The title of this blog comes from a line in a story my 9-year-old daughter wrote recently. It’s funny, right? My daughter is not so good with capital letters or commas or periods (not yet, at least), but she does have a way with language that gives me great hope that she will be a […]
I am so excited to write about family game night. My family loves playing games. We play cards at dinner (and yes, we even bring them to restaurants when we eat out). We play verbal games in the car while we’re driving. We play I Spy while we’re waiting in line at the bank. I’ve […]
Victorians were fascinated with spirits, magicians, telepathy, and all kinds of occult practices and supernatural phenomena. Here are five fascinating tidbits that didn’t make it in to Cicada’s November/December article “Victorian Ghost Hunters”: Arthur Conan Doyle believed in ghosts. The mastermind behind Sherlock Holmes was a die-hard séance-goer who wrote volumes on the topic […]
I have to admit that I sometimes make the common America-centric mistake of thinking everyone else also celebrates OUR holidays. For example, in corresponding with a friend in England, and considering a visit at the end of November, I expressed my concern that the timing would interfere with their Thanksgiving plans. “Our what plans?” […]
Children have the best imaginations. Children look at the world from the inside out. Children love lyrical language. Daydreaming is a highly underrated art form. When you write for children, don’t write for children. Write from the child in you. It is better to show, than tell. Style is not how you write. It is […]
Are you having a difficult time getting yourself motivated to vote in this non-presidential election year? Yeah, me too. I have to admit that making the time to get over to my local voting place to vote in a few local contests is not really exciting to me. But it should be. My […]
Ahhh, Halloween. One of my favorite holidays: Little effort. Lots of candy. My kids love it too, mostly for the same reasons. The daughter referred to in previous posts as having the 100-pound book bag (of which 98.5 pounds consist of books she reads for fun) especially loves Halloween — and she has a […]
All month long we’ve been talking about bullying. At this end of this blog post, you’ll find Part 3 of “Water to Ice,” the story we’ve been featuring each week. Bullying has been all over the news this month as October is the month where we “recognize it “and everyone makes a point of […]
I’m a born and raised New Yorker and I grew up chanting “Let go Mets!” at ballgames at the now defunct Shea Stadium. So even though I’m not a huge fan of baseball in general, I have to admit to being pretty excited to see “my team” making it to the World Series. Judging from […]
The internet is kind of a big deal, right? I mean, you wouldn’t be reading this blog if it weren’t for the internet and I would have a ton more time in my day if I wasn’t spending all my time googling things and writing blogs about them. As our world gets more and more […]