All Good Llamas Must Come to an End

Today is the last day for my WRITERS GIVE HOPE campaign - click to comment-for-llamas, donate-for-llamas, and enter-for-Who's-Your-Llama-giveaway! While you're at it, click through to Nathan Bransford's giveaway to give more to Heifer, and leave some comment love for others participating in his comment-a-thon!

Contest ends at 6pm Pacific Llama Time (8 pm for Chicago Llamas). I will update then with the winner of the Who's Your Llama? t-shirt and donations.

In the meantime, for your entertainment, the llama song...



UPDATE: 

A BIG THANK YOU to everyone who stopped by and commented during our week of Llama celebration and support for Heifer! And now for the results....

1) Comment-for-Llamas: We fell short of the 150 comments needed to donate a llama, but I like the llama so much, I made the full $150 donation anyway! Here's the little guy you helped me donate:

2) Donate-for-Llamas: I HUGE LLAMA THANK YOU to the people who donated in my WRITERS GIVE HOPE matching campaign:

Bryan Russell

Quinn 'Bina and her brother-in-law

Lenny Lee and his brothers

Brimful Curiosities

You guys rock with the Llama! With your contributions, my match, and a little rounding up, we have ANOTHER LLAMA! Here's the little big guy you helped donate:

Look out, I think this one spits! :)

AND FINALLY....
3) The winner of the Who's Your Llama T-shirt .... Queen 'Brina!! 


Thanks again to everyone who stopped by for llama week! Ink Spells is officially on vacation until the first, when I'll be participating in a New Year's blogfest to start the year off with some fun pictures before we get all serious again. 


Merry Christmas to All! 

Llama-licious Gifts

Are you a last-minute-llama Christmas shopper? (I just reached halfway, people. Pray for me.) You can buy llama books and llama shirts, but for the discerning llama lover, there are these llama-licious* gifts:

*Thanks to K. Marie Criddle for the llama-licious terminology, which I have officially adopted.

I think I just died from the cuteness. And proceeds go to help conservation efforts!

For your llama storytelling, a llama marionette. I have to admit this gives me a bit 'o the creeps. Maybe it's the slightly evil-llama look. Perhaps the boneless feet. Not sure.

Now this is what I need! A little llama luck! Is it too late to add this to my wish list?








There's really no end to the llama t-shirt love (peace/love/llamas, embrace your inner llama):

But honestly, this bad-ass llama mug just rocks my socks.

Don't be a late llama! Enter the contest for the Who's Your Llama? t-shirt comment-o-rama before it's too late! Giveaway ends tomorrow!

Hello, Santa? I have a favor to ask ...

Don't forget to check out my WRITERS GIVE HOPE campaign to give llamas through Heifer International - and win a Who's Your Llama t-shirt!

Spy Llama

An intercepted cable across the mid-pacific line was recently posted on WikiPeeks...the identities of the callers are unverifiable, but circumstances suggest that renegade present-giver Mr. Claus (MC) was one party and a distraught  North America Parent (NAP) was the other. Analysts suspect the Big Day is code for a world-wide event that they have yet to identify.

NAP: Hi, Santa, I'd like to negotiate a delay to Christmas ...

MC: Ho, that's a good one! I'm sorry, young lady, but I don't have time for jokes just now. I have a lot of presents to get ready for the Big Day, and the reindeer are still competing for top billing.

NAP: Yes, yes, I'm sure you're very busy right now. That's my point. Work's been a hassle, my boss has me doing overtime, and you see, I haven't got all my shopping done. I think we'd all be better served with a three or four day delay. It's Win-Win. I'm sure you can see that.

MC: Win what? I'm sorry, miss, but I can't delay Christmas. What would the children think? After all, they expect Santa to make his appointed rounds.

NAP: The kids will believe anything. Tell them you're sick. Make a video and put it on YouTube. Look, it's just a few more days, that's all I need.

MC: You who? Well, I do know Christmas is a magical time! Who wouldn't want a few more days to enjoy the hot cocoa, the Christmas cookies, the woodsy scent of elves roasting over an open fire ...

NAP: Wait, what? Did you say elves ... ?

MC: They make the finest marshmallows, those elves. But I'm afraid my magic won't allow me to extend time, miss. Perhaps I could bring you something else? Have you been good this year?

NAP: Yes, yes, I've been good. Very good. Except for that time with the neighbor's cat, but that totally wasn't my fault. Er, uh, look that's not the point.

MC: Oh dear. Sounds like someone may be on the naughty list.

NAP: {indecipherable} Can we get back on topic? I need an extension. I tweeted all my followers and, like, four of them retweeted saying they need extensions too! The house is mess, the in-laws are coming, I haven't finished my shopping, and if I hear Silver Bells on the radio one more time, my head's going to explode!

MC: That would be dreadful. You know, the reindeer have complained about that very thing. I wonder if that's why they've been so agitated lately. Or it could be Mrs. Claus' barley stew. It really is unpalatable.

NAP: Santa! Stay with me, old man. Here's the thing: just a two or three day delay in Christmas and it will all be to the good again. I'll have the stockings hung with care, the cookies will be baked by then, and I'll probably have found that hideous inflatable Santa. Uh, no offense.

MC: Ho, ho, ho! None take, dear. Mrs. Claus got me one of those last year. I use it to keep away the polar bears.

NAP: Right. Um, okay. So, are we agreed then? A two day delay?

MC: Excuse me a moment, will you? {in the distance} No, Rudolph! Stay away from the holly! You know what that does to your digestion! {louder} I'm sorry, dear, what were you saying?

NAP: A two day delay. That's all I'm asking. I'm sure you can agree that's more than fair.

MC: Oh, two days! That's no time at all. You should be able to make that happen, no problem!

NAP: Great! Wonderful! Wait, what do you mean I can make it happen?

MC: It's so simple, really. Yet, I'm always amazed when it happens. A child laughs and time simply stops. You can't help but laugh along, then time trickles slow like cold syrup on pancakes. And when those little ones fit their small hands in yours and say, come play? Well, time nearly goes backwards then, doesn't it? Back to a time when everything is new, like freshly fallen snow. They have powerful magic, those small ones, don't you think?

NAP: {silence} You really are a crazy old man, aren't you?

MC: Well, Mrs. Claus says that's beyond dispute.

NAP: {sigh} How about just one day? I think I could make it all happen with just one extra day.

MC: Do you have children, my dear?

NAP: Well of course I do, you overgrown elf! Why do you think I'm calling?

MC: Give them a hug for me, will you? Tell them I'll be along soon and not to leave out carrots for Rudolph. They give him heartburn.

NAP: I ... um ...

MC: And try to stay off the naughty list, eh? We need to set a good example, don't we?

NAP: But ...

MC: I know, I know. You're almost always on the good list. You know, now that I think of it, I still remember that last letter you sent to me.

NAP: You ... you do?

MC: Well, of course! I read all my mail! Best part of the job, I always say. Do you remember what you asked for?

NAP: Well, I ... yeah. I asked for my dad to come home. He was overseas ... fighting the war.

MC: Those little letters are the ones that make even this jolly old elf shed a tear. The young ones without their dads or moms. The letters that only wish for the people they love to come home. There's no toy I can dream up that will make those wishes come true. Occupational hazard, Mrs. Claus says. Darn shame, if you ask me.

NAP: {silence} Santa, uh, I have to go. I don't have any time to waste.

MC: I know, dear. Merry Christmas!

NAP: Merry Christmas, Santa.

Happy Llama, Sad Llama ...

Don't forget to check out my WRITERS GIVE HOPE campaign to give llamas through Heifer International - and win a Who's Your Llama t-shirt!

Last year, my kids invented Llama hand signals** and a chant-song to go with them. If you think this is strange, you've never had a 3rd - 6th grader. They seem to live for this stuff.

**okay so apparently my kids didn't invent this and EVERYONE does it. But this is their variant. Still cool. :)

Happy Llama

Sad Llama

Mentally Disturbed Llama
(I swear I'm not making this up)

Super Llama

Spy Llama

Mad Llama

MOOSE!

These are kissing llamas - they have nothing to do with the song.








If that doesn't make you smile this weekend, I can't help you.

More llama fun to come!

p.s. Thanks to Mighty Mite for the Llama demonstrations. He approves of everything here, except the kissing llamas.

Holiday Celebration: A Week of Llamas!

Because one day of llamas is not enough.

I was inspired last year by Nathan Bransford to host a holiday charity drive to help Heifer International. This wonderful charity gives meaningful gifts of hope to hungry families around the world through livestock, training, and other assistance. Heifer deploys the idea Give a man a fish, you feed him for a day. Teach him how to fish, you feed him for a lifetime into the world and gives people sustainable hope for a better future - for them, for their children, for their communities.

Plus there's llamas!

Here's the THREE PART scoop:

1) Commenting-for-Llamas: For every comment made to this post, I will donate $1 to Heifer International, up to a maximum of $150 - at $150 we can purchase a llama!! In your comment, you must tell us your Holiday Wish - it can be silly or serious, grandiose or small, but it must be a true wish. After all, those are the best kind.

2) Donating-for-Llamas: I will match every donation made through my Team Heifer account WRITERS GIVE HOPE. If you are so moved by the adorableness of llamas, please donate (click here or on my sidebar) through my Team Heifer account, so I can match your donation. I will match up to $300 - that's TWO MORE LLAMAS. We're going to have a whole herd (pack? passel? gaggle?) going here ...

3) Who's Your Llama? Grand Prize: As if the feel goodness of commenting-for-llamas and donating-for-llamas isn't enough, I will also be giving away this (in either children's or adult sizes):

Now, you'll have to work a bit to be entered in the contest for the prized Who's Your Llama t-shirt - along with your Holiday Wish comment, tell me if: 1) you are a new follower or 2) you have tweeted, blogged, facebooked, or otherwise spread the word about the Holiday Celebration. 

Honor system, people! (It's the holidays and I trust you.)

I want as many people as possible to get in on the Llama action!

DETAILS: Contest runs until December 21st (Tuesday) - Extended to December 22nd (Wednesday 6pm) to coincide with Nathan Bransford's awesome comment-a-thon.
At 6pm Wed, I will be announcing the Who's Your Llama winner and making donations. Check back for further llama fun during the contest and invite everyone you know to the party! 

UPDATE: Comment-o-rama is complete! Thanks and please see here.

Too Much To Do + Too Little Time = Fursplosion

This is my day.

And it's only 9am.

So yeah. No blog post today ... but come back tomorrow for some great Llama fun and a kick off to my Holiday Celebration!

*goes off to face the day*

Craft and Kids: Characters

Dark Omen (age 12) writes a lot, and his characters have always been very strong. Sinister overlords or heroic defenders of the galaxy. He also loves humorous characters - savvy robots or smart-mouthed subordinates that give voice to his quirky, funny side. Recently he's started to give his characters more depth, because his plot turns require a character to be a double agent or a secret hero.

Kids start out with a less nuanced view of the world - people and characters are good or bad, black or white. Dark Omen's turn into the land of nuance shows me he's growing as a young man (which makes Mom proud), but also shows the evolution of a writer young-in-craft.

Kids discover much about the subtleties of human beings from the outsized characters they read in novels, the very best of whom are NOT cardboard cut-outs or stereotypes. Characters that are made more endearing or more sinister by their quirks and failings than their routine hero or villain status would normally allow.

Dolores Umbridge (in Harry Potter) is all the more creepy because she's not an evil witch, draped in black on a broom. She likes kittens and wears pink and giggles. And tortures school children ... literally. A shiver runs up my back every time I think about the brilliance of that character. In a fell stroke, J.K. Rowling has illuminated the dark underside of humanity and shown that you can't always believe the trappings - that evil can lurk in the sunniest spaces.

Creating characters like that is not child's play, although children immediately get what those characters are about. But making your characters have that kind of depth takes effort. Writers young-in-craft (which can be writers of any physical age), may start with stereotypical characters. And though stereotypes can serve a purpose in minor character roles, a sort of short hand for describing a fly-by scene, most secondary characters will carry the story better if they have their own depth. For my major secondary characters, I've taken to writing narratives in brief that tell the story from their POV, filling in background and emotion, stepping into their shoes for a while. A lot of that may not show up in the story, but it will inform their actions, dress, and speech, and how they interact with my main characters. And while my secondary characters may not be vital to the story, they are important to building a world in your child-reader's mind. If you're lucky (or good) they may even expand your child-reader's understanding of how people work.

If nothing else, that is worth the extra effort to move past stereotypes in kidlit.

Craft and Kids: Voice

Whenever I teach a child, I learn something.

That may be cliche, but it is true for me. I'm not a teacher, but every parent is a teacher (intentional or not). The engineer in me likes to do things intentionally.

Voice is notoriously difficult to describe, let alone teach. But some kids seem to have an intuitive sense of it. I think this is because they haven't learned the rules yet, or feel less hampered by them. They "talk" in their writing the way they think in their heads, which taps into a natural voice that is uniquely them.

I love having my boys write their own Christmas Letters for this very reason.

Here's 7 year old Mighty Mite:

On Christmas Eve last year, my mom got me two cats for Christmas. The cats were soft and furry. We named one Techy and one Ninja. We renamed Ninja to Fluff Meister. Last summer, I started to take piano lessons with Mrs. Ryan. By the way, my name is Ryan. That's pretty strange, isn't it?

Never mind that the cats belong to the family - in Mighty Mite's world, I got them for him, and him alone. You can just hear the 7yo innocence in his Voice, and that his world rotates around the people (and cats) in it.

Here's 9 year old Worm Burner:

Hi, my name is Sam I’m going to tell you what mischief I’ve been up to this year.

It’s quite a long list so pay attention.

I have………………………………

Y      Gotten 2 cats Techy and Ninja, who would do any thing to be able to write ‘jhgusqpjyfcqa’ on the computer.

Y      Messed around with everything from cats to indefinitely lost internet connections.

Y      Eaten huge amounts of cheese.

You immediately hear Sam's sly sense of humor, and you can see from the way he plays with fonts and bullet points and the mentions of internet and computers that he is very tech-savvy. But mostly, his voice tells you very clearly "I'm mischievious; look out for me."

I'd want to read more, wouldn't you?

This is what a great Voice does - pulls you in and makes you want more. Developing a voice that is pure and clear sometimes means going back to an intuitive sense of who you are as a writer. Let your inner child out to play. Let that authentic Voice take over, and speak the bare truth inside.

Speaking truth: definitely something that kids can teach us.

Ink Spells talks London Deep

London Deep by Robin Price and Paul McGrory is story about a girl in a future where London is under water from global warming, and the APD (adult police) and YPD (youth police) compete to keep the peace in their watery new world.

I was intrigued when the publisher (Mogzilla, U.K.) offered to send me a review copy. London Deep is half-novella, half-graphic novel, and this new format both fascinates me and caused some difficulty in reading it. Unlike some illustrated novels, the graphic illustrations (which are edgy and cool) in London Deep are integral to the story. Rather than enhancing the story, they are part of the story - if you skip them, you will miss out on a scene in the novel.

This is intriguing as a way to draw in reluctant readers, without going to an all-picture format like a graphic novel. There are plenty of words in this book, and they tell most of the story. But switching back and forth between "story-as-graphic-novel" and "story-as-text-novel" had my brain doing flip-flops. And I discovered something about reading in the process. Graphic novels require your brain to fill in great swaths of story - much happens in between frames and you, the reader, are expected to fill in the blanks. Text stories carry you along more smoothly, with blanks left between scenes or chapters, in more easily anticipated jumps. Not only was it difficult to jump between text and comic art, but the text itself seemed to have a "graphic novel" feel to it, in that there were many blanks left in between sentences, for the reader to fill in. It may be my adult brain (or 'Dult brain as protagonist Jem would say) had more difficulty with this than a young reader would.

RL: n/a CSM: n/a Rating: PG Content: characters in peril

Beyond formatting issues, this was a cute story, with colorful characters and a rich future-world. Jemima Mallard, daughter of the Chief Inspector of the Adult Police, has a day that goes from bad (her houseboat sinks) to worse (losing precious tanks of air) to sunk (captured by the Youth Police, and then underwater terrorists). I'm still not quite sure how the YPD and APD came into existence, but perhaps that will be explained in the sequel Father Thames. The action is fast-paced, but the violence kept to a minimum, making London Deep an excellent read for reluctant readers ages 8+. There's not a reading level designation on the book yet, but I would place it somewhere around RL4-5.

My very favorite part actually was an ad at the end for another Mogzilla book, I Am SpartaPuss, a cat tale set in Ancient Rome. I may have to read that one next!

A Book for the Holidays

I squirrel away our Christmas books every year, so they are fresh when they come out again. I even hide the Christmas sheet music. (I hid it so well last year, that we have yet to find it.)

We save Twas the Night Before Christmas until the Eve itself, but there are plenty of books that get read and re-read during the build-up to the Big Day. How The Grinch Stole Christmas (book and video forms) and Santa Mouse are perennial favorites, as well as some tiny board books that mysteriously continue to be loved. The Crippled Lamb never fails to make me cry, with its noble story and gorgeous illustrations.

This year, I purchased some new Christmas tomes for presents, including Paige the Christmas Fairy, and Llama, Llama, Holiday Drama (I have a thing for the furry beasts).

The folks at Random Acts of Reading have some Christmas Favorites as well. I'm intrigued by Maya Angelou's Amazing Peace, and have added it to my Wish List.

What are your favorite holiday books?

No More Words

Sometimes I run out of words.

Don't get me wrong. My vocabulary rocks (and I'm humble, too). That's what happens when you spend years 4-20 reading everything you can lay your hands on, including cereal boxes. (Which brings me to an issue I have with not making kids books "too smart" - where are they supposed to learn these words, if not from the books they read? But that's another post ...)

There are times when the words come unbidden, like a fresh flow of magma down a lava tube, and I let them spill onto the page.

Mostly, it's more painful than that. But some days ... some days the words disappear, as if they've been stolen by  gremlins in my head, secreted away like the treasures they are.

Maybe it's revenge for all the adverbs I've killed in the revision process.

Maybe I need a nap.

If you find my words, please send them to:

Crazy Lady in the Green House
321 U-shaped Street
Some State in the Middle, USA

Do your words disappear?

Reading It Out Loud

"Say it. Out Loud." -Edward Cullen, pale, ice cold, and slightly belligerent boyfriend.

Do you read your manuscripts aloud?

Lately, as part of the ninth circle of hell revision process, I've been reading each chapter aloud as a final pass-check before I move on to revising the next chapter (and the next, and the next. Good Lord, what demon possessed me to write 36 chapters??). Even though I have effectively read the chapter a gazillion times, the read-aloud pass always brings revisions that make it more pleasing to the ear (also: very good for catching repeats, in words or phrases).

I think this is especially important to do in kidlit. Because these stories WILL be read aloud, or at least there's a strong possibility of it. Maybe not for the older teen novels, but anything younger than that could be read aloud by parents or children.

Mighty Mite reads his stories aloud to me, as he works on improving his reading skills, and I'm always amazed at how even a 7 year old can put the proper cadence into a well written sentence. And sometimes he rewrites on the fly, changing a clunky sentence into the smoother version that it should have been (hey! even published novels aren't flawless).

Next month, I'm going to my first face-to-face critique session with some talented writers in my local SCBWI (Society of Children's Book Writers and Illustrators) network. I've had lots and lots of critiques of my work, but since I connect with most of my writer friends online, they come in the form of Track Changes and narrative critiques. The face-to-face critique will be a new, and somewhat terrifying, experience for me. I may chicken out and have one of the other writers read for me (aren't they nice?).

Do you read your MS aloud?

Holiday E-Cards: Tech Wonder or Abomination?

In the Year of the E-Reader, even holiday cards are getting a makeover.

For a while now, my friends have favored those holiday-picture-cards (the ones with pictures of their family) over traditional holiday cards. I send e-cards for birthdays and fun, but somehow sending holiday e-cards feels like cheating. Where are the holiday stamps? The pictures of my kids all dressed up and coerced into smiling? Where's the writer's cramp from addressing 75 cards on Christmas Eve, so that I can technically get them out before the Day itself?

But this year just might be the tipping point for holiday e-cards as well.

American Greetings has a feature this year where you can send a holiday e-card with your own still photos, slide show, or video. You can add in a voice greeting as well as those great letters in which you chronicle every activity, vacation, and cool thing you did all year. It's almost like creating a multimedia holiday documentary! Which is a little frightening, but I have to admit to the appeal of not spending money on cards, pictures, and stamps.

Does this make me The Grinch?

I hope not.

Our holiday letters were the traditional type until a couple years ago, when I followed the example of a friend and let my kids write the letter. All five Quinns got a spot to write, in their own words, a brief message about their year. While the paragraphs from the kids were wildly inaccurate, they perfectly captured the voice of their little lives, frozen forever in that snippet of time. My boys were never very excited about writing those holiday greetings, but I'm fairly sure Worm Burner will go nuts to create his own holiday video.

And that just might be what the holiday spirit is all about this year.

Do you usually send holiday cards? And would you ever consider sending an e-holiday-card/documentary?

Success Comes to those who Don't Quit

I have to double-post today, because I just found out the Awesome Sherrie Petersen has LANDED AN AGENT!!

I just posted about Failing the Right Way: knowing that every failure is a step on the road to success. But that's only true if you don't give up, which is so easy and tempting to do.

Sherrie didn't give up.

I've been blogger-friends with Sherrie for a while now. Her blog is relentlessly positive, uplifting and supportive of other writers. Then I was lucky enough to meet her at the SCBWI conference in LA over the summer. She's even more delightful in person! I recently asked her if she would be willing to critique my WiP, and she not only agreed, but turned around one of the best critiques I've ever had - the kind of thorough but kind critique that helps you bring out the best in your story. And that's just the kind of person Sherrie is - bringing out the best in those around her.

But she was discouraged. She had been struggling for so long in this business, getting so close to success, but not quite there. Of course, I encouraged her to keep going, saying she was too close to quit now (and I wasn't the only one, by far).

When I read this morning that all her hard work, patience, and persistence had paid off - that she had landed an agent! - well, I couldn't wait to share the news.

Congratulations, Sherrie! You've earned every bit of this success!!

And now, I get to say, "I knew her when ..."

Where's My Force Field?

Picture here.

Sometimes I want to crawl inside a glass bubble and keep the distractions of the world at bay while I write. This urge is especially strong when I'm writing under deadline, self-imposed or otherwise.

But life doesn't happen inside a bubble, and life is part of what we're writing about. So, I'll wrap my force field tight around me today, while the kids are at school, and madly write while I can. But once that final school bell rings for the weekend, we'll be putting up Christmas decorations, hunting down a tree, and figuring out what in the world to get Aunt Julie. Perhaps a book . . . 

Enjoy your weekend! And don't forget to enjoy the season.

Failing the Right Way

Sometimes the publishing world gets me down.

I love celebrating the success of my fellow writers. I connect with a lot of writers for that very reason - to learn from each other, support each other on the writing journey, be there to say "yay!" when one of us reaches a milestone. But it also means that I often hear about the "failures."**

**note these are all real examples, of people I personally know, with the names removed

• Failure to get an agent after sending 100 queries.
• Failure to keep an agent, because they quit, die, or just stop returning emails
• Failure to get a book deal, even after acquiring an agent.
• Failure to get the second book in a planned series published, even after having an agent and major publisher.
• Failure to interest your agent in your next book.
• Failure to publish your book because your publisher just went out of business.
• Failure to get your book on the shelf of Barnes & Noble, in spite of having an agent and a major publisher.
• Failure to get blockbuster reviews and sell lots of books.

With all that failure, like a staggering mountain of doom above me, well, sometimes I lose heart. Fortunately, it doesn't last very long.

Each of those failures means that you've accomplished something along the way.

You wrote a book. You took the bold, brave step of querying. You survived the nail-biting process of procuring a book deal and sending your story out to be judged by the world. You wrote another book.

I guarantee there are thousands of people who want to write, but have never done any of those things.

So if you've failed in any of the above ways, CONGRATULATIONS! You've done something worth doing. Now don't let it get you down. Go out and write some more.

Remember: It's what you love to do.

Gifting Books to Kids - Part 2

As I mentioned in Part 1, there are many gift guides for books this time of year (here's another). But it can help to know what kind of kid a book will appeal to. In Part 1, we looked at the The Young Science Geek, The Budding Military Strategist, and the Soft Hearted Free Thinker.

Now see if you know any of these kids ...

The Little Professor

Do you have a child under 8 who devours books like other kids consume Halloween candy? Whose advanced reading skills have already given them a vocabulary most adults would envy? Who uses those big words with abandon, but still plays with Power Rangers and My Little Pony, because they're barely out of Kindergarten? These books will challenge their reading skills without robbing them of those tender childhood years:

• Harry Potter, Book 1 (RL 5.5) - with a fifth grade reading level, but innocent wizarding fun, the first book is perfect for Great Little Minds. Just beware the temptation to move up in the series.

• Little House on the Prairie (RL 4.9-5.8) - these higher reading level books are also innocent adventures, especially for little minds interested in old-fashioned living on the prairie.

• The Mouse and the Motorcycle (RL 5.1) - high reading level, adorable little mouse, sweet adventures. This series of books can be read again, and again, and again.

The Adventure Reader

Do you have a child who uses their own allowance to buy that new Commander Cody costume, because it's different than the old Commander Cody costume available last year? Who dresses as Indiana Jones, Princess Jasmine, or some morphed combination ninja-trooper-wizard, just because it's Tuesday? Whose imagination can turn a spatula into the most powerful wand in existence and a pot-lid into the Shield That Deflects Everything? These books will give them the adventure and colorful characters that fuel their imagination:

• Artemis Fowl - Rocket powered fairies, codes written in gnomish, and an evil 12 year old mastermind. What could be better?

• The Lightning Thief - Half-god children, Furies, Minotaurs, and satyrs. The mythical creatures abound in this hilarious adventure book.

• Dark Life - Fantastical underwater creatures, Wild West adventure, and a boy that is part fish. Coolness.

The Chill Seeker

Do you have a child that likes a little bump in their nights? Who screams in delight when you pop out to scare them ... then asks you to do it again? Who looks for the slightly creepy, crawly things in life? These books will appeal to your mini-Goth-in-the-making:

• A Series of Unfortunate Events - These books are creepy good fun, with sinister plots and evil caretakers. Look out for the Lachrymose Leeches!

• The Spiderwick Chronicles - Creepy creatures, fiendish fairies, and all manner of slinky things out to get you. Beware the Boggart! 

Books I Can't Wait To Read

There are so many good, new books out! My TBR pile groans more each day. Here's a few I bought on speculation alone, as gifts for the young readers on my list:

The Call (Magnificent 12, Book 1) by Michael Grant - Twelve middle schoolers are empowered by a 3,000 year old man to save the world.

The Familiars (Book #1) by Michael Jay Epstein - Three familiars - magical animal companions - must save their young wizard apprentices from an evil queen.

Hamster Magic by Lynne Jonell - A hamster with wish-granting powers. What could go wrong with that?

I hope this has helped you find a new book for a child on your list. If you give a book to a child this holiday season, check out my blogger friend Jackee's 200th post celebration, where she is donating a humanitarian school kit for every book given to a child! 

Books and school supplies for kids - it's win all around.