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Oh, Those Autumn Holidays (Or, Not Everyone Celebrates Thanksgiving)

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?” […]

10 Things I’ve Learned as a Children’s Poet

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 […]

On Your Mark, Get Set, Vote!

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 […]

Having a Literally Literary Halloween

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 […]

The “B” Words

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 […]

Plaaaay Ball!

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 […]

10 Internet Facts for World Internet Day

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 […]

Try This Real Life Scavenger Hunt in Honor of the United Nations

Tomorrow, October 24th, is the birthday of the United Nations. To celebrate 70 years of the organization’s work helping to promote world peace and encourage global economic development, more than 200 iconic monuments, buildings, statues, bridges, and other landmarks in nearly 60 countries across the globe will be lit up blue. If you live […]

Like Water to Ice, Part 2

Last week we posted this awesome blog about how October is Anti-Bullying Awareness Month. In that blog post, we featured part 1 of a 3-part story called “Like Water to Ice” by Tyler Keevil. At the time, we promised that we would post parts 2 and 3 of the story later in the month. Well, […]

4 Tips for Getting Teens Excited About Reading

I’m pretty lucky as a mom. My daughter loves to read. My husband pointed out today that her book-bag weighs 50 pounds. There are exactly two spiral notebooks in it. The other 49.5 pounds come from books she’s reading for pleasure. I was a big reader as a kid, so it makes me happy […]