Read Kiddo Read

James Patterson has a website named ReadKiddoRead. He offers suggested reading for different age groups: 0-6, 6 & up, 8 & up, 10 & up. He also has a list of "Almost Can't Miss Sure Shot Books for Boys." It's easy to navigate, colorful and offers lists of "if you liked this try" for titles. It also offers places to buy the book chosen...wish they could have put a note to try your local library. All in all it could become a very useful site. Check it out.

New Reading Tips for Babies and Toddlers

Reading Rockets is one of my favorite go to sites for literacy. They have added two new print- out of helpful hits for parents of babies and toddler. They are also available in:

• Spanish
• Arabic *
• Traditional Chinese
• Haitian Creole
• Hmong
• Korean
• Navajo
• Russian
• Tagalog
• Vietnamese

Tales of Beedle the Bard

I got my copy today and read it at lunch. I really expected not to like it. Everything I had read by her was so Harry centered, this would have to be a disappointment. Right? Wrong! I actually enjoyed reading the tales. The notes from Albus Dumbledore were not as good, but I enjoyed hearing his voice again. Plus his writing about the anti-Muggle movement made me think of Hitler and the Jews or any hate group that is against another group simply based on the where they were born or the color of their skin. It is so totally irrational. His notes also helped put a stronger light on our own fairy tales.

I think my favorite tale was "The Fountain of Fair Fortune." Which one was yours?

Two other related notes:
1. The book was printed here in Indiana.
2. At the end of the book there are 3 pages taking about her charity Children's High Level Group. The type of orphanages found in Oliver Twist seem to still exist in Romania, Moldova, Armenia, Georgia and the Czech Republic and the CHLG is working to give these children a different environment, and plans to expand to other countries in Europe.

Readertotz

Have you ever noticed there is now an award for most every area of children's book (i.e. early readers, picture books, non-fiction, fiction) except for board books? There is local lady would has wanted for years to get a national award for board books, but it just has not seemed to take off. Today I read a new blog, Readertotz, that "aims to raise awareness of the infant-toddler book as a significant format of children’s literature." It began Dec. 1, 2008 and may be something you will want to add to your RSS feed.

Nearest Book Meme

"Vroom!"
Swing by Rufus Butler Seder

Rules:
* Get the book nearest to you. Right now.
* Go to page 56.
* Find the 5th sentence.
* Write this sentence - either here or on your blog.
* Copy these instructions as commentary of your sentence.
* Don't look for your favorite book or your coolest but really the nearest.

My book did not have 56 pages, so I went to the 6th. It has only 3 sentences so I counted the the sentences until I got to 5. What does this say about me? That I'm a children's librarian!

Healthy Toys

Healthy Toys had a new look and updated website just in time for the holiday season. This site reports on testing of children's toys for toxic chemicals and gives an overall rating on 1500 toys. They also give specific results on cadium, chlorine, lead, arsenic, bromine and mercury.