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School’s In Session!

Feeling bored? Need to stretch your brain, but not up to paying to take a full-fledged college class? Here is your chance to look at AMC’s The Walking Dead in a totally new way. The University of California at Irvine is offering a MOOC (that’s a massive open online course) titled “Society, Science, Survival: Lessons from AMC’s The Walking Dead that takes an interdisciplinary look at the show, using concepts from math, public health, and science. These can be intimidating topics but boy, the class sounds fun. If you’d like to learn more about the class, or enroll (it’s free), here’s a link to the webpage for the class, which starts October 14. The new season for the show is October 13, so the timing is perfect for watchers of the show! If you decide to take it, I’d love to hear about the experience, and the resources you end up using!

Posted on September 5, 2013 by , Reply

Summer Reading Is Killing Me! Part 2: Tween and Middle School Reads

It turns out I actually don’t have to do much work to provide you with a good list of scary books for summer reading. Andrea Lipinski has done most of the work for me in the New York Public Library’s blog with a post titled Dark, Creepy, Spooky, Scary Crossover Books.

We’ve actually reviewed a bunch of these here, although I’m not sure we completely agree with her age recommendations. You might check out our reviews to see what we thought. There are some great books on the list, though!

Reviewed here:

Eighth Grade Bites: The Chronicles of Vladimir Tod (first in a series)

Anya’s Ghost by Vera Brogsol (this was a Stoker nominee last year in the YA category)

A Tale Dark and Grimm by Adam Gidwitz

Tales from Lovecraft Middle School: Professor Gargoyle by Charles Gilman (first in a series)

Coraline by Neil Gaiman

The Graveyard Book by Neil Gaiman (a Newbery Award winner)

Rot & Ruin by Jonathan Maberry (a Stoker Award winner in the YA category last year, and first in a series– followed by Dust & Decay)

A Monster Calls by Patrick Ness (a Stoker nominee last year)

Three Quarters Dead by Richard Peck

Zom-B by Darren Shan (first in a series that will eventually comprise thirteen books)

Strange Angels by Lili St. Crow (first in a series)

 

Here are some additional suggestions from our own Middle School List. With a very few exceptions, we’ve reviewed nearly all of these:

 

Zombies

Generation Dead by Daniel Waters

Generation Dead: Kiss of Life by Daniel Waters

Rot and Ruin by Jonathan Maberry

The Dead by Charlie Higson

The Enemy by Charlie Higson

Zombie Queen of Newbery High by Amanda Ashby

You Are So Undead to Me by Stacey Jay

Zombie Blondes by Brian James

 

Supernatural Horror

The Westing Game by Ellen Raskin

The Egypt Game by Zilpha Keately Snyder

The Near Witch by Victoria Schwab

Cryer’s Cross by Lisa McMann

The Seer of Shadows by Avi

The Other Side of Dark by Sarah Smith

Blackbriar, Fingers and others by William Sleator

Stranger With My Face, I Know What You Did Last Summer, and others by Lois Duncan

Ghosts I Have Been, Thirteen Past Dead, and others by Richard Peck

Monster’s Proof by Richard Lewis

Skeleton Man and others by Joseph Bruchac

Demonglass by Rachel Hawkins

Bad Girls Don’t Die by Katie Alender

From Bad to Cursed by Katie Alender

Mercy by Rebecca Lim

 

Vampires

Sucks to be Me: The all-true confessions of Mina Hamilton, Vampire (maybe) by Kimberly Pauley

Still Sucks to be Me: The all-true confessions of Mina Smith, Teen Vampire by Kimberly Pauley

Parliament of Blood by Justin Richards

Blood Ninja by Nick Lake

Look for Me by Moonlight by Mary Downing Hahn

The Silver Kiss by Annette Curtis Klause

Vampire Loves by Joann Sfar (graphic novel)

 

Werewolves

Blood and Chocolate by Annette Curtis Klause

Wereworld by Curtis Jobling

Under My Skin by Judith Graves

 

Anthologies

Bloody Horowitz by Anthony Horowitz (collection)

Fear by R.L.  Stine

 

 

Posted on May 9, 2013 by , Reply

Monster Kid Request: Move Over, Judy Moody!

If you are a children’s librarian, or a school librarian, or anyone who works with upper elementary aged kids, you are probably familiar with Judy Moody. Judy Moody is one of the less annoying protagonists that appear in series books targeted to girls. She isn’t concerned with looks or popularity, she wants to be a doctor, and her concerns go beyond the superficial. I find her annoying anyway. She rolls her eyes and says “boring” a lot, and she’s not very nice to her younger brother, who she’s nicknamed Stink.

But Stink is now coming into his own. He has his own series of books, with witty cartoons (supposedly drawn by him) and fun stories that even manage to sneak in a little learning. These books are aimed at kids who are a little younger, and my kids, who are 4 and 6,  will sit and listen to me read a Stink book for over an hour. I can’t say I like everything about the books, but they are enjoyable and funny without having nearly as much name calling or gross humor as some other books aimed at kids this age.

What’s really interesting to me, though, is that the Stink Moody website has zoomed in on one particular book (that I haven’t read) and created a whole event kit around the theme. The book is Stink and the Midnight Zombie Walk and the event is… wait for it… Reading Is Undead. The kit even ties in last summer’s movie, Judy Moody and the Not Bummer Summer, which, in addition to Stink’s extensive hunt for the elusive Bigfoot (which resulted in some pretty fun movie tie-in books that we do own, due to the Monster Kid’s obsession with Bigfoot and other cryptids) also has a fairly memorable zombie scene. Now, the Monster Kid is not allowed to watch zombie movies, and we try to tone the whole zombie thing down here, but there it is- another kid his age who gets into monsters, at probably the most age appropriate and non-gory way possible (yes, you may laugh at me now).

I think Stink and his friends could appeal to both girls and boys, especially because of the Judy Moody connection (the series is very popular) but, given how many books are already in the series and how many themes they address, I think it’s crazy fun that Candlewick Press is promoting reading, and the Stink Moody books, with cryptids and zombies. There are so many ways to get kids to read using this promotion, I encourage you to check it out, as well as the other Stink Moody books and resources, available here.

Posted on June 20, 2012 by , 3 comments
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