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Seven Wonders: Book 3: The Tomb of Shadows, by Peter Lerangis will appeal to tweens and teens who like lots of action and danger in their stories and who are curious about ancient history.

HarperCollins has established a new partnership with JetBlue. Henceforth, the content platform on JetBlue’s Fly-Fi (a special inflight Wi-Fi program) will feature content from HarperCollins books.

For this month, passengers will be able to read excerpts from Patricia Cornwell’s thriller novel Flesh and Blood, Amy Poehler’s memoir Yes Please, and James Dean’s children’s book Pete the Cat and His Magic Sunglasses. Readers will have also have the option to purchase any of the available titles from a plethora of booksellers.

Here’s more from the press release: “At launch, JetBlue customers will be able to choose from excerpts of books by Daniel Silva, Martin Short, Anthony Bourdain, Patti Smith, Joyce Carol Oates, Carine McCandless, Paulo Coelho, Patricia Cornwell, Dorothea Benton Frank, Steven D. Levitt and Stephen J. Dubner, Dick Couch, Amy Poehler, James Frey and Nils Johnson-Shelton, Peter Lerangis, Herman Parish, James Dean, Nate Ball, Dan Gutman, Lauren Oliver, and Erin Hunter. Titles will change monthly. Books from these HarperCollins authors will be available to customers as e-samplers via JetBlue’s Fly-Fi Hub, which is currently accessible on 35% of their fleet.”

New Career Opportunities Daily: The best jobs in media.

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I am feeling quite blessed today to have one of my favorite young authors and bloggers join us for the Discover Your World Summer Reading Extravaganza! Erik Weibel blogs at This Kid Reviews Books and is the author of The Adventures of Tomato and Pea. Welcome, Erik!

Peter Lerangis’ Seven Wonder series had been on my To Be Read list for too long! Last month I made it a point to read the three books out in this series.

Series Overview: Jack McKinley is going to die when he turns 14. He is told that when he is 13. Jack meets 3 other kids (Aly, Cass, and Marco) with the same fate. Together, Jack and his new friends realize they have a chance to not die. Jack and the others are Selects – kids with a strange gene called G7W that lets them access more parts of their brain at the same time that everyday people can’t normally access regularly. Right now, it only enhances the Selects’ natural abilities (like Cass’s photographic memory) and causes them to die around age 14. To permanently live, (until a normal death, of course) the Selects must find the 7 Loculi – 7 stone orbs with magical powers. Unfortunately, the Loculi are at the 7 Wonders of the Ancient World – of which only one still stands (The Great Pyramid of Giza).
WHY HAVE I WAITED SO LONG TO READ THIS SERIES!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Book III – The Tomb of Shadows
By Peter Lerangis
352 pages – ages 8+
Published by HarperCollins on May 13, 2014

Summary: Jack, Cass, and Aly, along with their allies at the Karai Institute (KI) (a group devoted to finding the Loculi and finding a cure to G7W) have 2 of the Loculi. Marco has deserted the group to join the evil Massa – a group against the Karai Institute. Jack has evidence that his mother is actually alive, that she faked her death, and has joined the Massa. The Massa have taken over the KI’s Island Base on the remains of Atlantis. Things are looking bleak for the Select. They must go to the land of the dead to get another Loculi (it’s at the Mausoleum at Halicarnassus, which is a gateway to the underworld), but one of the KI team must be sacrificed to get in…
THIS WAS AN AMAZING BOOK!!! It was full of adventure and excitement and mystery! Mr. Lerangis gives you a plot so good that it draws you in, and then he twists it until you can’t leave until that last sentence. Jack is a great main character whom you come to care for. He is an ordinary kid shoved into extraordinary circumstances. I am somewhat jealous about the superpowers, but I am glad that I won’t die by age 14 (well, at least not by G7W). Mr. Lerangis has me hooked into the world of the 7 Loculi! I feel like I’m there as I learn about the 7 Wonders of the Ancient World – most of which I had no idea about. I really enjoy reading this series. I would recommend this book to any kid looking for a great adventure story with a great plot and setting!
I give this book 6 out of 5 stars!

Erik is an twelve-year-old middle schooler that loves to read. He started his blog, This Kid Reviews Books when he was nine. Erik writes a monthly book review column for a local free newspaper. He has a black belt in TaeKwon-Do and in his spare time enjoys building things out of LEGOs. He hopes to be an inventor and a published author when he grows up.

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Connect with Erik:
blog www.ThisKidReviewsBooks.com
Facebook https://www.facebook.com/Thiskidreviewsbooks
Twitter @ThisKid_Erik

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The post TOMB OF SHADOWS (7 Wonders Book III) Guest Post from This Kid Reviews Books appeared first on Jump Into A Book.

Just stay home. Please.

Find something else to do.

Each year I do this event, which features more than 60 amazing children’s book authors and illustrators, and it’s always such a disappointment. For starters, check out some of the people who’ll be there, and you’ll understand why I’m so bummed:

Tony Abbott, Nora Raleigh Baskin, Nick Bruel, Bryan Collier, Katie Davis, Bruce Degen, Jean Craighead George, Charise Mericle Harper, Susan Jeffers, Peter Lerangis, Gail Carson Levine, Carolyn MacCullough, Rafe Martin, Wendy Mass, Matthew McElligott, Helen Perelman, Wendell Minor, Gloria Pinkney, Lizzy Rockwell, Todd Strasser, Mark Teague, Jean Van Leeuwen, Eric Velasquez, Sarah Weeks, Ed Young, and more.

Why so down-in-the-dumps you ask? Because I never get to talk to any of them. I never get a chance to meet the new (to me!) people, like Will Moses (Mary and Her Little Lamb), Lena Roy (Edges), Daniel Kirk (Library Mouse), Peter Brown (You Will Be My Friend!) . . .

. . . and Jerry Davis (Little Chicken’s Big Day). Who are these people? Might they become my new best pals? Um, not likely! Because they are sitting at tables forty feet away, surrounded by happy children, shopping grandparents, and strong-armed educators, hauling bags of books like Sherpa guides.

Best I can do is throw rocks at ‘em.

And, oh, hey, look over there, it’s Jean Craighead George. She’s only a freakin’ legend. I can’t throw rocks at Jean Craighead George. She’ll throw them back — and her arm is a bazooka.

Oh,  wait.  Here’s old friends like Mark Teague and Helen Perelman and Peter Lerangis. Can I talk to any of them? Can we hang out? Maybe shoot the breeze? Commiserate?

Nooooooo. I’m too busy signing books, meeting young readers, gabbing with families, prostrating myself before the cheerful & smiling hordes.

Writing is a solitary business, folks. And it’s frustrating for me to sit there at gorgeous Sunnyside . . .

. . . just feet away from my peerless peers, and never have a free minute to chat with them.

So my dream is for just one year, nobody comes. No book sales, no signings, no musicians, no storytellers, no-bah-dee. Just us authors, finally (finally!) enjoying a few moments when we can hang out and complain about the crappy jobs our publishers do with publicity and marketing. It’s how we bond. We bitch and moan about Kindles.

So this coming Sunday, clean the garage, watch football, wax the car. But if you insist on coming . . . click

Instead of “Let Kids Read Comic Books,” I almost titled this entry, “Don’t Be an Idiot.” Because I can’t believe this needs to be discussed anymore.

Over at Imagination Soup, they ran a good piece with a solid message: “8 Reasons to Let Your Kids Read Comics.“ Check it out, there’s a lot of worthwhile links attached to the article.

Here’s their list of “8 reasons” in brief.

1. Comics are fun to read.

2. Comics contain the same story elements and literary devices as narrative stories.

3. Comics provide built-in context clues.

4. Reading a comic is a different process of reading using a lot of inference.

5. Readers need variety in their reading diet.

6. We’re a visual culture and the visual sequence makes sense to kids.

7. Reading comics may lead to drawing and writing comics.

8. The selection of graphic novels is bigger, better, and reaches a wider age-range than before.

Yeah, feh, okay. I get that. We have to establish that comics are credible resources, that it’s valid in the classroom, and there’s a perceived need to throw in a lot of pedagogical goobledygook. But I don’t care. Because one thing I know in my bones is that many (many!) professional authors began their childhood love of reading with comic books. Those authors are almost always men (read: ex-boys).

They read what they wanted to. They read what they liked. They read, period.

One of the critically important aspect of this issue of “boys reading junk” is that well-meaning adults — and in particular, women — need to become sensitized to our bias against certain types of reading. We have to become aware of the messages we send to boy readers, the disapproving, dismissive way we view personal choices.

We must trust in the process.

When I was working on my belly-up blog, Fathers Read, I received written contributions from several children’s book authors, including Matthew Cordell, Lewis Buzbee, Michael Northrop, Eric Velasquez, and Jordan Sonnenblick. One recurring strain in their reflections on their lives as young readers was the love

Oh, wow.  Just . . . wow.  Some of you may already be aware of the Boogie Woogie blog, run by author/illustrator Aaron Zenz and his three kids.  The fact that it may be the best blog out there in which kids participate in the discussion of children’s literature is evidenced by nothing so much as today’s video.  I hope you stayed for the credits.  This is their contribution to the James Kennedy 9o-Second Newbery Film Festival (to be held in my library in November) and if it doesn’t rock your socks off, nothing will.  Failing that, James received some more submissions on his blog the other day, including this magnificent take on The Witch of Blackbird Pond from Mrs. Mrs. Powell’s 5th grade class at Laurelhurst School in Portland Oregon.

Remember, folks, to get you kids’ classes involved!  Have them make a video of their own and submit!  I admit that the bar is high, but there’s a lot of great stuff going down.  We’d love more submissions.  Keep ‘em coming!!!

Speaking of contests, I was tipped off about this fantastic video contest the Ottawa Public Library held for its teens.  The Teen Tech Video Contest may sound like it’s YA fare, but many of the videos submitted were definitely of children’s books.  And of the children’s books they covered, my favorite (hands down) was this take on The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe:

It came it second to The Outsiders which, this being Ottawa, says that they are on the “outside” of society in a delightfully Canadian way.  Be sure to check out some of the other videos going on there.  These Ottawa teens have some mad talent.  Big time thanks to Jane Venus for bringing these to my attention.

Picture book trailer time.  I think the genius behind this take on the Katie Davis book Kindergarten Rocks is the first child featured here.  Methinks the the child doth protest too much.  In any case, if your cute kid quotient is low for the day, here is the perfect cure: