A while back, I wrote a less than favorable review of Henry Winkler and Lin Oliver’s first book in the Hank Zipzer series, Niagara Falls, or Does It? I have since learned that they have recently published the seventeenth novel in the series, A Brand New Me! (a title which is as off-putting as I …read more…
Blog Archive
Encouraging Summer Reading
Keeping kids reading during the summer is important. We want to encourage our kids to read and to enjoy it, but we need to strike a fine balance between making it optional and making it mandatory. The following tips come to us via ADDitude Magazine. While these tips are aimed at children with ADD/ADHD, they …read more…
I Am the Messenger by Markus Zusak
Nineteen-year-old Ed Kennedy, a cabdriver in Australia, almost accidentally stops a bank robbery and nabs the would-be thief, thus achieving his Warholian fifteen minutes of fame. This would seem to be the high point in a life of mediocrity, but then a series of playing cards begin arriving in Ed’s mail, each with a set …read more…
Hank Zipzer: Niagara Falls, Or Does It? by Henry Winkler & Lin Oliver
Hank Zipzer isn’t your average fourth-grader. He’s intelligent, creative, and incredibly likeable. Yet he does terribly at school because he’s dyslexic. Although the “d-word” doesn’t appear anywhere in this book, Hank mentions his brain and his “learning differences” enough for it to become annoying. I’m starting to feel as if I should get a rubber …read more…
What Would Joey Do? by Jack Gantos
If you’ve already read what I’ve written about the first two books in this series (Joey Pigza Swallowed the Key and Joey Pigza Loses Control) you can guess pretty easily that I love this book as well and heartily recommend it to you. And you would be right. There really is no such thing as …read more…
Joey Pigza Loses Control by Jack Gantos
At the end of Joey Pigza swallowed the Key, Joey finally had it together. He was living with his working mom in a more stable home, he was on the right meds, and he had gained enough self-control to get a dog, a dachshund/Chihuahua cross he christens Pablo. Alas, nothing good can ever last. Joey’s …read more…
Joey Pigza Swallowed the Key by Jack Gantos
You don’t have to spend much time in a school—say a month or so—before you run into a kid (or kids) who is (or are) at once your biggest delight and your biggest terror. They’re charming, they’re delightful, they’re friendly and helpful, and yet, like that semi-wild housecat who keeps dropping dead mice on your …read more…
10+ Rules
10+ Rules for Writing Books for Kids and Teens I read a lot. Non-fiction, fiction for adults, fiction for kids. But the way I really think about books is a simple dichotomy: either the book works or it doesn’t. Notice that the dichotomy is “works/doesn’t work” not “like it/don’t like it.” Sometimes a book works, …read more…
Matisse on the Loose by Georgia Bragg
It took me forever to write about this book, and it’s only now that I realize it’s because I wanted to say a lot more nice things about than I actually can. Which is sad in a way, because looking back, I wish that this book had been around when I was in fifth or …read more…
Even CNN Can’t Get it Right All the Time
This is what happens when you don’t have Tivo. You see something interesting on the television, grab your camera and snap a pic of it. Then, because you get busy with other things, you find some odd image on your camera two months later, and wonder why you took this picture. Here’s what I found: …read more…
