2025-03-30T20:00:00-04:00

Discovering Fun in The Secrets of Lovelace Academy

If the end result of a bait and switch is fun or beneficial, does it really matter? That depends on how strict you want to stick to your initial interpretation of the subject matter. Did you mis-judge it based on its cover or did it change its trajectory during the course of the story? I don’t even remember what I thought The Secrets of Lovelace Academy would be about. However, by the third chapter I didn’t care, and was fully engrossed in the story of a teenage orphan girl who was living in group home. If you’re like me; you need to read mglit about an orphanage at the turn of a century, as much as you need to spill coffee on the essays that you need to grade. That’s not bloody likely, is it?

Why books are read

All About Brains: Engaging Kids with Neurodiversity

It would be glib to talk about this book around Halloween and have a zombie doing the narrating. Granted that could certainly draw in more curious readers than the actual topic about All About Brains. It’s an illustrated book that looks at brains the way that early to upper-elementary can relate to, if they wanted to read a book about neurodivergence. Woah, easy there elementary school reader, do you mean that this is a fun book about the very broad field of neurodiverse kids? In a way, that is correct, All About Brains takes a macro look at some of the differences in that field. It starts with a young girl as she starts her day with medicine and her younger sibling asking to have some of her medicine that helps ease her ‘brain sparkles’.

All About Brains: A Book About People, an illustrated book that lives in the world of edutainment on pediatric neurodiversity. It’s more fun than the name sounds.

Educating AND entertaining

Pink Floyd at Pompeii, a must-see for musicphiles and Floyd cinephiles

My first time was the winter of 2010. It was snowing outside, and I was on the computer, trying to write something funny, listening to music on YouTube while it did its algorithm thing. Pink Floyd at Pompeii came on. I was typing something and wasn’t paying attention to what was on the screen for the first couple of minutes. The music I recognized as Pink Floyd, but the recording was a live one that I hadn’t heard before. Once I switched over to the visuals of Pink Floyd at Pompei,i I was hooked for life and it became a staple of our viewing once a month for the past 15 years.

Pink Floyd at Pompeii has finally been re-mastered. It’s worth the wait and shows the gothic beauty of the area with laser clarity and sharpens the music to where it’s the sonic screwdriver we all need.

Believe the hype

Seven Little Ducklings: A Fun Counting Adventure

The palpable joy of the pre-k or kindergarten audience who knows a problem with a story must be caged, bottled, or otherwise sold to the late afternoon crowd. They know that the princess lives in a tower, so the audience is curious when the princess’s home is revealed to be a swamp. They’ll laugh as quietly as they can and squirm in their seats as they try not to be loud. Seven Little Ducklings delivers that same story time charm because kids think that they know the story, only to have it twist in ways that are unexpectedly cute or funny.

Seven Little Ducklings is the super cute, semi-counting illustrated book that channels the fun and enjoyment you want ages 3-7 to take away from kidlit.

These are the ducklings that you’re looking for

Rebellion 1776: A Captivating Read for Reluctant Students

Don Quixote charges at the windmill, raging at the fact that people don’t read enough. “This is actually good”, said a ninth-grade student of mine today as they were thinking about the two-page article they’d read. Granted, I had just spoken to them about their less-than-stellar grades and they were probably trying to placate me, but I’ll take it as a win. This all leads to Rebellion 1776. This is historical fiction that cooks at a slow boil, but is bubbling over the sides of the pot before you realize it.

Rebellion 1776 is historical fiction aimed at mglit readers that sneaks its way into the nightstand if you’re a fan of the genre or not.

Historical fiction to make non-fans interested

Exploring Money Lessons in ‘I Am Money’ Book Review

From a distance, the cover to I Am Money looks like an anthropomorphic credit card, wearing big glasses in front of the Arc de Triumph. It seems like an odd fit because, if it’s money in front of the French landmark, wouldn’t it be a Euro? No, the money on the cover to I Am Money is certainly an American bill. Look closely at the upper left and the $20 can be seen plus the other shapes and scribbles that people associate with it. Right, I’m back on board, I love money, and young children need to learn about money-especially certain aspects of it. If I Am Money does that in a way that’s interesting and curious to young readers we have something that’ll cash in with that crowd.

I Am Money is a book on money for the carpet-time through third grade crowd that educates and teaches a lesson via fun and energy, without any guilt.

What do kids love but rarely understand?

A Minecraft Movie, tween and teen greatness in a mindless wrapper

There are certain markers that define cultural zeitgeists. A Minecraft Movie is one of those instances. As a video game launched in 2011 it has a built-in fan base of millions of kids. Some of them will be knee-deep in their appreciation and fandom, others are about enter it and some stopped playing it in lieu of other games. Our family has two kids in the Minecraft interest world, both of whom had different reactions to A Minecraft Movie.

A Minecraft Movie is not for you. This is for middle through high school, maybe even college ages who played the game and want some silly.

This movie is not for you, unless you’re in middle or high school

Dinosaurs Can Be Small: A Kid’s Illustrated Book

If you were paying attention, we learned (or were reminded) that birds are descendants of dinosaurs. Dinosaurs Can Be Small is an illustrated book that dinosaur kids need. Those hard dinosaur kids, like the younger brother in Mitchell Vs. The Machines, that kid. If your child or students salivate at the thought of reading or having read to them, descriptions of giant lizards who died out so that the smallest of their brethren could survive, this is for you. This illustrated book sets up the smaller, lesser-known versions by introducing their more well-known, larger versions first. The result is a very curious dinosaur book that will entice dino-kids who think they know it all because they saw Jurassic Park for the dinosaur facts, and not the fact that they run amuck.

You can’t escape the pull of bird’s relatives….can you?