I’ve been on a bit of a Neil Gaiman kick lately, since Stardust came out and I read and enjoyed Coraline. Although I’ve been way too busy to read much more (I picked up M is for Magic and another Gaiman book about a month ago) I did have a chance to listen to […]

Last month I reviewed Lois Lowry’s The Giver very positively — it’s an absolutely great novel, for young readers and adult readers alike. So I had high hopes for another novel by Lowry, Number the Stars — hopes which were almost, but not quite, met.
Don’t get me wrong: the Newberry-winning Number the Stars is […]

One of the deepest fears a lot of parents have in this digital age is that their kids will fall into the seedy side of the Internet — or, worse, head there on purpose! When my partner decided it was time to get her kids a computer, I took a good hard look at the […]

I’ve been a fan of Charles de Lint’s work since I was a young teenager and picked up a copy of Moonheart. Moonheart probably isn’t for younger readers, as it includes some pretty graphic sexual descriptions and some pretty dark situations, but minus the fairly adult sexuality most of de Lint’s work would easily appeal […]

This is pretty cool: Kids Off The Couch offers a weekly newsletter that recommends a good movie to watch with the family along with an “adventure” to go along with the movie. For instance, they pair a viewing of Raiders of the Lost Ark with a trip to a local museum of antiquities. […]

The name-sake character of Neil Gaiman’s book Coraline is a bored young girl whose family has recently moved into a strange old house filled, by and large, with strange old people. Left to entertain herself by her always-too-busy parents, Coraline sets off exploring the grounds, meeting the neighbors, and puzzling over the strange door in […]

Lois Lowry’s young adult novel The Giver is a truly amazing book. Winner of the Newberry Award in 1994, The Giver tells the story of a utopian society located somewhere (somewhen?) in the future where lying is forbidden, competition is eliminated, everyone knows exactly where they belong, and death is unknown.
Or so it seems. […]

The Simple Dollar is a personal finance blog, but every Sunday they offer long, in-depth reviews of personal development books. This week, they reviewed The Read-Aloud Handbook, a book about (as you can probably guess) reading loud to your children. It looks like a fantastic book. Listen:
First, and this is the big one, […]