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Tuesday Tales – Olympig!

Posted on July 31, 2012 12:00 am by TheAngelForever

Twas just days before the Olympics when the boys and I were at the library for jelly bean testing in the name of science. A display by the front door caught our attention. It was filled with books for all ages and videos about the Olympics. Suddenly, JSL grabbed a book and asked to check it out. I have to admit, the cover of Olympig! by author and illustrator Victoria Jamieson made me smile.

On Thursday night, we got caught up with things before bedtime. JSL was very upset about skipping our usual reading. That is when I had an idea. It was family story time. I figured it would be fitting to read Olympig! the night before the opening ceremony to the 2012 London Olympics.

We meet Boomer, a very unlikely hero. Boomer the pig sets off with his family to compete in the Animal Olympics. Boomer is filled with confidence and believes that his hard work and practice will pay off. Of course, the pesky Mr. Hamstring is always there to point out his short comings along the way. The boys and I talked about how proud we were of Boomer each time he kept plugging along. He did not give up and is a good sport when he does not win most of the events.

Both of the boys really enjoyed the book and were even more excited to be able to watch the opening of the Olympics the next day. What I really enjoyed was the message that Jamieson puts into her book. Parents, Teachers, and children can easily use this book as a springboard for discussion on doing your best, being a good sport, and work ethics. The words and illustrations blend beautifully together to bring you deep into the world of the Animal Olympics.

Here is a book trailer about the book so you can see more.

Now my mission is to explore more books by this very talented author and illustrator! Of course, while watching the Olympics, we will also be exploring some of the ideas that Victoria Jamieson has on her website for crafts and more.

What are you and your family reading this summer? What have you read recently? Please be sure to link up to your book posts in the comments below. Include something you read on your own, with a child, or someone else. Tuesday Tales are all about spreading the love for books.

Disclosure: One Amazon affiliate link is included and should you purchase the book mentioned I will receive a small percentage from the sale. As always, all opinions are my own.

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Tuesday Tales – Battling Reluctant Summer Readers (Giveaway)

Posted on July 24, 2012 12:00 am by TheAngelForever

As a teacher, I loved helping my students to locate books that THEY wanted to read. Sure there was required reading, but young readers also need to have items that they want to turn the pages of. It is so important to find books that connect with children, especially if they are reluctant readers. I know it may be hard to believe, but some children do not adore reading. Last summer, I battled my own reluctant reader. My son, who had just finished second grade, did not want to touch a chapter book. Thanks to online resources, we found books that helped us to crack this problem.

Recently, SourceBook contacted me with a fun new campaign:

Your mission this summer, should you choose to accept it: Combat The Reluctant Reader Epidemic that is sweeping the nation. The only cure: books that disguise reading as something fun for unsuspecting kids!

To help parents, teachers, and children out, they have created a Field Guide to Young Readers. Included in this are the four readers shown above and others. They then point people to a book suggestion that would fit their styles.

The Make-Believer has more imagination frequent flier miles than a Pan Am stewardess! The best cure for this case of Reluctant Reading is Elliot and the Last Underworld War by Jennifer Nielsen (Author of The False Prince). The Make-Believer will be thrilled to join the sarcastically hilarious Elliot in the Underworld. As the King of the Brownies, Elliot has battled Goblins, tricked Pixies, and trapped a Demon. But now, the Demon has escaped and he’s ready for revenge. So, the Pixies, Shapeshifters, Elves, Goblins, and Brownies must join forces to battle the Demon head on before he has the chance to destroy Earth.

The Daredevil thinks trick-or-treating should apply to everyday life, especially the tricks! Cure their hunger for trouble with Horrid Henry and the Zombie Vampire by Francesca Simon. Not even your daredevil will believe what Henry is up to next in these four new wonderful and wacky tales. The international bestselling Horrid Henry series provides readers with a prankster whose relentless antics create a laugh-out-loud read. WARNING: Do not allow daredevils to consume milk while reading or milk may spray from the nose!

The BFF has matching bracelets with all her friends and wins Miss Congeniality every year. This is a case of Reluctant Reading that can only be cured with Hailey Twitch and the Wedding Glitch by Lauren Barnholdt. Hailey Twitch and her spirited sprite Maybelle, return in the fourth installment to the fab, fab, fabulous series. The BFF will be delighted to read as Hailey gets ready to be a flower girl in her cousin’s wedding! Maybelle’s mischief and fairy magic is back and might land the duo in trouble!

Bruce Lee 2.0 can quote Enter the Dragon from start to finish and has broken table lamps with leg kicks. The only cure for such readers (and your house) is to follow the UK’s youngest secret agent in Jason Steed: Revenge by Mark A. Cooper. Set in a fast-paced 1970s Britain with non-stop excitement and martial arts fight scenes, Revenge is perfect for kids who aspire to be the next martial arts master and are looking for adventure stories and heroes who aren’t afraid to take action. In the thrilling follow-up to Fledgling Jason is sent on a new undercover mission and must infiltrate a shadowy criminal organization –but his luck is running out.

SourceBooks would like to help your family to bust the Reluctant Reader Blues with a chance to win the four books listed above (I am jealous since I have not had a chance to read them yet).

Rules for Giveaway:

MAIN RULE – Which category of reader would you and/or your child fit into and why? (1) EMO Valley, (2) Reluctant Reader, (3) Status Updater, (4) Bruce Lee 2.0, (5) Jake Ryan, (6) Make-Believer, (7) Daredevil, (8) Future Newbery Winner, (9) Mini-Martha Stewart, (10) Gamer, (11) BFF, or (12) Leonardo DaVinci (Field Guide to Young Readers has more information on these types)

The following Bonus Entries may also be done. Please be sure to leave separate comments for each that you complete below to make sure you get the right number of entries.

1 Bonus Entry – Follow TheAngelForever on Twitter and leave a comment with your Twitter name below.
1 Bonus Entry – What are you and your family reading this summer? What have you read recently? Include something you read on your own, with a child, or someone else. Tuesday Tales are all about spreading the love for books.
1 Bonus Entry – Tweet the following about the giveaway: #Giveaway for #SummerReading package for reluctant readers from @Sourcebooks @jabberwockykids & @TheAngelForever http://bit.ly/M6YQPK #win (May be done once a day – leave link to Tweet in comment below for new entry)

To enter, please follow the rules above within the comment section. Giveaway begins July 24, 2012 and ends July 31, 2012 at 10:59 EST. You do not have to be a blogger to enter, but must leave a valid e-mail address for me to contact you for mailing address once the giveaway is over. I will select the winner using random.org and contact you via e-mail. You will have 48 hours to claim the prize. If there is no response, another winner will be selected. Open to US and Canada residents only.

Disclosure: This post was not compensated in any way. The information about the books was provided by Sourcebooks. As a teacher and parent who has worked with children that are reluctant readers, I wanted to share this information and opportunity with my readers.

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Tuesday Tales – 2012 Summer Reading

Posted on July 17, 2012 12:00 am by TheAngelForever

The summer months are a beautiful thing for children. It is a time where they are typically more free to select books that they want to read. Rather than being focused on literature that a teacher like I used to select, they can pick items that hit their unique interests.

JSL is not reading on his own just yet, so we have spent a lot of time reading together. He still likes to pick out an occasional picture book, but the Magic Tree House books have become a new favorite. He loves learning where Jack and Annie are going to head next. I love that he helps me read the books, guess outcomes, and retell the story and details when finished reading. Here’s a little fun video that I captured the other night when JSL helped me read his favorite part.

The educational value in the series is huge, while telling a great story with two believable characters. Since JSL ended preschool about a month ago, we have read 24 of the books. We started reading about half a book a day. Then, he begged me to finish off the books. In about 45 minutes before bed, we can go off on an adventure in the Magic Tree House to places near and far, and often very long ago.

Last summer, NHL was busy reading the A to Z Mystery series. They helped him to get rid of the chapter book phobia. This year, he is catching up on some of the last Magic Tree House books. As a gift for the end of third grade, I also bought him the book on the left. Looks funny doesn’t it?

Thanks to his love for all things Muppets, and a very unique writing style from Kirk Scroggs, he quickly read Tales of a Sixth-Grade Muppet. Listening to him laugh made me add this to my list of must reads. I will be ordering the second book and soon to be released third book shortly. I hope that NHL will also do a video review of the book for me shortly.

In addition to this, TechyDad and NHL are reading a book together. The boys had never read any of the Harry Potter series. (I read them all years ago.) TechyDad has seen all of the movies, and NHL has seen the first two films. Now, the two of them are almost half way done with Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone.

We have told NHL that to continue on with the movies, he must first read the books. TechyDad and I feel that the level of darkness rises up a lot from the second to third movie.

Disclosure: One Amazon affiliate link is included and should you purchase the book mentioned I will receive a small percentage from the sale. As always, all opinions are my own.

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Tuesday Tales – Listening to Audiobooks

Posted on July 10, 2012 12:00 am by TheAngelForever

There are so many amazing books out there, but not nearly enough time to read everything. Our Kindle and the Kindle App on my Droid Bionic have opened up a lot of additional reading opportunities. It is a lot easier to carry a book on your phone than a 300 plus page hard cover book.

During the summer months, I like to get some gift knitting accomplished. This would be a great time to read, but, well, you can not follow a pattern and “read” at the same time. Check that, you can thanks to audiobooks. Our local library system and the NYPL have audiobooks to check out that are in WMA format. While they can be used on OverDrive Media, it is not compatible with my android based phone. There are supposed to be apps that I can get to work around this, but I just did not have the patience. I pulled out my iPod Shuffle, loaded my book onto it, and set it to play without shuffling.

At first, it seemed to work. I sat knitting and listening to my book the first night. The next day I was listening to the book outside while the boy were playing with chalk. I thought I recognized part of the book. Later on, I realized I was listening to the same chapter for the second or possibly third time. Oy!

Rather than figure something out with my phone, I took out my old iPod Touch and transferred the books onto it via OverDrive Media Player on my computer. It worked beautifully. The best part, the book made a lot more sense when it was in order and not shuffling the chapters. Now, I will focus on knitting and reading Peter and the Starcatchers at the same time. Then, I can try to plan a trip to NYC to see the play.

If you have an Android phone and know of an app to play WMA audiobooks, please let me know what has worked for you. Ideally I would love MP3 format, but that is not always an option.

As always, Tuesday Tales are all about spreading the love for books. What have you read recently? Please be sure to link up to your book posts in the comments below. Include something you read on your own, with a child, or someone else.

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Tuesday Tales – Vote For Me

Posted on July 3, 2012 12:00 am by TheAngelForever

I rarely talk about politics on my blog or in general. The other day, I actually mentioned that I would love a filter on Facebook to get rid of the political chatter that I keep seeing from so many after the Supreme Court ruling. Reality check, this is only going to get worse on Twitter, Facebook, the news, and beyond as we head into a presidential election. Please hold me!

While at the library the other day, something caught my eye and now I do believe I may buy this book to give to adults, especially politicians.

Vote for Me! by Ben Clanton (link to the author’s fun website with more of his work) is a perfect read for children and adults heading into this election year. Although the target audience is 4-8 year old children, I think it may be even better for older children who are studying elections at school. Let’s be honest here, kids hear the negativity, whether they read the newspaper, see the national news, or listen to their parents. They are taking all of this in and this book will show them in a nice way how foolish both side look, how we need to work together, and can compare read world items to Donkey and Elephant. This could lead to conversations about how they think candidates should talk about their views of the important issues, rather than simply name calling and saying what is wrong with the the other person.

Here is an extended book trailer of Vote for Me! from Kids Can Press that gives you a nice version of the story. If you are wondering, you have to read the book to find out how it ends.

The book is definitely a satire, but it does strike a nerve with readers that are fed up with the campaign tactics that we see these days. I highly recommend this for adults (especially politicians) to read with some younger children to see the light. TechyDad and I both read this book with our boys and we had a lot of laughs. My guess is that NHL will appreciate it even more once they start to talk about the election in fourth grade this fall. A little bit of caution, beware your children may use some of the name calling that is “funny” in the book. Sunday, the boys were calling each other Booger Breath several times. We ignored it hoping it would fade away.

Disclosure: As mentioned, the book was taken out of the library and I am thinking of gifting it to some of my political friends this election day. One Amazon affiliate link is included and should you purchase the book mentioned I will receive a small percentage from the sale. As always, all opinions are my own.