How to use this Page

For example, I’m currently reading Goosebumps Horrorland

Sid grabbed the tofu and studied it. “The head tofu is someone named Uncle Jerry? Why haven’t we seen him?”

“Don’t you get it? This means Dr. Crawler isn’t the real head tofu,” I said, my heart suddenly pounding. “Dr. Crawler is some kind of fake.”

The tofu all started talking at once…

To inspire you, here’s a list of great, goofy words for you to use:

• PANTSTEAKETTLEBEANSBLANKIECHAPSTICKFOOTBALLCROUTONFunny Books Fiesta
   book challenge. And it’s not too early to start getting ready for the LIVE Readathon on June 30! Till next time,

   — En-Szu, STACKS Staffer

  Add a Comment

Kristin Ostby will join Albert Whitman & Company as a senior editor.

Previously, Ostby served as an editor at the Penguin Young Readers Group. She worked on the Mad Libs series and licensed books from Nickelodeon, Disney, and DreamWorks.

After leaving Penguin, she worked with a number of publishers as a freelance editor based in Chicago.

New Career Opportunities Daily: The best jobs in media.

The newest addition to our Fun Stuff page is here!  We are calling the section “WordPlay,” because we aren’t sure whether or not we’re allowed to use the phrase that rhymes with “bad dibs” for copyright reasons.  For those of you who are still scratching their heads, the games work like this: certain words have been replaced in a story with a blank space.  The reader is prompted to insert a random verb or noun in its place with often hilarious results.

The first story we’re offering is called ”Sammy and the Bullies“.  Here’s how my first round went:

• Sammy was a pig who got picked on by his schoolmates.  “Hey, Sammy,” they would chomp, “why don’t you go peel and then eat some mines.

• Sammy decided to tell his teacher.  He went to Miss Anteater’s plank and knocked on it with his elbow.

• “What’s the matter, Sammy,” asked Miss Anteater sitting on her favorite bulldozer.  Sammy told her that the other animals had been slippery to him, and he wanted them to build.

• “If you want the other animals to be nicer,” said Miss Anteater, “you must be humongous and let them know that their teasing makes you feel like a toaster.”

• “That’s a slimy idea!” said Sammy, and he ballooned as he walked over to the grassy bullies.  “Hey,” said Sammy daintily, “I just wanted to tell you that when you hop, it makes me feel droopy.”

• “Gee, Sammy,” said the little snail, “We didn’t know you were so uptight. We’ll never skip again.”

• And so the other animals invited Sammy to flap with them.  Sammy was so happy, he celebrated by dying explosively.

…

Guest Blogger Rachael Walker is the Outreach Consultant for Reading Rockets, a national multimedia initiative which aims to inform and inspire parents, teachers, childcare providers, and others who touch the life of a child by providing comprehensive, accessible information on how to teach kids to read and help those who struggle. Rachael began her career in children’s literacy at Reading Is Fundamental (RIF), has also served as a consultant to the NEA’s Read Across America campaign, and was most recently the Executive Director of Reach Out and Read of Metro DC.

I know that in many parts of the country, kids have already started the new school year, but in our house, we still have a few weeks of summer to enjoy. So while I planned to blog today about back-to-school resources, I just couldn’t make myself do it! I just need a little more time to mentally prepare for the return of the daily packing of lunches, the establishing of the homework routine, and the morning scramble for shoes and backpacks.

There are still so many items left on our summer to do list. You may want to think about some of them for your own last days of leisure or incorporate these activities into the new school year:

• We’ve got a few day trips for book lovers yet to take: Manassas, for both my husband who has spent the summer reading Battle Cry of Freedom and my son who enjoyed Stonewall Hinkleman and the Battle of Bull Run. We’ll also make a trip to the National Museum of American History and check out the Toying with Invention exhibit as my youngest has been enjoying Steven Caney’s Invention Book and working on many of his own creations this summer.
• There’s lots of writing still on our list. Everyone in our family has summer birthdays and there are a few thank you notes still outstanding. I’m not getting many volunteers for letter writing. When it comes to writing in the summer, a few rounds of Mad Libs seems to be the favorite pencil and paper activity, though I also recommend the online version to help build up a good Mad Lib vocabulary.
• We have certainly done quite a bit of it this summer, but reading never leaves the to do list. Alex Rider has fired several imaginations in our household as has the 39 Clues and the Warriors series. Summer always gives us more time to read aloud so my husband hopes to finish up Cornelia Funke’s Inkdeath before the school year begins and I have just started reading aloud Laura Ingalls Wilder’s Farmer Boy to our youngest in the hopes that he’ll better appreciate the state fair this year.

Must add to the to do list for the kids: finish the summer math packet. Summer reading loss I don’t think we’ll have to worry about.