Throwing Marshmallows

I have been meaning to post a link to this podcast of a discussion with Philip Pullman for awhile now:

In this month’s Christmas book club, John Mullan turns his attention to Philip Pullman’s expansive, magnificent His Dark Materials trilogy.Listen to the podcast of last night’s book club event, in which Pullman talked about Milton, morality and heading for the Arctic, and answered some searching textual questions from younger audience members.

At over 45 minutes, there is a lot of meat to this discussion…lots of background including how he came up with the idea of daemons (animal representations of a person’s soul) which was one of my favorite concepts (turns out he needed someone for Lyra to talk to in the opening chapter when she is in the closet!)

His Dark Materials is such a wonderful trilogy and one of those gems that I am so glad to have discovered as part of our homeschooling. Philip Pullman is not only a masterful storyteller, but an incredible writer (these two do not always go hand in hand!) The way that he can build the rich world in which Lyra lives (and the other parallel worlds) and the way that he has with words just amazes me. There were times when I would re-read passages just to hear the words again. The audio book is very well done as well (read by the author with a full cast) and I highly recommend it.

I just got an email from my favorite place to buy audio books, Audible, and it looks like they are opening an separate site just for kids audio books, called…wait for it…Audible Kids.

It actually looks pretty fun…I can’t tell if the selection is any bigger than on the regular Audible site (where you can still get kids books). It does seem as if you have more ways to search for books…by categories, age, grade, series, popular characters and award winners.

And yes, you do use the same account for making purchases for both Audible and Audible Kids, so there is no new fee or anything new to join. If you have credits on Audible, they are available on Audible Kids as well.

I have only poked around a little bit, but it looks like lots of fun stuff. Although I can’t say that I could ever bring myself to buy an audio version of a good picture book (like Where the Wild Things Are)…even though it is not expensive (many are only $1) it still seems a bit of a waste for a 5 minute audio book! Not to mention not getting the wonderful artwork.

But there are tons of other books that I would definitely consider owning. Much of my audio book purchases are kid lit…for both the boys and myself.

I have been a member of Audible for over 2 years now and I have to say that I have gotten some awesome deals. They frequently run promotions and sales (in fact I have $10 waiting to be spent that I got for using 4 credits in March…I had a couple of items on my wishlist that I had been waiting to purchase, including John Adams by David McCullough which was on sale for only 1 credit (regularly $48.96/ 2 credits))

Just discovered this wonderful storytelling resource - Storynory (have I ever said how much I love my homeschool email lists? You find out about the neatest things).

You can listen online or subscribe to their podcast and download lots of different types of stories…fairy tales (including ones from Hans Christian Anderson and the Brothers Grimm), mythology, animal stories, Aesop’s Fables, Arabian Nights, Bible Stories, Poetry, you name it. They are also doing chapter installments of Alice in Wonderland. I had a lot of fun poking around and discovering the wealth of stories they have available (75 and counting).

We always have an audio book going in the car and I am always looking to find new resources that we can use. Podcasts are great because I can download them to my iPod and play them in the car. Plus they are free!

We currently enjoy Act!vated Storytellers (a podcast by a homeschool storytelling family) and I am excited to find another similar podcast. The nice thing about Storynory is that they have longer stories in addition to shorter ones. I am really looking forward to listening to these with the boys.

Check them out!

What are the Cybils?

Like all revolutions, this one started small, with a single post on a blog devoted to children’s literature. The Newbery Medals seemed too elitist and the Quills, well, not enough so.

Was there a middle ground, an annual award that would recognize both a book’s merits and popularity?

The answer: invent one! Within hours, this meme had circulated among some of the biggest bloggers in the burgeoning kidlitosphere, the cozy corner of the Web where children’s books are given the same regard as their grown-up counterparts.

Within days, the new awards had a name and a website: The Cybils, a loose acronym for Children’s and YA Bloggers’ Literary Awards. Nominations quickly opened in eight categories, from picture books up to Young Adult fiction and even graphic novels.

Well after many, many months of waiting, they have published the list. Check out the best in the following categories:

• Fantasy and Science Fiction
• Fiction Picture Books
• Graphic Novels
• Middle Grade Fiction
• Non-fiction (Middle Grade and YA)
• Non-fiction Picture Books
• Poetry
• Young Adult Fiction

Great way to find great recommendations for your kids (and your own!) reading enjoyment.

Have fun!

~Stephanie

Christine wrote in the comments from my last post I love surprises:

Just out of curiosity, how do you find all of these author blogs/websites, etc? Do you just google authors you like? Is there a website that lists stuff like this? My kids would be very interested, I think, along with their “book geek” of a mom.

Thanks to the wonder that is the internet, there are tons of great email lists/blogs/websites out there to indulge our “book geekiness” if we so desire. I have found that “child’s lit” makes up the core of our homeschooling…we do a lot of reading together and always have an audio book going. And to be honest with you, I think that I enjoy this part of our homeschooling as much as the boys!

I have discovered a wealth of great authors and books by hanging out around Child Lit lovers. There are tons of folks discussing and writing about it on the web. Some of my favorites are:

Child Lit email list: By far the best resource. Ongoing discussions about anything and everything to do with Child’s Lit. This is not a homeschool specific list, but is made up of lovers of Children’s Literature…list members include authors (Jane Yolan, Philip Pullman, Bruce Hale and many others), teachers (all levels, elementary through college), librarians, English/Children’s literature majors, parents and homeschoolers. I have learned about so many great authors that I never would have known about and I love the conversations…especially interesting to hear the teachers and librarians. You can tell that these folks just love children’s books!

Mother Reader: My favorite child’s lit blog written by a mom (who doubles as a librarian’s assistant). We share similar tastes in books and I love her sense of humor. She is the one who turned me onto Mo Williams blog and the National Book Festival. And many, many great books.

Educating Alice: A great blog written by an awesome 4th grade english teacher that I “met” on the Child’s Lit email list. She has some great ideas for teaching kids and is the type of creative teacher that everyone would love for their kids (if they are not homeschooling that is!)

Other Child’s Lit blogs that I check out:

• Fuse #8
• Chicken Spaghetti
• Big A little a
• Book Moot
• Scholar’s Blog

It also seems that most authors have a website or even a blog nowadays. If you have a favorite author, google and see what you find out. You never know where it might lead. I am hoping to have time soon to update my blogroll to include favorite author sites…

Hope that these get you started…but I warn you, there are tons of great Child’s Lit blogs out there…it is easy to get totally hooked! And now I find out about great new books when they first come out which drives me crazy…because I have to make the decision of whether or not to wait to get it in paperback! And what is it with this need that I have where if I find a book that I (or the boys) really love that I have to own it…even if we have gotten it from the library and already read it?? I think it is a sickness…
Happy Reading!

~Stephanie

Well, I can blame it all on Lissa. She wrote this great post about comics and happened to mention Mouse Guard. I have been looking for books that might grab Jason’s attention and comic/graphic novels are definitely up his alley (very visual obviously and not as intimidating to read).

So I tracked down the nearest comic book store (which happened to only be about 10 minutes away - great find!). Turns out that they had Issues 1, 3, 4, and 5. Issue 1 and 2 are difficult to find (I got the last Issue 1 and am still on the hunt for Issue 2). These comics are gorgeous and about sword fighting mice, so what is not to love! It is going to be hard to wait until Christmas to give these to him.

While at the comic book store, I happened to find this wonderful graphic novel…the 2nd volume in the Owly series called Owly: Just a Little Blue. What is unique about this novel is that there are no words. The entire story (all 128 pages) is completely told in pictures! It is a sweet story about an Owl and his friend Wormy. They decide to build a birdhouse, but the birds do not want to come. I really think that Kyle will like it (although it is supposedly for slightly older kids), especially that he can read it himself. And I am sure that Jason will like it too.

So of course, I had to come home and jump online to see what I could find. No luck in finding Issue 2 of Mouse Guard, but I did find Volume 1 and 3 in the Owly series on half.com (actually found more then those but needed to exercise some self-control!)

In reading up on the Owly series on amazon, I found a link to the graphic novel Bone which I had heard about on the Children’s Literature email list I am on. I checked it out (amazon had an excerpt) and it is awesome! Funny, well written, interesting with a dragon to boot. So back over to half.com and I found the first 3 volumes. I contemplated getting the complete one book set (13 years worth and over 1,000 pages!) but decided that it was a bit too hefty and could not imagine Jason lugging that much of a brick with him. Again I exercised some restraint.

Now I can’t wait to get the books…I may need to give them a read through before they go under the Christmas tree…what fun!

Anyone else out there have any favorite comics or graphic novels? Jason loves Calvin and Hobbes and Far Side, but it is kind of fun to discover lesser known comics too.

~Stephanie

The boys and I just finished reading the latest issue of the Moo Cow Fan Club on Egypt. It was wonderful! We really love, love, love this magazine.

It is relatively new and only comes out 4 times a year and is really great. No advertising, no pop culture tie-ins and the boys love it. Jason is not big into magazines…does not like Spider, Highlights or Ranger Rick but he really likes Moo Cow. And Kyle is just now starting to really enjoy it as well.

They cover a single topic each issue (prior topics include Japan, Aztecs, Space, Forests, Scotland, Ancient Greece, Sports, Baby Animals, and Games) . It is really well done with a mixture of article types including comics, hands on activities, recipes, stories, articles and some pretty funny regular columns and characters.

I met the creator at a hsing conference a couple of years ago and really liked her approach and what she wanted to accomplish with the magazine. She was just starting to reach out to homeschoolers (and later I saw that she published a letter to the editor from a homeschooler which Jason thought was really cool). They publish pictures/drawings/letters from their readers and since they are small there is a good chance that if you send one in it will make it in.

Definitely check it out and spread the word!