Harry Potter and the Rival Teen Franchise
With the latest Harry Potter movie release just around the corner, the Wall Street Journal takes a look at the battle between Harry Potter and Twilight as both series vie for the same teenage audience.

Twitter to Enter the Collins English Dictionary
The definition of Twitter, as in the social media platform, not the noise a bird makes, will be added to the next edition of the Collins English Dictionary.

Tips on getting kids to crack a book this summer
Parents share low-cost ways of motivating children to read and write. I especially like the idea of writing letters to your child - my parents did this periodically throughout my young adult years and I still have many of these letters.

“Children’s Book Authors for $1,000, Alex…”
Children’s author Tui Sutherland recently appeared on Jeopordy and won $44,200.

National Summer Learning Day will consist of several nonprofit sponsored events across the country. These fun filled educational activities range from a group of Chicago students from Kids Keep Learning taking a trip to the Federal Reserve Bank of Chicago, to a group of Harlem kids, involved in REAL Kids reading and enrichment summer program at Harlem, participating in a formal induction for summer baseball teams.

National Summer Learning Day looks to improve the summer for all children, moving kids from the couch to the community. A decrease in reading and learning over the summer months contributes to the achievement gap between middle and lower class children. In fact, according to a study at John Hopkins University, a summer loss of 3 months results in a gap of 18 months by the end of 6th grade.

To learn more about the National Summer Learning Day, please visit www.summerlearning.org.

Name: Erica Perl

Where is your hometown? Burlington, VT

What do you do at First Book? I am the Director of the First Book Marketplace and National Book Bank.  Which means I handle our relationships with our publishing partners, and I oversee our book selections to best meet the needs and interests of our recipient groups.

What are you reading now? I’m reading Joseph O’Neill’s Netherland for one book group and Andrew Clements The School Story for another.  I’m also trying to get through Harry Potter book six before the movie comes out!

Tell us a fun fact about yourself. I am the author of several children’s books, including Chicken Butt!, Ninety-three In My Family and Chicken Bedtime Is Really Early.  My first young adult novel, Vintage Veronica, will be published in March, 2010 by Random House.  My Web site is www.ericaperl.com.

I’ll be signing copies of Chicken Butt! on Monday, July 13th at 1:00 pm in the Abrams booth #2343 at the ALA Annual Conference in Chicago. If you’re attending the conference or live in the area, please stop by and say hello!

What have you learned by working at First Book? I was pleased to learn that my ideal job exists!  At First Book, I can wear both my lawyer suit (yes, I have a law degree) and my chicken hat (yes, I actually have two of these), although not always at the same time.  I am at my happiest when I am surrounded by terrific, energetic people and wonderful children’s books… which is exactly how it is at First Book.  At First Book, I learn new things every day and I am thrilled to work in a place where creativity and collaboration are valued so highly.

What’s the oddest job you’ve had? I have had several odd jobs, including driving an ice cream truck and teaching dog obedience.  Combining these two jobs would have been a good idea — if ice cream is involved, my dog will do whatever is asked of her!

Do you have a favorite quote or saying you live by? I’m extremely fond of my Chicken Butt! book tour slogan:  “No BUTTs about it, we love to read!”

If you could have an endless supply of any food, what food would it be? I think I could survive on a desert island if there was a theater concession stand on it:  I love popcorn and red licorice.

Last month, I spent a lot of time in and around hospitals, helping a relative recover from surgery.  With many long hours spent in waiting rooms, I completed a lot of reading.  Day after day, I was struck by the nature of what people choose to read when they are worried, stressed, and generally out of sorts.

For my part, I took solace in a mammoth stack of back issues of The New Yorker.  I enjoyed the cartoons, I dashed through some of the short columns, and I indulged in numerous long essays that had nothing whatsoever to do with doctors, nurses, or medical treatments.  When I finished the dozen or so magazines that I’d brought, I treated myself to novels — light fiction — completely ignoring the stack of serious, thought-provoking “Literature” that sits on my to-be-read shelf.

Other people have other coping reading strategies. The hospital gift shop stocked dozens of gossip magazines, letting visitors escape into the Hollywood lives of movie stars and elite athletes.  Those stacks were complemented by so-called women’s magazines, lifestyle periodicals designed to remind everyone that there *is* life outside of the four walls of a hospital room.  Many visitors took advantage of the offered escapism.

Not surprisingly, many people read the Bible while they waited. Because the hospital was in a community with many Somali refugees, most hospital waiting rooms had a copy of the Koran available, as well as Old and New Testaments.

Mysteries were popular - anxious family members and friends could track down murderers and thieves, even as they waited for news that surgeons had vanquished corporal foes.  Romances were present in abundance - many of them in large type, to facilitate reading by tired eyes.

The hospital hosted a library for patients and visitors, and the nun who founded the collection was memorialized with a lovely portrait in the main lobby.  Staring at her patient, compassionate features, I was reminded that reading is an escape, a release, a necessary chance to be someone we aren’t, to go places that we can’t.

Now that my relative is well on the road to new health, I’m beginning to feel ready to tackle the meatier materials on my to-be-read shelf. I might, though, decide to baby myself just a little while longer… that’s what *summer* reading is all about, right?

What books have guided you when you have been stressed?  Which books have been a comfort?

Great non-fiction books for kids are taking over bookstore displays and library shelves this summer. If children need rich and diverse background knowledge in order to make sense of our ever-expanding world, then this is very good news.

In the article How Knowledge Helps, University of Virginia cognitive psychologist Daniel Willingham says: “Knowledge is not only cumulative, it grows exponentially. Those with a rich base of factual knowledge find it easier to learn more — the rich get richer. In addition, factual knowledge enhances cognitive processes like problem solving and reasoning. The richer the knowledge base, the more smoothly and effectively these cognitive operate.”

For some kids, non-fiction is all they want to read. What about boys? Research shows that boys read less fiction than girls and generally prefer informational texts and books that focus on things they DO, like collect rocks or play soccer. Jane McFann writes about what boys read and why in her article Boys and Books.

This month, Reading Rockets is featuring an interview with science and nature writer Sneed Collard. From cloud forests to the deep sea floor, Collard’s nonfiction books (more than 30 titles so far) invite kids to discover the natural world and the creatures that make it their home. World travel and first-hand research allow Collard to fill his books with colorful details. Science is life – “pick up a science book and use that to teach literacy,” he says.

The natural world is endlessly fascinating, like a great mystery series that we keep trying to puzzle through and solve. Our fascination with the moon is one example — it has inspired folktales, literature, and real-life exploration. Forty years ago — on July 21, 1969 — Neil Armstrong emerged from the Apollo 11 lunar module and touched his boot onto the surface of the moon. Incredible! At Reading Rockets, we’re celebrating that exhilarating moment with a stellar new collection of [mostly] non-fiction books all about the moon.

The daily newspaper is a great way to pique a child’s curiosity about the real world. It’s authentic stuff, fresh every day, and the local interest stories can really pull kids in. The Newspaper Association of America Foundation has developed a wonderful list of newspaper-based activities that teachers or parents can use to build background knowledge, critical thinking skills, and basic literacy skills like vocabulary and fluency. Try reading from your favorite sports writer’s column aloud on a lazy Sunday afternoon – it’s likely to be full of metaphor, narrative structure, and compelling character development.

And if you are looking for a new way this summer to extend your reading adventures with kids, why not try our themed Family Literacy Bags — we’ve paired a fiction and a non-fiction book with hands-on activities you can enjoy together. Happy reading!

Did you know that reading just four to give books over the summer helps prevent a decline in a child’s reading scores? To help promote reading and learning this summer, First Book has teamed up with The Literacy Site to bring even more new books to kids in need.

Visit TheLiteracySite.com and click (for free) on the orange button today to help us reach our goal and provide 45,000 new books to kids in need nationwide.

We’re halfway to our goal and every click counts, so keep clicking daily through July 13th and help us give more new books out to kids who need them most this summer! 

The Book Maven’s Summer Must-Reads Part One — June Titles
Check out the great list of summer must-reads posted by our friend, The Book Maven. At least one of her picks is in my beach bag for reading over the holiday weekend!

Five fun ways to learn in summer
The Baltimore Sun shares five fun ways to help kids keep learning throughout the summer.

A Very Scarry Summer Celebration of Richard Scarry
Sterling Publishing is offering a free downloadable activity kit to celebrate what would have been beloved children’s author Richard Scarry’s 90th birthday.

Cartoonist - Sharing Stories with Cartoons
The Book Chook shares info on Cartoonist, a great web tool that allows kids to create their own cartoon stories and share them with others.

Discover America is a wonderful series created by the Encyclopædia Britannica which tours all fifty states, describing each state’s history, environment, culture, and people. The Fact Book which accompanies this series gives readers “Top 10” lists, maps and charts detailing various facts about the United States. This series is the ultimate tool for any research, report, or even just general fact-finding.

First Book would also like to highlight the Young Founders series. The Marketplace currently hosts three titles in the series each about the founding of Jamestown, the American Revolution, and the Civil War. These books delve into the gritty reality of living during tough times. In Son of Liberty: A Novel of the American Revolution, readers will come face-to-face with the role slavery plays in the war. The books in this series center around the experiences of young people living at the time of these historical events, making learning an adventure that readers share with the characters in the books.

Other titles for younger audiences can also be found on the First Book Marketplace. Peanuts: Here’s to You, America! and Wow! America! are both quirky stories riddled with historical as well as cultural information about our country. Kids will delight in discovering new and sometimes even strange facts about our past presidents in So You Want to Be President? These titles all make learning fun and effortless through colorful, comical trips through time.

So remember, before you reach for the hotdogs and s’mores, American Independence is something to be proud of. As for why we celebrate this day, all it takes is one looks at America’s history to see how unique a country it truly is.

All of these titles and more can be found on the First Book Marketplace at www.fbmarketplace.org.

Congratulations to A.C. Parker, the winner of our random drawing, who will receive her choice of an autographed copy of one of these great books: Linda Sue Park’s Keeping Score, James Patterson’s The Final Warning or Lemony Snicket’s A Series of Unfortunate Events: Book the Thirteenth (just a small consolation prize to help make up for the “Beatles Edition” Monopoly game).

Thanks again to everyone who participated! And don’t forget to check out Books for Keeps for Birthdays at www.firstbook.org/birthdays.

The service event highlighted ‘United We Serve,’ President Obama’s call to all Americans to engage in service projects and create meaningful impact in their towns and communities. The ‘United We Serve’ summer service initiative began June 22nd and runs through the National Day of Service and Remembrance on September 11th. The initiative is being led by the Corporation for National and Community Service, the federal agency dedicated to fostering service in communities across the country.

Curious about the books the President and the First Lady helped us pack?  Here’s the list — full of great choices for your own summer reading!

• Clementine by Sara Pennypacker and illustrated by Marla Frazee
• Magic Tree House #28: High Tide in Hawaii by Mary Pope Osborne
• The Lightning Thief by Rick Riordan
• The Penderwicks by Jeanne Birdsall
• Heroes of the Valley by Jonathan Stroud
• Holes by Louis Sachar