In the next installment of my Books Over Looks blog series, which focuses on how to encourage children, particularly girls, to look to books and reading to increase self-esteem and knowledge rather than appearances and materials possessions, guest blogger Elizabeth MacKenzie Biedell (check out her bio at the end) talks about the merits of book clubs for children and provides some perspective based on her experiences trying to start a book club with her daughter.
Is anyone else watching this show on TBS called Search Party? I don't watch a lot of television. (Unless you count 6 hours of Gilmore Girls, but that couldn't be helped. Nothing keeps me from the Lorelai ladies.) Along with periodically catching up on episodes of Atlanta and Nick Cage, Search Party is really the only other show I watch consistently. It's like HBO’s Girls and Veronica Mars had a baby with Sam Spade! (Yes, I realize that sounds crazy. But the show is crazy – crazy good!) And, of course, since my mind went to Sam Spade, it then took the not so far leap, where my mind is concerned, to detective novels.
A few weeks ago my family and I were in the airport, preparing for an overseas trip. In the waiting lounge, I said hello to a young girl, aged around 4 years old, who was waiting with her dad in the seating area. She was very social and immediately engaged with me. Right away, I asked her if she liked reading and what her favorite book was. She absolutely lit up! Her favorite book was Clara the Cookie Fairy and she had the book with her! We sat together for the next 15 minutes or so, reading this delightful and amazing book together. This experience reminded me of the inspiring and creative post below by Lisa Bloom from 2011. It’s an eye-opening approach to engaging a girl about her mind via books instead of what she’s wearing.
If you love books, you love to get books. Since tomorrow is Cyber Monday, it’s a great time to find and buy books to give to others this season. In honor of that, I plan to donate part of the proceeds from the sales on amazon.com or barnesandnoble.com from my YA fantasy novel, The Travelers, to charity. But, what charity, you ask? Excellent question. Deciding on that was difficult...
Everyone has a guilty reading pleasure, right? Well, in my world my characters do also. Therefore, in this blog I’m going to talk about the books my characters would recommend and their secret guilty pleasures, including books on vampires, zombies (ooo, shiver), pants (yes, you read that right, pants) and Mandalas. What's a Mandala you ask? Read to find out!
Today is Black Friday, if you're braving the malls and high traffic areas - good luck! We're going to play table tennis and watch Gilmore Girls. Tomorrow, however, I will brave the shopping areas because it is Small Business Saturday, at least according to Kristen Bell. (You may know her from Frozen fame and the great new show The Good Place. She'll always be Veronica Mars to me. Go Marshmallows!) She's done a series of commercials to support the day and they worked on me, at least! I'm in!
You see that big, glistening, juicy-looking bird? I can’t eat that. You see that stuffing? I can’t eat that either. That pie? Nope. So, how does a gluten free vegetarian (technically pescatarian as I will eat seafood, but try to limit it) survive Thanksgiving then, you ask? It's all about the side dishes and remembering why I did this to myself in the first place.
K.L. Kranes 