books he was willing to tackle for him to advance.

Dragons, Dragons, and More Dragons

Perhaps because he knows dragons feature in my novels, he became interested in The Glitter Dragon Series by Maddie Mara after spotting one at a school book fair. We read the entire series together and even made it through several of the follow-up The Treasure Dragon Series before he grew tired of these wonderful books.

Guest Post: Reading Can Be Fun!

For most of us, reading is pure joy. Something to be savoured and relished in huge amounts. But not always. 

Today Tam Tran from Moody Two Shoes, offers some simple tips and hacks to enhance your reading pleasure and release the bookworm within.

Guest Post: Marc Fink on The Value of Interactive Fiction

‘Tell me a story about me and Poe Poe going for a walk and seeing a trash truck and then a wolf gets eaten by a shark!’

Every night, I get requests like this (future blog post coming about the value of oral story-telling), and I always hesitate ... my mind panicking as I try to think of any possible way to tie all of these elements together. 

‘Oooooooonce upon a time, Mikayla, Poe Poe, and Daddy went for a walk. It was a beautiful day ...’ I begin slowly, but even as I tell the story, I am trying to plan ahead to make it as fun as possible. And at some point, I will say, 'Do you run into the water to escape the wolf, or do you try to climb a tree...?' 

Guest Post: Cherie Bell on $5 Book Reviews

One of our favourite guest contributors and mother of four, Cherie Bell gives us the low down on banking  better reading time for your kids. We simply love this idea to bits - read on ...

My kids don’t get pocket money.

I feel that if I give them money for no effort, they will waste it on junk food or junk toys. The Barefoot Investor suggests that kids need to have money to learn how to spend and save money while young, but I just can’t compute handing over cash without work. 

If I start doing that then it’s time to delegate to them responsibility for buying necessities like clothes and I’m not ready for that either.

I encourage them to earn money from me for doing additional household chores on top of the chores they are assigned. 

But I’m also not prepared to pay them for regular, essential contributions to the running of our family home such as taking out the rubbish or unpacking the dishwasher.

Guest Post: Shaye Wardrop on The Magic Of Anthologies

Anthology is a big and kind of intimidating word, but if you swap it out for “a collection of stories”, it doesn’t seem so scary. And that’s really all they are — collections of stories or poems (or even art and songs).

Anthologies come in lots of different forms, and this is part of their magic. They might be themed, have one or multiple authors/creators, have stories that are linked and/or connected, have short stories, short-short stories, poetry or a mix of them all.

Guest Post: Marc Finks on Reading With Our Kids

As a third grade teacher (living and working in Thailand) and now a father of three kids under the age of four, I feel like I finally have the necessary experience to blog about EVERYTHING related to reading. So ... time for my first blog post ever.

As a teacher, when I meet with the parents of my students and they ask me what they can do at home to help their children, I repeat, 'Read! Read as much as you can! Reading is the foundation for doing well in every other subject, especially now, when so much information is online for us to read.'

But oftentimes, they will ask, 'How?' and that is when I need to ask a couple of questions which we should all think about. 

Guest Post: Cherie Bell on Gifting Books To Children

I love to give children’s books as gifts, and not just to my own kids. I gift them to nieces and nephews, teachers, and the kids’ friends. 

I feel like I’m giving something useful, fun, entertaining, and educational. I also feel like I’m being thoughtful of the family of the recipient. Books are not noisy, battery-draining, real-estate hogging gifts. They can be used again and again and then passed on lovingly to someone else to enjoy. I feel like I’m contributing to their family library.

Research shows that there is an important relationship between the number of books in a home library and the outcomes for children (Sikora et al., 2019). This study looked at the literacy, numeracy and ICT skills of adults and measured this against the number of books in the home library when the person was 16 years old. It found that a home library of about 80 books lead to average levels of skills, and that as the number of books increased so did the skills.

Review: Katipo Joe: Spycraft

Despite having had Brian as a visiting author at both of my last schools, and I might add, you would never regret doing so yourself – this guy has even the most blasé of senior boys eating out of his hand! – I hadn’t got around to reading either of the first Katipo Joe novels. I’m not only grateful for the opportunity to review this third in the series but will now go back and read the earlier ones.

I think anyone in a school library will admit that frequently there can be a dearth of really gripping, exciting fiction that will engage the interest of older boys, those reluctant readers who will stick to the same adventure series they read back in upper primary simply because they can’t find anything else. Therefore, you need to order this series and book talk it up big to your chaps, both boys and girls.

Review: The Book no one Wants to Read

Who wants to read a book? Books are boring. They’re a waste of time. We only read because our parents and teachers make us, right?

Well, I agree with this 100% (wink, wink), but if you have to read a book. If you absolutely HAVE to pick up a book and read it, then I promise, this is the one you want!

The Book no one Wants to Read is crazy fun! 

It looks like it's a chunky size, but that’s just to fool your parents into thinking you’ve read a chunky book. Inside, you won’t find more than 10 words per page, and each is seriously entertaining.

Review: The Nerd Herd

Nobody likes to be made fun of or be called mean names. But that is what happens to Barny and his fluffy friends.

Barny always feels like he is on the back hoof and never has a witty comeback. Being a lamb whose real name is Baarnabus certainly doesn’t help. Who ever heard of a lamb being a meanie?

In his head, Barry knows what he should do but gets scared and trots away. Together with his best friends who are equally as fluffy as Barny – he finds solace.

Meet Shaama Llama Ding Dong and Billy the Kid (an angora goat), Barny’s two besties, also known as The Nerd Herd. 

Guest Post: Dennis Wesley on Children’s Literature: The Challenges of Encouraging Children to Read

Editor's own image

Reading is no longer the only form in which children explore stories. The video and multimedia formats have been growing increasingly popular in this context. 

Nonetheless, reading remains one of the best ways to help children develop their cognitive, intellectual, and emotional skills. 

As is almost universally recognized, this is because reading for children is more than just a way to explore stories. 

Review: Rowley Jefferson's Awesome Friendly Spooky Stories

Looking for a new series of books similar to The Diary of a Wimpy Kid, then this book is for you. Bestselling author Jeff Kinney introduces us to Rowley Jefferson and his Awesome Friendly Spooky Stories.

If you love the dark and being scared, then prepare to laugh out loud and be terrified at the same time as you encounter vampires, zombies and ghosts.

These comical, rollicking stories evolve from Rowley Jefferson’s vivid imagination. With over 14 stories featured in this instalment you will certainly be entertained while there is an underlying message we can all learn from.

One of the characters in the stories is Rowan, who discovers his hairy chest and uses hair remover only to discover a well-kept family secret.

Then there is Jasper, the town prankster who wakes up, only to realise he was dead? Did that mean he was a ghost?

Review: I Hate Reading: How To Read When You'd Rather Not

There are children who simply adore reading. They take every opportunity to read one more chapter – reading under the bedcovers with a torch comes to mind.

Then there are the reluctant readers, children who find it difficult or boring to read – well this book is perfect for them.

Big print, colourful text, changing layouts, comedic statements are all part of the distraction plan. Before you know it or more importantly before they do – they are reading or at least pretending.

Beth Bacon has written this book based on her two sons Arthur and Henry who are not keen readers. Henry provides reading tips that make reading entirely possible and mostly by accident. Henry’s best tip is to pick a book that has big pictures, humour and small sentences.

Guest Post: Michelle Worthington on Sensory Aspects For Children with ASD

It can be frustrating for parents to get kids engaged in reading at the best of times, but even harder for children on the spectrum.

My best tip would be don’t attempt to try and read books at bedtime. They are tired and cranky, and you might be too. Find a time during the day that works for them and run with it. Don’t feel guilty if you are not reading to them at night.

Choose sensory friendly books like The Mouse and the Egg. They have a lot of white space and the text is easy to read.

Guest Post: Debbie D'Aurelio on How to Keep Kids Reading

Debbie D'Aurelio is a middle grade fiction author who as a child struggled with reading. Here she discusses why she feels its important to create books for kids who don't necessarily enjoy reading.

When authors write their backstory, they often describe how they were avid readers as children and couldn't get their hands on enough books. Many of them dreamed of becoming an author one day. I always wanted to be one of those people. I wanted to stroll around like Belle in Beauty in the Beast and never go anywhere without a book.

My backstory is a little different. I grew up in a very stressed-out household and I struggled with anxiety. I found it difficult to quiet my mind long enough to finish a chapter. Whenever I sat down to read, my mind wandered from one topic to another—yesterday's activities, today's to-do list, and tomorrow's worries. I'd end up reading the same paragraph over and over without comprehending it.

As an adult, I learned to quiet my mind and be in the moment long enough to enjoy reading both fiction and nonfiction. One strategy that helped me was doing short, daily meditation. I learned this technique in yoga classes, but today, the Internet has many resources that make meditation easy—even for kids. Many school counseling offices have set up Virtual Calming rooms full of relaxing music, nature sounds, guided meditation videos and even live animal cameras. A great one to visit is CNUSD Virtual Calming Room.

I also developed a couple of tricks to help me stay focused. An easy one is to use a reading guide. This can be a ruler or a white index card that the child moves down the page, line by line, as they read. Another trick to use when your mind decides to go for a stroll is to read out loud. The only drawback is that this works best when reading at home by yourself.

A surefire way to keep kids reading is to get them inspired by stories. Reading success depends on having access to books that match their interests and reading level. The recent growth of graphic novels and comic books has helped reluctant readers get excited about reading.

Teachers and librarians are excellent resources for finding the right books, but there are also free websites that provide book suggestions for kids. Goodreads.com has reviews for all genres of children's books. Some of their members compile lists, such as Best Books for Reluctant Readers and Twenty Children's book with Strong Female Characters, etc. Other websites that offer book reviews and recommendations include Commonsensemedia.org and Imaginationsoup.net.

When I started writing, The Secret Notebook, a mystery novel for kids ages 9 - 12, I wanted to make it accessible to all readers. I limited the number of characters, kept the chapters short and moved the story along quickly. I added interesting historical facts, humor and intrigue to keep children turning the pages. I know what it’s like to struggle with concentration, and I hope I’ve written a story kids can enjoy one chapter at a time.

Debbie D'Aurelio (a.k.a. D.A. D’Aurelio) lives in Atlanta, Georgia, USA with her husband and two children. Her novel, The Secret Notebook is published by Capstone Editions. Visit her at: www. debbiedaurelio.com

Review: Beware! Ralfy Rabbit and the Secret Book Biter

A heartwarming story about book lover Ralfy Rabbit and the mystery of the bite mark found in his book.

Ralfy Rabbit loves all kinds of books and nothing more than snuggling up to read in a quiet environment. When his baby brother Rodney cries, shrieks, rattles, clangs, bangs and more Ralfy’s serenity is ruined, he tries all sorts of things to escape the noises of his little brother.

Guest Post: Lydia Di Giulio on The Benefits of Reading Books

Are there really any negative aspects of being a bookworm? I think we all know the answer to that, I think not!  Have you ever heard of anyone telling children that they should limit their reading time, I think not!

Have you ever heard of anyone saying that reading can cause digital eye strain?  I have not, but I have heard these things said about children who spend too much of their time using technology.

Review: Atlas of Monsters and Ghosts

This is a fantastic idea from Lonely Planet Kids. What kid wouldn’t love to read about the best ghosts and monsters in the world?

The book is narrated by monster hunter Van Helsing, and he takes the reader on a journey around the world to explore the famous and not so famous ghosts and monsters of history.

Starting in Europe, we read about Dracula and the Loch Ness Monster, trolls, goblins and ogres, and some lesser known ghosts such as the Undead of Poveglia and the White Lady of Dragsholm Castle.