Website Wednesday

Growing Book by Book is a wonderful place for book lists on all kinds of subjects; kindness, friends, even cooking!  For kids!

This website is all about increasing literacy skills in babies, toddler, preschoolers and beginning readers.  Booklists are only the beginning.

Growing Book by Book offers pre-reading and pre-writing activities, along with skill builders as children grow.

Designed to be used by teachers and caretakers, the ideas translate to one-on-one activities for moms as well.  So check this site out.

Book Giving Day - Giveaways!

It's International Book Giving Day!💕💕💕💕 (Also Valentine's Day - hence the hearts.)

Here are some chances to WIN books and comics - Just for You.

Are you a teacher or librarian?  Well, Brightly has a chance to win a bunch of books for your class or book group!

There's a huge DC Comics giveaway being hosted by Shelf Awareness. Check it out.

Do you a Goodreads account?  Goodreads has giveaways All. The. Time. 

How about YA Books Central?  Whoa!  This site is new to me but I am signing up!  They are giving away Carve the Mark right NOW!

Give away a book today.  Check out the Book Giving Day Blog for a list of charities that will pass your book on to someone who needs it.

  Print out an International Book Giving Day bookplate.  (Check the blog for other bookplates.)  Put it in your book and hand it over to a friend.  OR, place it where someone will find it.  OR donate it to a library (they might put it in their book sale, though) or day care, school, senior center, etc. 

You say STEM. I say STEAM

This just landed in my inbox from PW - The Not-So- Secret Society, a series of science related graphic novels due out this summer.

Subscribe to the newsletter for a weekly comic and activity sheet.  Science Clubs, take note.  This looks like fun!

Note to all you library/school science programmers.  Many librarians are not only very busy doing STEM/STEAM programming, they blog about their activities.  Here are two sites that provide book partners, age levels and suggestions for stuff to do.

The Show Me Librarian, Amy Koester, at Skokie Public Library in Skokie, ILL has some impressive skills!  Check out her STEAM post for good ideas.

Stem in Libraries  provides FIFTY PLUS weeks of programming and the information they share is HUGE!!  You will find everything you need to provide stimulating fun to your young engineers, scientists, artists, math and I-don't-have-anything-else-to-do people.  Click on ABOUT US in the side bar for suggestions on how to use the site.  There are so many projects on this blog, the ABOUT US article will help you navigate. 

Another Wednesday, another website

Short and sweet. Bookworm 4 kids offers reviews of books for littles, middles and almost grown kids. Check it out. Nuff said.

Wednesday Website

If you have kids and you want them to grow into super readers, visit Brightly.   This website has more lists about more interests and age groups, arranged in the most appealing way, than any other kids' book website I've run across so far.
 

Actually, I think I might have shot myself in the foot here.  Well, check Brightly out, anyway.  You won't be sorry.

KBWW - Storylineonline, BuggyandBuddy

Kids' Book Website Wednesday, - a weekly look at websites and blogs dedicated to sharing and reviewing Children's Books.

Storyline Online presents books read aloud by members of the SAG-AFTRA (Screen Actor's Guild - American Federation of Television and Radio Artists).  The text and illustrations are revealed alongside and below the people reading. 

Besides viewing, and listening to, well read books, children and parents can download activity guides for dozens of books, purchase the books presented, and sign up for an e-newsletter. 

This site is NEWS to me and I can't wait to share it with my librarian and parent friends.

 

Buggy and Buddy, an early learning blog, offers a great list of art activities and games based on favorite picture books.  Storytime folks, librarians, parents and teachers can add this list to their resources.  I will.

Wimpy Kid and Publishers' Sites

Some publisher's websites are designed just to describe and sell their books.   Most offer teacher's and parent's guides as well and links to the websites of their most popular authors. Others offer activities, reading guides and games based on the characters and plots of their books.  Here are some of my favorite interactive publishers' sites.

Scholastic offers The Stacks for Kids, a site that offers movie trailers, games, links to author sites and more.  Parents and educators can scroll down to the bottom of the page to find pages just for them.

Kids@Random is Random House's collection of websites for children and teens.  Here readers can sign up for newsletters, enter contests for e-galleys and books, visit individual websites for favorite series.  Links for different age levels, including teens, kids, teachers and librarians are ranged across the top.

Teens can go directly to Teens@Random for links to authors, games based on series and fan newsletters.

Litlle Brown - or Hachette Book Group - offers LB-Kids, an interactive site for kids and teens with mini-sites for popular series, games, videos, contests and featured authors.

Cabin Fever by Jeff Kinney, the new Wimpy Kid book, is finally on the shelves.   Greg Heffley has been framed!  Sort of! For vandalism!  But worse than that, he is snowbound with the entire family.

Okay, I lied. My next post was a poem. But I'm ready to share book reviews and book review sites again.

I am surprised and distressed that I have not written about Prayers for Sale by Sandra Dallas. This is one of the books I found on "Read It First". I'm SURE I wrote about this already. But where?

Okay, so Hennie is 86 years old and her daughter, Mae, wants Hennie to leave Middle Swan, a gold mining town in Colorado. The year is 1936. As winter approaches, a new couple moves into town and the young wife stops by Hennie's fence where her late husband hung a sign, as a joke, that reads "Prayers for Sale." This meeting leads to friendship and stories, lots of wonderful stories.

I loved the way the book was structured. Dallas drops hints about the events of the last few chapters in a way that piques interest but doesn't intrude on the story at hand. When all the puzzle pieces fall in place, there is a sense of release and relief.

So here's the short version. Gold mining town, the Depression, Old Woman, Young Woman, friends, love, friendship, lots of local color and some hard choices.

Here's a new book review site I found on one of my other book review sites, Twenty by Jenny.
Jenny has been a book editor, and a teacher and a mother. She reviews books and book related toys that she considers the best for different age groups. Her reviews link to an online bookstore in case you just have to have the book.

My best experience with BookReporter.com was when I won a Christmas gift basket during their Christmas book giveaway. (Now, I KNOW there is a Santa Claus.) The site is text heavy with links to dozens and dozens of book reviews, some of the Best Seller/Hot Author variety, some more unusual. The people behind BookReporter also fuel the book review sites Teenreads and Kidsreads. I subscribe to those two newsletters so I don't visit the sites that often but the sites offer some great features, such as a link to reviews of Great Books for Boys.

So, I have kept my promise to share some more book review websites, though a post late. My work here is done.