Erik from This Kid Reviews Books is giving away a copy of Lotto’s Super-Awesome Unbelievable Park Adventure on his blog for Children’s Book Week! Head over to his blog to enter the give-away and also to check out some of the amazing things Erik is up to – including a funny rap about sheep for the jingle contest for Susanna Leonard Hill’s Can’t Sleep Without Sheep. Vote for your favorite jingle on her site.
Kids, books and fun activities. All great reasons to celebrate!
Lotto’s Super-Awesome Unbelievable Park Adventure is all about outdoor discovery and adventure for the three kids in the book. And this weekend, Lotto, his brother, Armond and his sister, Riley are helping get kids outdoors – so to speak.
Buy a good summer read for a kid you know and help get kids outside!
Stay tuned for more fundraising weekends for charities that support parks in the book and/or outdoor recreation. Contact me if you have an outdoor recreation charity and would like to set up a charity event with Lotto’s Super-Awesome Unbelievable Park Adventure:)
I saw Play Againyesterday evening at a screening organized by a local high school student who is completing a senior project focused on getting kids outside (see a news story about her impressive project here).
If you haven’t heard of it, Play Again is a documentary that came out in 2010. After winning numerous film festival awards, the screenings are still going strong. The film follows six typical teenagers that attend a no tech wilderness camp. All the teens have average to extreme addictions to video games, social media and/or texting. Scenes from the camp are interspersed with comments from experts on child development and the influence of too much screen time or too little outdoor time. As with all good documentaries, the most telling moments are those that are presented without commentary, allowing the audience to make connections by themselves. In particular, the facial expressions of the kids, especially two of the boys who played a lot of video games before the camp, were happier, less stressed and less tired-looking once they spent time at the camp. That is a subjective observation, but it was pretty apparent and amazing.
The only thing about the film, that I would have liked to see done differently is the ending. After the camp, the kids are asked to attempt “screen time fasts” to see how long they could go without any time on computers, phones or watching TV. Some gave up right away. Others lasted several days, but it was clearly hard. I felt the fast idea emphasized the negative denial aspect of turning off technology, instead stressing the more positive and more likely to succeed long-term idea of challenging the kids to find creative ways to commit to inserting other activities into their lives. Some did find more time to get outside or participate in activities that got them away from screens. Notes on what the kids did after the wilderness experience are in the final moments of the film.
The screening I attended was followed by a panel discussion led by local experts. Really interesting and well done. Ironically, watching all that nature time on the screen was refreshing and made me want to go camping. Have you seen Play Again? What did you think?
I love bookmobiles. Beyond logical sense, love bookmobiles. The bookmobile stop time for our neighborhood stop is in my google calendar and I’m disappointed when I miss it.
My love for bookmobiles goes back to childhood. I have a vague memory of touring a bookmobile at a fair or somewhere similar. I loved to read (still do!) and couldn’t believe what a great idea bookmobiles were. But alas, there were no bookmobiles in our neighborhood.
When I discovered earlier this year that the bookmobile stops about a block from our house twice a month, I was jazzed. Every time I walk on board, my childhood wish is fulfilled and it makes me happy beyond reason, beyond sense, but since I’ve also known myself to be unhappy beyond reason and sense, I take bookmobiles as a good thing and go with it.
If you love, or even like bookmobiles, celebrate National Bookmobile Day by visiting your local bookmobile or by telling your library how much you like bookmobiles.
This whole week is National Library Week. Check in and check out a book to celebrate.
Today, I am proud to announce that Lotto’s Super-Awesome Unbelievable Park Adventure has a fantastic new cover. Thanks to Brian Allen from Flyland Designs . Brian has definitely made the book better and more appealing to the target audience by bringing Lotto, Armond and Riley to life. If you’ve read the book, you’ll know that he pretty much nailed the characters and captured a good sense of the story with the illustration.
Also, Erik from This Kid Reviews Books liked my book! I’m happy when an adult likes my book, but I’m absolutely thrilled when a kid likes it – and Erik is no ordinary kid. Erik reads A LOT and provides reviews for kids, parents, teachers, etc. looking for good books for kids. Check out Erik’s blog, his April Fools joke, and Lotto’s review here.
Snow dinosaur in the park near our house on a recent snowy day
We had a warm temperature snow storm last week. Heavy snow is bad for tree limbs and power lines (our power was out for 2 days!), but wet snow is great for constructing snowmen and snow creatures. We came across this frozen fella in the park. I don’t know which neighbors created the snow dino, but everyone who saw it was impressed. Sadly, the temperatures warmed and the snow dino went, well, the way of the dinosaurs.
