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O’Donnell rolls out a slick subterranean caper flavored with a diverse nonhuman cast, topped off with a suspenseful scramble. Young readers will slurp up the gumshoes’ gooey first exploit with relish. And perhaps a few choco-slug cookies.
Tank and Fizz is an entertaining mystery narrative full of monsters, detectives, and magic.The story notably includes many incredible comic vignettes illustrated by Mike Deas to provide readers with a visual accompaniment to the events taking place in the text.
An enjoyable read! I look forward to book two in the series: Tank & Fizz: The Case of the Battling Bots.
Helen Kubiw, writing for the Quill & Quire has this to say:
O’Donnell knows how to weave the typical elements of detective stories such as multiple plot lines, red herrings and the usual suspects . . . a monstrously imaginative and funny read that launches a great new series.
And that’s only the tip of the paragraph from these amazing reviewers. Follow the links to read the rest of the reviews.
Ready for the monster invasion? Don’t worry, the beasts I’m talking about are in the fourth grade and eat choco-slug cookies, not people. That’s right, I’m talking about Tank & Fizz, my newest detective duo.
The arrival of their first mystery: Tank & Fizz: The Case of the Slime Stampede is only a few weeks away and Mike Deas and the folks at Orca Books have put together this fun trailer to let the world know the monsters are coming. Check it out:
Last week, I dropped by the fantastic Pragmaticmom blog to share my book picks to get gamers reading. I also shared a version of that of that post on the GamingEdus blog. So I figured, I might as well share on my own blog, too! So here it is in all its glory. Enjoy.
Five Books to Get Your Gamer Reading
As teachers we are no strangers to that mysterious being known as the “reluctant reader.” They’re the students who just don’t seem interested in anything remotely book-like no matter what we do. Finding books that connect with their interests is always a great first step. And many of our most reluctant readers connect in a big way to video games.
In addition to being a teacher and Minecraft fan, I’m also children’s author. Video games are at the heart of my books, like Ganked my young adult gamer geek mystery or Descent into Overworld, my Minecraft-inspired adventure for middle graders. By using video games as settings for my stories and gamers as my heroes, many reluctant readers find a welcome home in my stories.
Thankfully, I’m not the only author bridging the divide between books and video games. Check out these five books that are sure to get the young gamer in your life to put down the game controller and pick up a book.
Five Go-To Gamer Books
Epic by Conor Kostick
For the inhabitants of New Earth, success in life depends on success in the video game known as Epic. Every person on New Earth must play the game, fighting monsters and completing quests to earn gold that translates into real world wealth and power. For teenage Erik, Epic is a game rigged to favor those who are already rich and powerful. Refusing to play by the rules of the game, Erik creates a character doomed to fail and in the process unlocks the dark secret that caused his father’s exile to the edges of civilization and could lead to his family’s salvation.
Epic is the first in the Avatar Chronicles trilogy and is a great read for teen readers not put off by thick books. Weighing in at 384 pages, it might seem daunting for reluctant readers, but the video game battle sequences, inspired by real world games like World of Warcraft, will keep readers engaged.
Every gamer is familiar with those two dreaded words: “Game Over”. When 14 year old Giannine gets trapped inside the virtual reality game Heir Apparent, “Game Over” could mean life over, if she doesn’t solve the game’s puzzles in time. Taking on the role of a medieval peasant suddenly in line to inherit the kingdom’s throne, Giannine must dodge rivals, outwit a riddling dwarf and defeat a man-eating dragon before returning to reality with her life, and her mind, in one piece.
Game-loving readers will relate to Giannine’s struggles as she starts her video game over and over again after each mistake. With each restart, Giannine learns from her mistakes and gets one step closer to overcoming her enemies, inheriting the throne and escaping the game.
Vande Velde writes with a sharp humor that gamers will enjoy. By making her hero a girl, she challenges the myth that games are just for guys. That said, even with a girl protagonist, middle grade boys will be pulled into this story of monster-filled technology gone wrong.
In this globe-trotting, virtual world hopping adventure, Cory Doctorow takes teen readers deep into the dark side of video games to rally all gamers in a fight for equality and human rights.
Told from multiple perspectives, For the Win follows a group of teens each with their own reasons to play their favorite online video game. Among them is Leonard, a typical American teen gamer and fifteen year old Mala from rural India who toils for hours in the game as a low-paid gold farmer, harvesting virtual items to sell to rich gamers for real money. When they’re contacted by mysterious player known as Big Sister Nor, these two gamers are soon caught up in a fight to protect their fellow gamers from exploitation both in-game and in the real world.
While For the Win deals with some big issues, like worker’s rights and globalization, its fast action and gamer-speak style of writing will appeal to readers who like a little espionage and hacking with their dragon-hunting adventures.
From the early 1980s, before there were Xboxes or Playstations, Canadian science fiction author Monica Hughes was writing video game inspired adventures for middle grade readers. Invitation to the Game (also published as The Game) is one of her finest. In this short book, Hughes takes readers to a dystopian future where a group of teenagers, deemed unemployable by society, are given the chance to play a virtual reality game that tests their endurance and survival skills. As they spend more time in the mysterious game, the teens find the lines between reality and fantasy begin to blur, leading to an unexpected climax that holds all the hallmarks of a classic science fiction plot twist.
At under 200 pages, Invitation to the Game is an ideal length for even the most page-phobic reluctant reader. The suspense created behind the game’s true purpose mixed with some very tense survival scenes will keep gamers guessing until the very end. It is definitely a sci-fi classic that holds up even in today’s high tech reality.
Sixth-grader Dylan Rudee is good at only one thing: video games. He’s not so good at standing up to the bullies who harass him at school, getting homework done or succeeding at anything that doesn’t involve a game controller. When Dylan gets a chance to compete in the Game Changers video game tournament, he hopes it will solve his problems and help his aunt who just lost her job. But when his gaming skills release some very real creatures from Jamaican folklore, Dylan and his friends are thrown into an adventure that threatens to destroy all worlds, both real and imagined.
CJ Farley’s Gameworld draws on West Indian mythology and features a multicultural cast that brings some much needed diversity to modern children’s books while telling an action-packed story sure to engage middle grade readers.
Those are just five books to get the gamers in your life reading. What are your reluctant reader suggestions? What are your go-to title to get your students to put down the game controller and pick up a book? Share your suggestions in the comments below!
I am a very lucky writer. I get to make stuff up, send it out to the world and have people read it. That sounds pretty basic, but sometimes that is all I want from this whole writing thing.
That’s why my brain never fails to explode when readers take the time to tell me what they think of my books. Whether it’s a one sentence email from a young reader or an in-depth review on Amazon, I am always thrilled to get feedback from folks reading my books (even the criticism is welcome – honest.)
The last few months of 2014 were pretty awesome when it comes to reader feedback and that’s because I did something I’ve never done before: I asked people to tell the world what they thought of my books. Specifically, my latest Minecraft fan-fiction novel,Descent into Overworld. And boy, did my amazing readers come through!
Reading the reviews on Amazon was a blast and definitely helped me keep writing the second book in the series Nether Nightmare (coming soon, I promise!).
But not everyone was content to just leave their thoughts in words. Debbie Alvarez and her young Minecraft fan not only wrote a great review at The Stylin’ Librarian blog, they made a video too. Check it out:
I crack up every time I watch both those videos. And I smile every time I read a new review of any of my books. But mostly I smile because I am lucky enough to sit in front of my computer, make stuff up and know that people will read it.
They say writers are nothing without readers, and this lucky writer appreciates that every day.
So THANK YOU readers! I’ve got many more stories to tell and I can’t wait to see and hear what you think of them.
It’s December 31st, 2014. That means the Year in Review lists are clogging up your newsfeeds, webpages and neural datastreams (if you’re reading this in 2025). This is another one of those. Sorry.
I’ll admit that I write them mostly for myself. After 10 years of blogging, this space has become a bit of a time travel machine for me. For instance, let’s jump back over a decade and see what were my New Year’s resolutions on Dec 31, 2003:
So here they are for 2004:
1. stop using cliches in my ‘infant blog’ – to steal a term from chandrasutra
2. write more.
That’s it.
See number 2? That’s easily my resolution for 2015 (and every year in the past). Things really don’t change much at all. But I remember that 2004 was the year when I decided that “writing more” was something that should always be at the forefront of my thoughts.
And it has. I’m always stressing that I’m not writing enough, or wasting my time when I could be getting words on a page. In fact I’m stressing right now because I should be working on my latest book, not this post. But when I calm down and look back, I can see that the words do add up and I am getting writing done.
So what have I written in 2014? Here’s a quick run down off the top of my head:
Looking back, I’m happy with what I’ve created in 2014, but as always I want to Write More!
So, in 2015 I’m setting myself a goal of writing at least 2000 words every single day. Right now, if I’m focused I can get around 1000 words written daily, between teaching and other projects I’m working on. Finding the time and energy to cobble together 2000 new words each day can be difficult. But it’s doable. We’ll see how it goes.
What will those words look like? Here’s a glance at what’s on the plate for 2015 (so far):
Battle of the Blocks 3: Escape from the End
West Meadows Detectives #2
Collected Tech Tales (with a new stories)
Geeked Out Mysteries #2
This is just the stuff I know about or can talk about. There will be more, I am sure.
In the meantime, I’ve got some more writing to do.
Goodbye to 2014. Hello 2015. What about you? What are your goals for the coming year? Have they changed much from a decade ago? Let me know in the comments below!
Start running at least 2x a week … or actually go back to the gym…but I’ll wait til March for that as this Is almost everyone else’s resolution as well Happy New Year!
liam said, on 1/1/2015 4:45:00 PM
Yeh – the “get running thing” has been my new year’s tradition for far too long. Maybe 2015 is the year. Never know! Thanks for dropping by aIL!
I’m not good a keeping track of stuff. My desk is a collection of piles of papers, books and gadgets that I tell myself is organized into a “system”. But it’s not. It’s just what it looks like: piles of stuff.
Being this way is not a strength when it comes to publishing your own books and it’s the reason I messed up with the print edition of Descent into Overworld. But my latest self publishing screw-up actually is good news for readers.
A Stretched Spine Always Hurts
When designing the cover for a print book, you need to know how many pages the book will be. That number determines how wide the spine will be and the size of text and graphics for the spine. Get it wrong and you’ll end up with spine text that folds over to the front of the book. Not good.
Getting that number isn’t always easy. The number of pages in your Word document (or OpenOffice, in my case) is not the same as your print book. And often when you’re ordering your cover, you haven’t even finished the final edits on your manuscript, so often you’re just estimating a print edition page count.
So, I took a stab at a page count. I estimated my book would be exactly 195 pages when printed. Turns out it was more like 179 pages. Sixteen pages too thin. That meant, when I got the proofs of my print edition, this is what the spine looked like:
Stretched spine text because of my noobness. Click to make that spine bigger!
Not bad, but not good either. Createspace, the folks who printed the book, had to squish the spine text to make it fit the narrow width. The circle around the number 1 should be a circle not an oval. And see how the text is closer to back of the book? Ugh.
This goof was totally my fault. My designer designed to the specs I gave him. And now, I was going to have to go back and have him redo the spine so the text would fit. That would take time and it would cost me more money. I didn’t have time. I had told folks the book would be ready the following week. I was quickly falling into the nightmare of self-publishing: making a promise I couldn’t keep.
My Fail Becomes Your Win
After running around in circles for a few minutes (okay hours), trying to figure out a way to get a cover redesigned inside 24 hours, inspiration struck. Instead of trying to shrink the cover of my book, I could beef up my book’s content. If the book was 15 pages too short, I would just add 15 pages of more stuff!
So, now the print edition of Descent into Overworld contains an added bonus: the opening chapters of Pixelhead another one of my videogame-inspired stories. Here’s the blurb for Pixelhead:
“I knew I was in trouble when I deleted my breakfast.”
When Nathan wakes up with the head of a video game villain on his shoulders, he knows he’s in for a world of trouble. The question is, which world?
I think the two go very well together. They’re both about gamer kids getting more than they bargained for. And hopefully it’ll give readers more than they bargained for, too.
A Tale of Two Book Spines
Okay, so now that I added more content to the book, how’s the spine looking now?
Check it out:
Now with more words! The 200 page edition with a healthy spine.
As you can see, the number 1 is inside a circle, not an oval. There is an equal amount of space above and below the text. All in all, a healthy spine.
Failing=Learning (and more stuff for readers!)
This experience has taught me (again) the merits of failing. Screwing up can be embarrassing, but it can also be a chance to learn. And I’ve done a whole lot of learning with self-publishing. Knowing how to write a good story is just the beginning.
I have a great team of editors, cover designers and amazing beta-readers to help me not embarrass myself (too badly), but at the end of the day all responsibility and bucks stop on my very cluttered desk. I’m glad this failure was easily solved and actually resulted in a better book for my fantastic readers.
What about you? What failures have led you to inspiration? Share your story in the comments below.
In the meantime, I better get back to writing. I’ve got a lot more failing to do.
[This post originally appeared on GamingEdus.org, but you missed it, didn’t you?]
With October behind us and the school year in full swing here in Ontario, I finally got a chance to do something I enjoy each year: starting a new Minecraft club at school.
Minecraft clubs are popping up at schools all over the world and for good reason: they’re fun and an amazing way to introduce your students to all awesomeness of Minecraft. But with the runaway zombies and piles of TNT come many questions for teachers looking to set up a Minecraft club at their schools for the first time.
From getting started to making sure the lava runs smoothly, here are seven steps to setting up a Minecraft club at your school.
1. Keep it on the Down Low!
I know it’s really exciting to think about bringing Minecraft into your school, but before you place your first block, it’s best to keep your mouth shut. I’ve heard many tales from excited teachers who have announced to their students they’ll be starting a Minecraft club before even looking to see if it’s possible at the school. It never ends well.
Getting students excited for a Minecraft club is one thing, but once you announce your intentions to your students word will spread and the clock will be ticking. As Denise explained in her recent post, once kids catch a whiff of a potential Minecraft club, they will hunt you down in the staffroom, staff washroom and beyond in search of more information. You have been warned.
2. Check the tech!
It seems obvious, but another thing I’ve seen is teachers realize too late their old computers in the lab are just not up to the task of running Minecraft. Before you let the creepers out of the barn, make sure your machines can handle all that blocky action. You can check the system requirements on the Minecraft website. Even then, you should buy an account, install the game on a school computer and test it out. You might find that stuff needs to be updated, like your Java or video card drivers, before the game will run.
3. Enlist Support from Colleagues, Admin and IT Dept.
Just like it takes many builders to create those epic Minecraft constructions, running a club takes a team of teachers. Ask one or two fellow teachers to help you run the club each week. Having another adult in the room is always handy to keep the blocky fun under control.
Before you do anything, you will also want to get your principal on board as well. Their support is essential. You might also want to check with your IT Department to verify that you can install the game on school computers.
4. Pick a Club Focus
Sometimes running a Minecraft club because it’s fun isn’t enough to get support from admins or parents. It’s good to frame your club around a particular focus. In the past, I’ve run an after school club with a literacy focus. We ran it like a homework club where students who were struggling with reading and writing would meet to play Minecraft.and then we would write posts about our game play on our shared wiki. Diana runs her club with this focus. You can check out what her students are writing at their amazing Club Hub Wiki.
Your focus doesn’t have to be about improving report card scores or grades. In the past, I’ve run clubs where the focus has been helping students build social skills. We played the game and talked about strategies for sharing, treating each other with respect, dealing with frustration in game and other aspects of character education.
Look at the area of need in your school and see if a Minecraft club can support it.
5. Pick Dates and Meeting Times
Once a week is good. After school or during lunch. Either way, you’ll have only about 45 minutes to an hour of playing time. It’s not a lot of time, but a lot can be done if the kids are ready and the tech is working.
6. Create a Club Application
If you announce it they will come. And come. And come. And come. In case you haven’t noticed, Minecraft is kind of popular with students these days. If you announce you are starting a Minecraft club, you will have A LOT of students looking to join. Chances are you will only have so many Minecraft accounts to share and computers to play on. That means not everyone will be able to join the club. It can be a tricky situation deciding who’s in and who isn’t.
Creating an application form can be a good way to solve this dilemma. Giving students a form, having them take it home to fill out and then return by a certain date will help you find the kids who really want to be there, and will show up each week. They are the ones who actually return the application. Obviously, you support the students with plenty of reminders on the morning announcements and have extra applications on hand for those who lose them. But once that submission deadline passes, if you don’t have their application, they are not in the club.
The application shouldn’t be a “who has the most Minecraft experience” competition. I aim to have all Minecraft skill levels in my clubs, so the form makes it clear that all are welcome. Check out the application I used for my latest Minecraft club. [Word doc.] Feel free to change the details and use it for your club.
If you have too many applications for spaces, hold a lottery where names are picked out of a hat. Alternatively, you can run a few clubs during the school year. Each club will run for a few weeks and then ends. Then, the next batch of Minecrafters can come in and the blocky fun begins all over again.
7. Have Fun!
Running our Minecraft club is always the highlight of my week. No matter how hectic things get at school, it’s always a blast to jump in game with students and see where their explorations take them. Make sure you have fun during the club. Disasters will happen. Tech will fail. But at the end of the day, you will have had hour of videogame goodness. Soak it up.
This should help you get your Minecraft club started with a minimal amount of chaos and creeper damage. In the coming weeks, I’ll share ways to make your club run smoothly and what to do when it doesn’t. (And trust me, sometimes it won’t.)
What do you think? What is your advice for someone organizing a Minecraft club? Share your ideas in the comments below.
The print books are here! The print books are here!
I like ebooks and all, but when I get the print edition of my latest books, this is what I do:
Every time.
And yesterday was no different. These came in the mail:
Decent into Overworld print edition. Click to make bigger!
The print editions of Descent into Overworld. Are they not epic?
Here’s the back:
Click to make bigger and read that blurb!
Here is on the shelf (beside some other great works):
Makes every bookshelf look cooler.
And because you asked, here’s the spine up close:
Nice!
I couldn’t be happier with how it turned out and h0w quickly it got to me. There are few tweaks I need to make to the interior. All going well, it should be available for sale on Amazon by December 1st.
Want to be the first to know when the print edition of Descent into Overworld is ready? I don’t blame you. Subscribe to Reading Change and you’ll get project updates and a new reluctant reader resource every month.
What do you think about the cover? Let me know in the comments below!
I’ve been running around like a headless enderman for the last few weeks but now I can finally stop, take a breath and announce that Descent into Overworld is available on Amazon, right now!
If you have a Minecraft-loving reluctant reader on your holiday shopping list, then this is the book for you. And here’s where you can get it:
For all the non-Amazon shoppers it will be available on iTunes and Kobo in the coming days. The print edition will be available on December 1st.
Here’s the blurb:
Who knew a foam sword could end the world?
Hamid, Ant and Jaina love dodging homework, fighting creepers and creating epic builds in Minecraft. When a mysterious stranger gives them four foam swords, the three friends and their videogame-hating principal are thrown into their favorite game and thrust into an epic battle to save Minecraft.
An army of Minecraft monsters threatens to escape the game and rampage across the real world, destroying neighborhoods, terrorizing families and giving videogames a bad name once and for all.
Together, Hamid and his friends must harness the powers of their swords to stop the horde of zombies, skeletons and creepers. But first, they must catch their school principal before he makes a deal with the darkest forces in Minecraft to destroy the blocky game once and for all.
Grab your pickaxe, the Battle of the Blocks has just begun . . .
Around the world, young computer makers are rejoicing. Kano has arrived.
While I am definitely not young, I am right there geeking out with the kids. My own Kano kit arrived last week and I’ve been having a blast making music, designing new versions of Pong and hacking Minecraft into a big, blocky lava-covered mess.
What is a Kano? And does it hurt?
To bring you up to speed, the Kano is a computer you build yourself.
Kano is basically a Raspberry Pi computer pre-loaded with a kid-friendly operating system and lots of other fun stuff. The project was one of those wildly successful Kickstarter deals from last year. I loved what I saw and backed them right away. In return, I’m among the first to get my very own Kano and I can’t wait to show it to my students.
Building a computer is fun!
The team at Kano have said their project was inspired by the creative powers of Lego and they got that right. The box and packaging are simply beautiful:
The colour and design of the Kano box, begs to be opened and explored.
Solid, colourful and easy-to-follow, everything from the box it came in to the instruction booklets made the set up a simple and fun process.
Here’s what you see when you open the box:
The Kano computer arrives in one, nicely packed and beautifully designed box.
Diving into the box reveals an array of colourful cables, cases and totally cool Raspberry Pi computer. Added to that, there are two instruction booklets and stickers. STICKERS!
You had me at stickers.
The first step is assembling the computer, which is as easy as snapping together the plastic case for the pi:
The Raspberry Pi in it’s snap-together case, which can easily be taken apart again.
Then, you attach a few cables to the USB ports. In a few minutes, I had my computer built:
Wires connected in less than five minutes. It’s ready to go!
And it was ready to power it up!
The Kano booting up for the first time. Fun ASCII graphics run across the screen even making this playful and engaging for kids.
That’s when the fun really begins.
Kano OS is what’s special
Snapping together a computer in minutes is definitely very cool. For me, I was really excited by the code that runs the Kano. I’ve wanted to explore Raspberry pi’s since they first came out but have held off because of the Linux learning curve (which I also want to learn, but my plate is only so big.)
Kano solves this with their bright, friendly, point and click operating system:
Navigating the Kano will be familiar to anyone who has ever used a computer. That’s nice and all, but here’s where things get interesting.
With this familiar map for kids (and noobs like me) at their fingertips, exploring this computer is a quick and fun trip. Added to this, is the fact that you just built the thing yourself a few seconds ago. That is a pretty empowering experience when most tech comes shrink-wrapped and locked down in warranty-voiding warnings not to tinker. The Kano OS invites you to tinker and hack and explore.
It comes loaded with “Make” versions of some fun (but simple) games: Snake, Pong and Minecraft (okay, that one is not so simple.) Make Pong, Make Snake and Make Minecraft let you play the games but also invite you to lift the hood and tweak the code running the game using a Scratch-like drag n’ drop coding interface.
It’s easy to think today’s modern kids fed on bleeding-edge Xbox graphics will yawn at a simple game of Snake or Pong. This review in the Guardian proves otherwise. The ability to for kids alter a game’s code has potential for hours of play, learning and forming of a hacker mindset (all good things.)
I’ve had my Kano for a week now and played with it every night after work and I am only scratching the surface of what it has to offer. I have yet to explore many of the downloadable apps from Coding Academy, Scratch and more. And that is kind of awesome, too.
Kano in Schools
While Kano is proving very popular with families around the world, they are also very keen to get them into schools and as I said, I cannot wait to bring mine into my school. I definitely plan to bring it into my Minecraft clubs where I have a few veteran Minecrafters ready to dive into coding to unleash their blocky powers.
Watch for posts about that in the coming weeks right here and over at our GamingEdus.org site, where we’ll be talking a lot about the Kano in the months to come.
Kano Connections
What do you think of the Kano? Would you use it with a young programmer in your life? Let me know in the comments below.
It seems every day I come home there’s something cool waiting for me in the mailbox. On Friday, it was this. Today, it was the awesome book pictured below:
Tank & Fizz 1: The Case of the Slime Stampede is real and this Advanced Reading Copy proves it!
That’s right, Tank & Fizz: The Case of the Slime Stampede became a little more real today. That’s the Advanced Reading Copy sitting on my kitchen table and it looks fantastic.
This was meant to be a post about using Minecraft Pocket Edition with Grade 1 students. But given the giant paper clip in the room, that post will have to wait.
Instead, I’m going to write about what the recent Microsoft purchase of Minecraft could mean for educators, students and myself.
As I said in that interview, one of the things I love about Minecraft is the story of its beginning and the community that has built up around it (including this one.) It’s been told many times. There’s even a documentary about it all.
Minecraft was an outsider. It was rough around the edges and hard to define. It hasn’t been that for a long time, but being able to bring something that independent and raw into the normally generic world of school was a blast.
In a world of rubrics, checklists and report cards, this bizarre game with its totally lame graphics, absence of tutorials and unlimited creativity was a hurricane of fresh air, for both students and teachers.
Back in 2011, my students hadn’t heard of the game. They didn’t know what to make of it. But they knew how to play it. The first time we played, it was loud, wild and very messy. And it led to much amazing learning.
Minecraft wasn’t some curriculum-focused, assessment-driven eduware game demo’d by dudes in polo shirts at an edtech conference. It was a videogame. An indy game. And for those who brought (and still bring) it into the classroom, it was a little bit of authenticity in a day of bells, plastic chairs and ancient Dells covered in grime and boogers.
For me, that’s the biggest thing that has changed. Minecraft has lost that independence that made me want to talk about it to any teacher within earshot.
Minecraft will still continue to be all the amazing it is. But now, those polo shirt dudes with their branded lanyards will get their edtech conference demos. Those gamer-skeptic, data-driven school boards will sign up en mass because Minecraft now has that Microsoft seal of legitimacy (and who knows what other spyware, data-monitoring yuckiness yet to be baked into the Edu2.0 version.)
What will change for my students
I understand why Notch and the crew did what they did. It’s not a huge surprise. There’s no blame. Just a little sadness on my part. At the end of the school day, I’ll still use Minecraft with my students.
And what about my students stuck in those plastic chairs with those nasty Dells? Will they care?
Not one bit. When I’m teaching, they’ll still get to play Minecraft at school. They will still create, break and get messy with their learning.
Even with that paper clip looming over us all.
What do you think? Will Microsoft’s purchase of Mojang and Minecraft change the way you use it with your students? Let us know in the comments below.
The game has been in the news recently, with the impending Microsoft purchase. That’s what brought me in the door, but I mostly spoke about how I use Minecraft to engage my students with reading, writing and much more.
I also admitted to being very sad and a little bit scared about the future of my favourite game.
Listen to the podcast below to find out why (I come on at around the 9:15 minute mark.)
I’m always a bit sad on the last long weekend in the summer. Soon, the warm nights and sunny days will give way to icy winds and endless snow shoveling.
But I’m not sad this weekend and I have a group of monsters to thank (and Mike Deas and the folks at Orca Book Publishers, of course.)
I love how Mike worked all that slimy goop everywhere. That’s what happens in the book. And who’s that ogre spying on our detectives from the shadows? You’ll have to read the book to find out!
The Case of the Slime Stampede comes out March 2015, but you can pre-order it today.
Check out the Tank & Fizz page to get all the details on this new series.
What do you think of the cover? Is it slimy enough for you? I’d love to hear what you think, so leave a reply in the comments below.
I’m an award-winning author who writes books for reluctant readers.
I’m also a teacher who likes sharing resources to get kids reading.
Each month, I send out project updates and resources for the reluctant readers in your life.
Summer is coming to an end here in Ontario. And while I’m excited and ready to get back into the classroom, I’m also a little sad to see the end of the beautiful weather.
So, to cheer myself up, I’m giving away copies of Ganked, my YA gamer geek mystery!
I feel better just typing that sentence. Really, I do.
It’s all happening over at Instafreebie, where you can get a free copy of Ganked while supplies last.
Praxismaxis researching Battle for Minecraft Book 2: Nether Nightmare. Ack, Slimes!
I’m having a blast writing Battle for Minecraft, my new series of Minecraft novels for kids. Book 1, Descent into Overworld, is finished and in the hands of my beta readers. I’m always looking for more feedback, so if you want to read the ebook for free and tell me how to make it better, sign up to be a Beta Reader!
I’m about halfway through Book 2: Nether Nightmare and currently got the kids in deep trouble. They’re knee deep in lava, surrounded by ghasts, magma slimes and an army of zombie pigmen. Really not sure how they’ll get out of trouble this time. But that’s half the fun of writing!
0 Comments on Battle for Minecraft Book 1 off to Beta Readers! as of 8/17/2014 9:33:00 PM
Praxismaxis researching Battle for Minecraft Book 2: Nether Nightmare. Ack, Slimes!
I’m having a blast writing Battle for Minecraft, my new series of Minecraft novels for kids. Book 1, Descent into Overworld, is finished and in the hands of my beta readers. I’m always looking for more feedback, so if you want to read the ebook for free and tell me how to make it better, sign up to be a Beta Reader!
I’m about halfway through Book 2: Nether Nightmare and currently got the kids in deep trouble. They’re knee deep in lava, surrounded by ghasts, magma slimes and an army of zombie pigmen. Really not sure how they’ll get out of trouble this time. But that’s half the fun of writing!
0 Comments on Battle for Minecraft Book 1 off to Beta Readers! as of 1/1/1900
The three most coveted books on our Grade 1 class library. Are you surprised?
[This post originally appeared on GamingEdus.org, but I figured folks dropping by here might like to read it too!]
If you’ve been near a young Minecraft fan lately, you’ll know that this year’s must-have items aren’t the creeper hoodies or pink piggie stuffies. It’s books. Minecraft books.
They invaded my Grade 1 classroom and help turn some of my reluctant readers to word decoding ninjas. I’m talking about the books pictured above, Beginner’s Handbook, The Redstone Handbook, the Combat Handbook and more.
They quickly became part of my classroom library and my daily reading program for my Grade 1 students. In this post, I’ll show you how I use them with young readers and why I recommend them for any teacher with reluctant-reading Minecraft fans.
The Long Wait
Before we even got our hands on these books, some of my students had a very long wait in front of them. They first showed up at our school during the Scholastic Book Fair in January. Our amazing librarian ordered six copies of the Beginner’s Handbook. They sold out in the first 10 minutes. A few of my Grade 1s, ordered a copy anyway with the hope it would arrive at school ‘soon’.
A few days later, instead of the ordered books, our librarian received this note from Scholastic:
Scholastic’s note to anyone foolish enough to order the Minecraft books.
I guess this Minecraft thing is kind of popular? This was February. I now had to tell a group of 6 year olds that they had to wait three months for a book they already paid for. They were confused. We hadn’t even done time yet in math and three months was an unbelievably long time to ask them to wait. At the time, we were buried under miles of snow in an endless winter. So, I explained to them that when the snow melts and flowers appear, so will the Minecraft books. That helped. A little.
It was a long, cold winter.
Avid Gamers = Engaged Readers
When finally spring did arrive, the books finally arrived and also began to appear in bookstores across town (the ones still around.) My students brought them to class by the armload.
I bought a few for my class, slapped my name on them (things go missing fast in my classroom!) and they quickly became the go-to item during our morning reading time.
Once these books made an appearance my students who would normally wander the classroom spending 10 minutes “looking for a book” were reading right away. The text is written at a higher reading level than Grade 1 but their engagement with the subject, in this case Minecraft, pushed many readers to try bigger words or run to the dictionary to find the meanings of unfamiliar words.
I also did impromptu shared reading activities with some of the kids. We read passages together with me filling in the larger words. Suddenly I was having quick reading sessions with some of my most reluctant readers. Our work at decoding a paragraph about mining for coal, often led to connections with lessons we had done previously – recognizing ‘ing’ at the end of some words, or identifying the ‘ch’ sound in others.
These on the spot phonics lessons arose naturally, connected to the students’ real world experiences and made the learning much more meaningful. I find this is often missing when I sit students down as a group and do some straight phonics work. It’s hard to keep that stuff engaging.
Non-Fiction Studies Through Lava Pit Traps
The books also made great subjects for our investigations into non-fiction texts.
The books have all the elements of a good non-fiction book, including an easy to read table of contents and plenty of labels on pictures and diagrams. While we had already studied non-fiction texts through our science unit on living things, the students were thrilled to see the same text features in a book about other subjects.
The Redstone Handbook is packed with non-fiction text features and procedural writing examples.
The Redstone Handbook was particularly useful for our work around procedural writing. The students noticed many of the features of good “How-To” books in the redstone guide. Elements like step-by-step instructions and “you will need” list of ingredients were all quickly spotted by the students. Many went on to create their Minecraft How-To books, with guides on how to build your first shelter and more.
As the year wound up and my classroom books were packed away, these three titles were the ones my kids were still asking for on the last day. To me, that’s the sign of engagement and growing readers. Over the summer, I’m going to pick up the rest of the books and see where they can take our learning.
What about you? What Minecraft or video game books have you used in your classroom? Tell us about it in the comments below!
–
I addition to writing kids books and teaching Grade 1, I share resources for teachers and parents to get their reluctant readers reading through my regular newsletter Reading Change.
If this sounds like something you’d like to receive, then subscribe to Reading Change. You can unsubscribe anytime and I won’t share or sell your data. Honest.
Thanks!
Liam
0 Comments on How those Minecraft books got my students reading . . . as of 8/1/2014 2:20:00 PM
The three most coveted books on our Grade 1 class library. Are you surprised?
[This post originally appeared on GamingEdus.org, but I figured folks dropping by here might like to read it too!]
If you’ve been near a young Minecraft fan lately, you’ll know that this year’s must-have items aren’t the creeper hoodies or pink piggie stuffies. It’s books. Minecraft books.
They invaded my Grade 1 classroom and help turn some of my reluctant readers to word decoding ninjas. I’m talking about the books pictured above, Beginner’s Handbook, The Redstone Handbook, the Combat Handbook and more.
They quickly became part of my classroom library and my daily reading program for my Grade 1 students. In this post, I’ll show you how I use them with young readers and why I recommend them for any teacher with reluctant-reading Minecraft fans.
The Long Wait
Before we even got our hands on these books, some of my students had a very long wait in front of them. They first showed up at our school during the Scholastic Book Fair in January. Our amazing librarian ordered six copies of the Beginner’s Handbook. They sold out in the first 10 minutes. A few of my Grade 1s, ordered a copy anyway with the hope it would arrive at school ‘soon’.
A few days later, instead of the ordered books, our librarian received this note from Scholastic:
Scholastic’s note to anyone foolish enough to order the Minecraft books.
I guess this Minecraft thing is kind of popular? This was February. I now had to tell a group of 6 year olds that they had to wait three months for a book they already paid for. They were confused. We hadn’t even done time yet in math and three months was an unbelievably long time to ask them to wait. At the time, we were buried under miles of snow in an endless winter. So, I explained to them that when the snow melts and flowers appear, so will the Minecraft books. That helped. A little.
It was a long, cold winter.
Avid Gamers = Engaged Readers
When finally spring did arrive, the books finally arrived and also began to appear in bookstores across town (the ones still around.) My students brought them to class by the armload.
I bought a few for my class, slapped my name on them (things go missing fast in my classroom!) and they quickly became the go-to item during our morning reading time.
Once these books made an appearance my students who would normally wander the classroom spending 10 minutes “looking for a book” were reading right away. The text is written at a higher reading level than Grade 1 but their engagement with the subject, in this case Minecraft, pushed many readers to try bigger words or run to the dictionary to find the meanings of unfamiliar words.
I also did impromptu shared reading activities with some of the kids. We read passages together with me filling in the larger words. Suddenly I was having quick reading sessions with some of my most reluctant readers. Our work at decoding a paragraph about mining for coal, often led to connections with lessons we had done previously – recognizing ‘ing’ at the end of some words, or identifying the ‘ch’ sound in others.
These on the spot phonics lessons arose naturally, connected to the students’ real world experiences and made the learning much more meaningful. I find this is often missing when I sit students down as a group and do some straight phonics work. It’s hard to keep that stuff engaging.
Non-Fiction Studies Through Lava Pit Traps
The books also made great subjects for our investigations into non-fiction texts.
The books have all the elements of a good non-fiction book, including an easy to read table of contents and plenty of labels on pictures and diagrams. While we had already studied non-fiction texts through our science unit on living things, the students were thrilled to see the same text features in a book about other subjects.
The Redstone Handbook is packed with non-fiction text features and procedural writing examples.
The Redstone Handbook was particularly useful for our work around procedural writing. The students noticed many of the features of good “How-To” books in the redstone guide. Elements like step-by-step instructions and “you will need” list of ingredients were all quickly spotted by the students. Many went on to create their Minecraft How-To books, with guides on how to build your first shelter and more.
As the year wound up and my classroom books were packed away, these three titles were the ones my kids were still asking for on the last day. To me, that’s the sign of engagement and growing readers. Over the summer, I’m going to pick up the rest of the books and see where they can take our learning.
What about you? What Minecraft or video game books have you used in your classroom? Tell us about it in the comments below!
–
I addition to writing kids books and teaching Grade 1, I share resources for teachers and parents to get their reluctant readers reading through my regular newsletter Reading Change.
If this sounds like something you’d like to receive, then subscribe to Reading Change. You can unsubscribe anytime and I won’t share or sell your data. Honest.
Thanks!
Liam
0 Comments on How those Minecraft books got my students reading . . . as of 1/1/1900
That’s what happened last week when the books in the photo above landed on my doorstep.
Publishers reprint books when they’ve sold all their existing copies or are coming close to selling out. To an author that means your books is actually selling. That’s a good thing.
I’m thrilled because my Graphic Guide Adventure series has been out for a while and almost all of them are into reprints. Hooray!
Wild Ride, first published in 2007 is in its third reprinting, while this is the first reprint for Food Fight and Power Play. That’s kind of cool.
So, a big thank you to the amazing folks at Orca Book Publishers who do so much to tell folks about my books. And huge grats and thanks to the fantastic Mike Deas, whose illustrations are a big factor in why the books continue to sell.
I look forward to the same success with my new series with Mike: Tank and Fizz. If you haven’t seen the sneak peaks of art Mike is sharing on our Tank and Fizz tumblr blog, you’re missing out on some monstrous fun.
Happy reading!
0 Comments on Happiness is a book reprinted as of 1/1/1900
That’s what happened last week when the books in the photo above landed on my doorstep.
Publishers reprint books when they’ve sold all their existing copies or are coming close to selling out. To an author that means your books is actually selling. That’s a good thing.
I’m thrilled because my Graphic Guide Adventure series has been out for a while and almost all of them are into reprints. Hooray!
Wild Ride, first published in 2007 is in its third reprinting, while this is the first reprint for Food Fight and Power Play. That’s kind of cool.
So, a big thank you to the amazing folks at Orca Book Publishers who do so much to tell folks about my books. And huge grats and thanks to the fantastic Mike Deas, whose illustrations are a big factor in why the books continue to sell.
I look forward to the same success with my new series with Mike: Tank and Fizz. If you haven’t seen the sneak peaks of art Mike is sharing on our Tank and Fizz tumblr blog, you’re missing out on some monstrous fun.
Happy reading!
0 Comments on Happiness is a book reprinted as of 1/1/1900
I know Minecraft and I know writing for kids. Combining the two seemed like a natural fit and the beginnings of a really fun project.
The Battle for Minecraft saga begins . . .
With an idea brewing, I sat down and spent the last month plotting and writing. The result is the Battle for Minecraft saga, a three book series for Middle Grade readers (age 8 – 14 years) set in the world of Minecraft.
It’s still a working title and much could change, but my goal is to have Book 1: Assault on Overworld, available in ebook by September 2014, with a print edition to follow very quickly.
What’s it about? Excellent question. Here’s a blurb for Assault on Overworld:
Things got serious when the creepers blew up the school cafeteria.
Before that Hamid, Ant and Jaina were three typical Minecraft-loving kids. Now, they are trapped inside the mysterious Minecraft world known only as the Seed racing to stop more monsters from spilling out of the game and into the real world.
Being a Beta Reader means a sneak peak at the book before it is finished. You read the book and offer feedback on things like plot, character or whatever you like or don’t like. It’s lots of fun and you’ll get a free digital copy and thank you in the finished book.
I’m hoping to get feedback from as many Minecraft fans as possible, so sign up to be a Beta Reader and tell your friends about it, too.
How is this even possible?
When I tell people I’m writing a Minecraft book, they’re usually suspicious. And rightly so. Here’s how I came to the decision that a Minecraft book is something I must write.
In the last few months, I’ve been contacted by two separate publishers about writing Minecraft books. Both books were “unofficial” projects, meaning they were working under Mojang’s generous Brand & Assets Guidelines.
Both deals also fell through, which actually turned out to be a good thing.
I had already been thinking about a Minecraft novel for young readers. I had seen Minecraft novels for kids like this, this, and this appear on Amazon and waited for them to be taken down for copyright infringement by Mojang (the makers of Minecraft).
But they didn’t. More books appeared and readers seemed to like them.
Turns out Mojang is pretty open about using the name Minecraft and their creations (like creepers, endermen, etc). That’s why you see so many Youtube channels with Minecraft content. As long as you don’t claim to own the Minecraft name and characters, it seems you can build on their universe.
That freedom got the mouse in my head working overtime. The result is my upcoming Battle for Minecraft series, which I’ll publish through my publishing company Feeding Change Media.
I’m not sure where all this will lead, but I know I’m having fun. And for writers (and GI Joe fans), that’s half the battle.
What do you think? Would you read a Minecraft novel written by me? If you’re a teacher, would you share with your students? Let me know in the comments below.
0 Comments on I’m writing a Minecraft novel! Wait, I’m writing a Minecraft novel? as of 7/13/2014 3:55:00 PM
I know Minecraft and I know writing for kids. Combining the two seemed like a natural fit and the beginnings of a really fun project.
The Battle for Minecraft saga begins . . .
With an idea brewing, I sat down and spent the last month plotting and writing. The result is the Battle for Minecraft saga, a three book series for Middle Grade readers (age 8 – 14 years) set in the world of Minecraft.
It’s still a working title and much could change, but my goal is to have Book 1: Assault on Overworld, available in ebook by September 2014, with a print edition to follow very quickly.
What’s it about? Excellent question. Here’s a blurb for Assault on Overworld:
Things got serious when the creepers blew up the school cafeteria.
Before that Hamid, Ant and Jaina were three typical Minecraft-loving kids. Now, they are trapped inside the mysterious Minecraft world known only as the Seed racing to stop more monsters from spilling out of the game and into the real world.
Being a Beta Reader means a sneak peak at the book before it is finished. You read the book and offer feedback on things like plot, character or whatever you like or don’t like. It’s lots of fun and you’ll get a free digital copy and thank you in the finished book.
I’m hoping to get feedback from as many Minecraft fans as possible, so sign up to be a Beta Reader and tell your friends about it, too.
How is this even possible?
When I tell people I’m writing a Minecraft book, they’re usually suspicious. And rightly so. Here’s how I came to the decision that a Minecraft book is something I must write.
In the last few months, I’ve been contacted by two separate publishers about writing Minecraft books. Both books were “unofficial” projects, meaning they were working under Mojang’s generous Brand & Assets Guidelines.
Both deals also fell through, which actually turned out to be a good thing.
I had already been thinking about a Minecraft novel for young readers. I had seen Minecraft novels for kids like this, this, and this appear on Amazon and waited for them to be taken down for copyright infringement by Mojang (the makers of Minecraft).
But they didn’t. More books appeared and readers seemed to like them.
Turns out Mojang is pretty open about using the name Minecraft and their creations (like creepers, endermen, etc). That’s why you see so many Youtube channels with Minecraft content. As long as you don’t claim to own the Minecraft name and characters, it seems you can build on their universe.
That freedom got the mouse in my head working overtime. The result is my upcoming Battle for Minecraft series, which I’ll publish through my publishing company Feeding Change Media.
I’m not sure where all this will lead, but I know I’m having fun. And for writers (and GI Joe fans), that’s half the battle.
What do you think? Would you read a Minecraft novel written by me? If you’re a teacher, would you share with your students? Let me know in the comments below.
0 Comments on I’m writing a Minecraft novel! Wait, I’m writing a Minecraft novel? as of 1/1/1900
Start running at least 2x a week … or actually go back to the gym…but I’ll wait til March for that as this Is almost everyone else’s resolution as well
Happy New Year!
Yeh – the “get running thing” has been my new year’s tradition for far too long. Maybe 2015 is the year. Never know! Thanks for dropping by aIL!