I'm so excited to be part of the Children's Book Week Kid Lit Giveaway Hop. Reading books with my kids has always been a special part of our time spent together. I hope WISH YOU WEREN'T will become one of those books that parents and kids enjoy reading together, that kids enjoy reading under the covers and that people enjoy enough to share with each other. Want to check it out for yourself? You can enter to win a copy below!
Marten doesn't believe in the power of wishes. None of his have ever come true. His parents ignore him, his little brother is a pain and his family is talking about moving to Texas. Not cool. So when he makes an impulsive wish during a meteor shower, he doesn't expect it to make any difference.
Until his annoying brother disappears.
With the present uncertain and his brother’s future in limbo, Marten finds himself stuck in his past. And if he runs out of time, even wishes might not be enough to save the ones he loves.
a Rafflecopter giveawayKID LIT GIVEAWAY HOP EVENT DETAILSAre you a children's book or teen literature blogger, an author, a publisher, or a publicist looking to share copies of a fabulous book?
Mother Daughter Book Reviews and
Youth Literature Reviews are joining forces to provide you with the opportunity to take part in the Children's Book Week Giveaway Hop 2014, featuring links to giveaways for fabulous children/teen's books, gift cards, cash, or other prizes. What better way to celebrate Children's Book Week?
My daughter has spent the last couple evenings snuggled up under her blanket reading a book. Correction: reading the iPad. Last night at 10 p.m. I finally said sorry, but you need to go to sleep. I promised to wake her up early so she could finish reading before school. Here's hoping she finishes before it's time to leave or we're going to have a real struggle! The book that has captured her attention? Boys are Dogs by Leslie Margolis. I don't know the author, but with such a ringing endorsement from my reluctant reader, I'm going to have to read this one myself!
But not today. Today is World Read Aloud Day, a celebration of shared words, encouraged by LitWorld.
I read aloud
a lot with my entire family.
(Yes, my hubby likes to listen in, too!) Right now we're in the middle of
Harry Potter and Goblet of Fire. My son and husband have heard this entire series before, but it's the first time through with my daughter. It's been hard to keep some of the secrets of the stories from her
(darn those evil children who like to spoil endings!) but the books are so wonderful that we've all enjoyed discovering them again. And of course, each time we finish a book, the dvd comes out so we can compare the book with the movie. You can guess which version wins every time :-)
What will you be reading out loud today with a child?
Today is World Read Aloud Day, part of LitWorld's global literacy movement. If you're in New York City, you can check out the 24-hour Read Aloud Marathon in Times Square, where they'll be having some famous names read to the crowds. But if you're like me, living in a different part of the country, you can find another way to mark the day.
My daughter and I decided to celebrate by reading one of our favorite picture books together, Bark, George by Jules Feiffer. Believe it or not, this hilarious PB has less than 230 words. Talk about making every word count!
Happy reading!
When I first came to the US in the late 1980s -- before I even moved to America -- I used to love the Weekly World News. It was like a little doorway into a world that worked on story logic. While a story here or there would be too far-fetched, there was a strange delight to wondering if some of the stories might be true, and one would occasionally run across things one had already seen in the Fortean Times or in the News Of the Weird. But mostly it felt like a joke -- one that you were in on, and that some people weren't -- "There are people who believe this," it seemed to be saying. "Be thankful you aren't one of them." It was a portrait of a cock-eyed, X-Files world.
It famously only existed because the owners of the National Enquirer had a black and white printing press and, after the Enquirer went colour, nothing to print on it.
I stopped reading it in about 1992, picked it up again in around 2000 when a friend got a job writing for it, and I had a wonderful time suggesting stories. I noticed they rewrote them to put jokes in, though -- weak, "don't take any of this seriously" jokes.
A few weeks ago I heard from my friend Bob Greenberger (who worked there) that the owners were closing it down.
So I picked up the final copy today, because I was passing a cash register and it was the last one after all. Even allowing for the probability that it was filled with articles they'd commissioned and hadn't run because they weren't very good, or that they were reprints, it... well, the whole tone of the thing felt wrong. The articles were just silly. It wasn't story logic any longer. A baby gets delivered in an avocado because the sperm donation got mixed with avocado sushi... There wasn't the feeling reading it that anyone could have believed it. Not children, not the stupid, not someone who'd been born and raised on Mars and this was the only thing they'd read. It was like the joke had become nobody could believe this stuff. And now nobody was buying it. It had a Sergio Aragones drawing though, and some comics...
I can't believe I'm sitting typing about the long-lost glory days of the Weekly World News. Probably, it was of its time anyway.
And truly I've always preferred the Fortean Times.
...
Summer ended yesterday. It rained and it was cold, and I went and brought the cats indoors -- Coconut and Princess had gone off and become garden-and-woods-dwellers, just coming back to be fed. Today they were wet and miserable and taking refuge in the gazebo, so they are in the Cat half of the house.
(The house has divided itself, post Cabal, neatly into Cat and Dog. The TV room is in the Cat half of the house, but I seem to wind up using the Slingboxes to watch TV in the Dog half of the house, because he worries more if I'm not there.)
I bought goldfish -- two medium-sized ones and five tiny ones, that would have simply been hoovered up and eaten by the big ones that died, and the tank looks bright and nice and occupied.
...
Bathroom reading has been the giant DC Comics PHANTOM STRANGER Showcase collection, much of which I'd never read, and my respect for Len Wein just went up (and it was high to begin with). The early Phantom Stranger stuff doesn't work particularly well -- he's a man in a coat who turns up. Then Bob Kanigher creates a sort of template for disaster, in which four teenagers (called The Teenagers) stumble into something that may be mystical or may just be Scooby Doo, and Dr Terry Thirteen -- the Ghost Breaker -- and the Phantom Stranger keep arguing over which is which, and occasionally Tala Princess of Evil turns up and tries to snog the Phantom Stranger, telling him to kiss her and come over to the dark sice, and he says things like "Never shall I submit to your hellish blandishments!" and he doesn't and then the mystery gets solved. It's possibly the worst recipe for a comic ever created. Slowly other writers -- Denny O'Neil and Gerry Conway -- sensibly drop the Teenagers, and edge Terry Thirteen into a back-up feature, and don't do quite as much of the "I am Tala, Mistress of the Dark! Snog me and come over to the Dark Side!" stuff. And then Len Wein comes in and in the space of an issue turns it all around, makes the Stranger the star of his own book, redeems the whole thing and pulls it together. And over the next twelve issues Len pretty much creates the whole Phantom Stranger character and his dynamic that we've got today (allowing for the barnacle encrustation that any character gets over thirty years of being in the funny books) and he even makes Tala cool. (And then I made her a waitress in Books of Magic.)
...
I'll be signing books in Beijing on Friday the 31st of August at 9:30am at the Harper Collins stand at the Book Fair.
At some point that same day (I don't have a time yet) I'll be doing a signing and a reading at http://www.beijingbookworm.com/ -- Bookworm "Beijing’s premier English language lending library, bookshop, restaurant and events space".
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I remember when I was a kid getting in trouble for reading so much...I used to hold the book up to those dim LED nightlights and get terrible headaches, but I never wanted to stop!
And we read aloud a lot in my home, too. My husband works from home, so often I'll read aloud to everyone--just finished The Silver Chair. :)
No kids to read aloud with, but I have very distinct, wonderful memories of my parents reading aloud with me. No doubt that's where my affinity for reading and writing comes from. :)