Teenage fans of Alyson Noel's The Immortals series will be familiar with Ever's younger sister Riley. With Radiance, Alyson Noel gives us an entirely new series for a completely different audience. Whereas I recommend The Immortals for teen readers, this novel is completely appropriate for young tweens. For those unfamiliar with the series, Riley, her parents, and her dog Buttercup died in a car crash (big sister Ever lived and is featured in The Immortals series). For a while Riley refused to "cross over," and lived sort of in limbo, visiting Ever and staying on the Earth plane. This story picks up with her living in "Here & Now." Her life is much like it was on earth, with her parents, her dog, school. But she's also training ...
Category Archives: ages 9 – 12
39 Clues — a Mom’s Review
When I found out that we were going to be hosting the final blog tour stop at 5 Minutes for Mom for the much-awaited last book in the 39 Clues series, and that our guest post would be from the author of the last book Into the Gauntlet, written by one of Amanda's favorite authors, Margaret Peterson Haddix, I had to finally take a look at these books myself. Amanda had read a few of them last year, but she got out of the habit when the new-releases became harder to get at the library, so she hasn't read the last few. But this review isn't about the kids. If you are ever around elementary school and tweenaged kids, you would know that kids love this series (A while back Dawn posted her ...
Mission: Explore
Over a year ago, Jennifer and I co-reviewed a book that intrigued us both- Free-Range Kids by Lenore Skenazy, and personally, I haven't stopped thinking about the book since then. Lenore's blog, also titled Free-Range Kids, is a regular online stop for me, and my curiosity was instantly piqued when I read the guest post: How to Get Kids Outside & Exploring Again. After an online inquiry, I found myself holding the neatest little book that encourages older children to explore their worlds in a completely unconventional way -- Mission: Explore by The Geography Collective. The simplest way to describe this book is to say that it consists of 102 individual adventures or tasks, referred to as "missions" throughout, for older children to complete in their own neighborhoods. Space is provided for recording information, creating ...
Nanny McPhee Returns: Books on Screen – Giveaway
This book is so much more than a movie tie-in designed to squeeze as much money as possible out of a children’s movie. This book stands alone quite well. The story is told creatively and in a different way, because a novel is different from a story on screen. The movie is told visually and in a wonderful way as well (click over to 5 Minutes for Mom to read my Nanny McPhee Returns movie review). The entire book reads as if it’s in Emma Thompson’s voice (I would know since I was able to participate in a half-hour interview with Emma Thompson, right??). It alternates between sections headed “The Story” and “The Diary.” Some might find this to be confusing, but if you think of it as a story that ...
Jack Blank and the Imagine Nation
Miserable. If you live at an institution called a "Home for the Hopeless, Abandoned, Forgotten and Lost," odds are that your life is pretty miserable. (And when the nameplate for that institution also reads "Crushing the Spirit of Childhood Since 1898," you as a reader know that the author of the book you are reading certainly has a solid sense of humor.) Such is the case for Jack, the central character in Matt Myklusch's new middle grade novel Jack Blank and the Imagine Nation, the first of the adventurous trilogy. If my wishes are heeded, this is a series that will be well-known and much loved by readers of all ages. Sure, it's another story of an orphaned boy who isn't aware of the powers hiding within him, and yes, he goes off to an ...
Children’s Classics Award Winners– August
Welcome back to the Children's Classics monthly post, where our focus for the rest of 2010 is on award winning books that dazzle our kids with amazing illustrations, beautifully crafted stories and meaningful messages. Last month, I focused on several of the Caldecott Medal winning picture books that we're fortunate enough to have in our personal library. This month, I turned to the John Newbery Medal, and I was thrilled to see my son's shelves filled with many of these gold-stamped books! While he's been reading some of them this summer, I tackled one specific selection on my own. Currently checked out from the library is A Single Shard by Linda Sue Park (2002 Newbery Medal winner), and although it hasn't been read yet, ...
The Case of the Crooked Carnival
As a child, I can't say that I was ever super excited about science. I don't remember much from elementary school science classes, and I wasn't the kind of kid who set up experiments on my own just for fun. I wonder if that would have been different if Drake Doyle and Nell Fossey were my literary pals when I was nine. As it stands, I'm just now being introduced to them in the newest selection in their Doyle and Fossey, Science Detectives series,The Case of the Crooked Carnival, written by Michele Torrey. This short middle grade book features four mysteries that Doyle and Fossey, the smartest science detectives in the whole fifth grade and best friends to boot, must solve relying on the Scientific Method and the tools of the trade. Does Edgar Glum really ...
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Jennifer Donovan
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