Daddy Mojo, Author at Daddy Mojo

Diary of a Wimpy Kid: Old School, is go-to reading for ages 8 and up

Some constants about 10 year old kids are that they like pizza, cartoons, video games and hanging out with their friends. They’re also huge fans of the Wimpy Kid series. It’s a publishing juggernaut about the life of Greg Heffley, a tween/teen boy who is discovering life and trying to avoid his family. “All my friends read it, they’ve read all of them” our 13 year old niece told us when I asked her about Wimpy Kid. Now that we have a young reader in the house I’m realizing just how good-and impactful the Wimpy Kid books are for that age. Diary of a Wimpy Kid: Old School is no exception, I read the book- it’s fabulous and the crowd at our school’s Scholastic book fair purchased every copy in stock.

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Smiles Ahead: Cool Music for Cool Families is jangle pop perfect kindie

Pop quiz hotshot: you’re traveling in the car and need some kindie music for the family, but don’t want to purchase more than one release. What do you do? First off, keep planning that road trip and get your paws on Smiles Ahead: Cool Music for Cool Families. It’s a kindie greatest hits of sorts because the songs are all previously unreleased and from some of the biggest and best names in kindie today.

More importantly the songs on Smiles Ahead are new from the artists and do not feel like rejects from their individual full length releases. It’s the elephant in the room. You hear about a compilation of ‘new’ songs and expect it be the audio equivalent of belly button lint. This is the release that shatters that mold in a kindie way, smiling all the way through the process and introducing you to a great new artist (for the kids) or two.

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Cabinet of Curiosities, a book on the wonders of the natural world

Think back to when you were a 7 year old child taking a walk in the wood near a river. You’d find a rock with scratches on it and imagine that it was from an alien world or prehistoric time. The stick that you found could actually be a bone that belonged to a dinosaur. The leaf from the tree was just cool and that arrow head is probably worth a fortune. We always took the treasures home and put them in a shoebox. Cabinet of Curiosities takes that sense of wonder and experimentation, cleans it up, widens your perimeter and actually tells you what you found in the natural world.

Spoiler alert: you probably did not find the dinosaur bone that will bring Sue’s sibling to your hometown.

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Great Pretenders Club by The Pop Ups is lush, power pop, pretend kindie

The problem with a great piece of work is that it has to be followed with something else. Audiences will expect-and want it to be as good as the previous work, but it rarely is. Witness the curse of Every Other James Bond Film for one example. I was expecting the new release from The Pop Ups in the mail and was giddy with anticipation when I opened it. About a minute into Great Pretenders Club I hit skip, then I skipped through every song and didn’t play it again until the kids got in the car.

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New All Age Comic Books for Wednesday, November 18, 2015

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The week before Thanksgiving and there are no turkeys on this list. Memo to self: that is the last Thanksgiving pun. What this week in new all age comic books lack it makes up for in quality. There are titles for every age and gender, a couple of our favorite comics and one comic that will blow you away if you’re looking for something fresh.

Lumberjanes #20, Futurama #77, Marvel Universe Avengers Assemble Season Two #13 and My Little Pony, Friendship is Magic #36 all come out this week. Any of those titles are can’t miss ones that your child will love.

Sonic The Hedgehog #278 is going on hiatus after this issue, not cancelled, just taking a break. Batman ’66 #29 is officially cancelled though and this is the next to last issue.

Usagi Yojimbo is the black and white gem of a comic that you need to be reading if you like ninja rabbits in feudal Japan. The art is awesome and the story is to the point, yet manages to tell lots. There are also two new Star Wars publications out this week. I suspect that we’ll be repeating that last sentence a couple times during the next month. One would almost say, we’ll be full of them.

The links will take you to TFAW, where you’ll save 20% on your comic purchases. The music on the podcast is from Cousin Silas/Black Hill, some wondrous minimal stuff that I found over at Free Music Archive.

Sometimes it’s as simple as a kind word

I’m a Sisterhood of the Motherhood Partner and was compensated for this post. All thoughts are our own. Many times, OK, quite often, my wife is correct. Husbands, it’s OK for you to say that, ditto the wives out there, your husband is quite often, correct. We were at the dinner table the other day with the children when I sarcastically entered into a conversation that we needed to have. I forget what started it, but the crux of the conversation was simply telling the other one something nice about them.

We say ‘please’, ‘thank you’ and other pleasantries around the house. That’s just basic manners that we want our children to learn after us. To quote the wrestling philosopher, Ric Flair, ‘talk the talk, walk the walk’.

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The new Hasbro Star Wars toys have something for all ages #Giveaway

I participated in an Influencer Activation on behalf of Influence Central for Hasbro. I received product samples to facilitate my review and a promotional item to thank me for my participation Our children are excited to see Star Wars. I state the obvious. However, since they’re only 4 and 6 years old it will be a couple years before they see the new one. They’ll keep watching The Clone Wars to get their Jedi skills up to par and have already started double teaming us for some of the new Star Wars toys. We got a chance to play with Bop It! Star Wars R2-D2 Edition Game, Electronic Catch Phrase Star Wars Edition Game and Star Wars Loopin’ CHEWIE Game. I suspect that the Force was with them because they found the super secret hiding area where I keep things before they’re photographed. Like kids in the proverbial Star Wars candy shop, they got to play with them and here’s how your kids will like them.

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SparkGift, fractional share investing-great for kids, really

We were compensated for this post. All thoughts are our own. If you’ve ever attended one of our child’s birthday parties thank you. Thank you for your generosity, for the remote control toy that broke the next day, the Sesame Street toy that was just a bit too young and that thing that they said they’d play with, but never saw the light of day again. SparkGift is the gift that long-term planning parents need to get on board with for many reasons. Call it a legacy, retirement, lesson in investing or whatever you’d like, but SparkGift is a way to give what people what they need-and will one day, want-and need.

I never really learned about investing until I was in my mid 20’s. While I’m glad that I learned those lessons I missed out on 25+ years of massive compounded interest that would have multiplied like bunnies by the time I’m ready to retire.

SparkGift is a way for people to give stocks and index funds as gifts. Between those options you’ve got more than 6,000 choices to invest in the commonly mentioned stocks like Apple, Netflix or the index funds that group together areas of interest or size.

$SparkGift, fractional share investing-great for kids, really$

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