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Month: March 2013

Graphic Novels: A Sneaky Way To Get Kids To Read

Graphic Novels: A Sneaky Way To Get Kids To Read

My daughter has been reading since she was three years old. She’s been reading books on her own since she was four years old. In Kindergarten when they were testing her reading skills, they stopped testing her when they ran out of words somewhere around sixth grade level. The girl can read. That doesn’t mean she always chooses to do so.

I mean, for a young kid (and in us adults, who am I kidding), it can be quite difficult for books to compete with other forms of entertainment. The television and the Internet are just so shiny. But in the end, books can and should win. Even if, as a parent, we need to game the system a bit.

I’m talking about graphic novels, television’s kryptonite. At least in my house with my six-year-old.

I talked about this a bit when I recommended Zita the Spacegirl. I bought that book on a Thursday and by the following Monday my daughter had read it four times.

I was sure I was onto something, with this graphic novel idea. So I headed to the library and picked up another book, that also just so happened to be one about a kid(s) in space: Astronaut Academy. A bit about that book:

About

The wild and wacky world of Astronaut Academy is back! It’s spring semester at this futuristic institution of learning, and Hakata Soy has lost his heart. Literally. And he’s not the only one…something is stalking the halls of Astronaut Academy, impersonating the crush-objects of students and making off with their extra hearts! With a sprawling cast of unforgettable characters, Astronaut Academy: Re-Entry is a high-octane, hilarious follow-up to Dave Roman’s quirky Astronaut Academy: Zero Gravity.

About Dave Roman

Dave Roman is the author of several graphic novels including Astronaut Academy: Zero Gravity, Teen Boat! and Agnes Quill: An Anthology of Mystery. He has contributed stories to Explorer: The Mystery Boxes, Nursery Rhyme Comics, and is the co-author of two New York Times bestselling graphic novels, X-Men: Misfits and The Last Airbender: Zuko’s Story. Roman is a graduate of the School of Visual Arts and worked as a comics editor for the groundbreaking Nickelodeon Magazine from 1998 to 2009. He lives in Astoria, NY with his wife and fellow comic artist, Raina Telgemeier.

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About the Setting

Astronaut Academy is the ultimate space station school of the future! Students can study rocket science, anti-gravity gymnastics, competitive fireball throwing, strategic randomness, and other stuff (not listed here). Since humanity has evolved and everyone has 2-8 extra hearts, children (and bunnies) lead hyper-kinetic lives, filled with advanced education, amplified emotions, acute self-awareness, and lots of run-on sentences.

via About | Astronaut Academy.

It makes me smile, watching my daughter read a book like Astronaut Academy. She blanks out to the world, much like when she’s watching television, but with a book it’s so much better. Your mind fills in the gap. You become who you are reading about.

I love that she’ll be reading on the couch and we tell her it’s time for bed and she’ll walk, nose in book, attempting to walk up the stairs to her room. Oh how I’ve been there with a book. Oh how I love that feeling.

Review of Nineteen Eighty-Four from 1949

Review of Nineteen Eighty-Four from 1949

Fascinating review of Orwell’s Nineteen Eighty-Four from the year 1949. Seems this particular reader had a similar experience with it that I had.

Nineteen Eighty-Four is a book that goes through the reader like an east wind, cracking the skin, opening the sores; hope has died in Mr Orwell’s wintry mind, and only pain is known. I do not think I have ever read a novel more frightening and depressing; and yet, such are the originality, the suspense, the speed of writing and withering indignation that it is impossible to put the book down.

via Boing Boing.

How to Add a Sidebar to Your WordPress Theme

How to Add a Sidebar to Your WordPress Theme

I thought this was a useful article for those of you who like to tinker with wordpress themes. I know it helped me immensely.

How to Add a Sidebar to Your WordPress Theme

Most simple WordPress templates/themes generally employ a single sidebar. But, in keeping with WordPress’ open architecture, you can easily add a second (or 3rd or 4th) sidebar to your site’s theme. And, you aren’t restricted to using your sidebar in the typical sidebar area–you can put your new sidebar in a header, a footer, or any other area in your template. Additional sidebars let you place any WordPress Widget (such as Recent Posts, Pages, Links/Blogroll, Calendar, Tag Cloud, as well as any custom widgets) into new areas of your WordPress template. This technique is especially powerful when combined with custom WordPress page templates–with additional sidebars, we can have custom sidebars for each of our custom page templates. This is the approach we’ll teach you in this tutorial.

via How to Add a Sidebar to Your WordPress Theme.

Intangible: Flash Fiction

Intangible: Flash Fiction

This is my guest entry for the flash fiction contest at Lascaux Flash.

Intangible

She writes her number on the back of my hand with a black magic marker.

Then she says hello.

We dance the way people at parties dance, a fast slow dance of an excuse to press our bodies together, to what passes for music at these types of things. Stuck in the middle with you.

When she speaks, she leans in close, the black tips of her blonde hair tickling my face, her hand soft on my shoulder.

I’ve read when a girl is really into you, she’ll take any chance to make physical contact.

I’ve only read.

I fetch her a drink, standing in line for an eternity, glancing her way, worried should she leave my sight she will disappear, ethereal.

I return.

I don’t go here, she says, between sips of her beverage. I’ll transfer, I say, joking, but not really.

With nods and a smiles, my friends leave. Her friends linger, inspecting me as they embrace her goodbye.

Time passes. We find our way into the cold.

Our night ends at the threshold of her friend’s building. Call me as soon as you wake, she says.

I tell her this is not the end of our tale. She nods.

I spend the remainder of the night in my bed, watching the minutes flick by.

Morning light peeks through the yellowing blinds of my bedroom and I clutch my phone, finding myself paralyzed by the idea of blemishing the perfect of yesterday with the unknown of tomorrow.

Douglas Adams’ Birthday

Douglas Adams’ Birthday

Yesterday was Douglas Adams’ birthday and I totally missed it. In my defense, I don’t think he’ll mind.

Anyway, I thought I’d make up for missing his birthday by posting just a couple of Douglas Adams related things I came across yesterday.

First, Douglas featured on his very own Google Doodle yesterday.

Next, an absolutely brilliant exchange between Arthur Dent and Ford Prefect from The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy:

“You know,” said Arthur, “it’s at times like this, when I’m trapped in a Vogon airlock with a man from Betelgeuse, and about to die of asphyxiation in deep space that I really wish I’d listened to what my mother told me when I was young.”

“Why, what did she tell you?”

“I don’t know, I didn’t listen.

Next, an interview Douglas did in 1985 with Letterman.