2010 Theodor Seuss Geisel Award

This begins my series on the 2010 Award Winning Children's books beginning with the Theodor Seuss Geisel Award.

The Theodor Seuss Geisel Award is awarded to authors and illustrators of beginning reader books published in the United States. The Geisel award is presented by the American Library Association and was first given in 2006.

This years winners are:

The 2010 Theodor Seuss Geisel Award Winner is Benny and Penny in the Big No-No! written and illustrated by Geoffrey Hayes.



The 2010 Theodor Seuss Geisel Honors go to

I Spy Fly Guy by Tedd Arnold
Little Mouse Gets Ready by Jeff Smith
Mouse & Mole, Fine Feathered Friends by Wong Herbert Yee
Pearl and Wagner: One Funny Day by Kate McMullan



Congratulations to this year's winners.

For a comprehensive list of children's awards, check out this page of Award Winning Children's Books

Reading Nights at Elementary School

My children's elementary school has a reading night every year. Reading nights are a great way for schools and parents to get kids to love to read. My school has done a couple of flavors of reading nights.

The first flavor is to have an author come to the school and read to the children. This is a lot of fun as it the author's are really enthusiastic about their books and know the inflections and nuances that make the books come alive.

The other is my favorite where the teachers bring in their favorite books and read them to the children. Its fun when the kids dress in their pajamas and bring their pillows and blankets to the reading night.

At the end of our reading night, each kid goes to the gym and picks a book donated by the school or local businesses. What a great way to get kids to love books.

Here's a few that our teachers have read over the years:

2010 Children's Book Releases

My kids are looking forward to books being released in 2010. Books 7 thru 10 of The 39 Clues leads the list of books for my 6th grader. My 8th grader is looking forward to the 3rd book in The Hunger Games series. My wife, a Jan Brett fan, will definately go after her new book The Easter Egg. My 3rd grade son, a Goosebumps fan, with their release of The Little Shop of Hamsters, definately piggybacking on the Zhu Zhu Pets craze.

2010 is going to be a fun year.

Books my kids received at Christmas

Since my kids like to read, some of their presents are concentrated around books. Here's a list of the books my kids received for Christmas this year.

My 8th Grader received:

Catching Fire, The Hunger Games #2 by Suzanne Collins
The White Giraffe by Lauren St John



My 6th Grader Received

The 39 Clues #2, One False Note by Gordon Korman
The 39 Clues #3, The Sword Thief by Peter Lerangis
The 39 Clues #4, Beyond the Grave by Jude Watson
The 39 Clues #5, The Black Circle by Patrick Carman
The 39 Clues #6, In Too Deep by Jude Watson
The Leanin' Dog by K A Nuzum



My 3rd Grader received

Encyclopedia Brown by Donald J Sobol
#1 - Boy Detective
#2 - The Case of the Secret Pitch
#3 - Finds the Clues
#4 - Gets His Man
#5 - Encyclopedia Brown Solves Them All
#6 - Encyclopidea Brown Keeps the Peace




My 1st Grader received

Mercy Watson to the Rescue by Kate DiCamillo
Mr Willowby's Christmas Tree by Robert Barry

A conversation with my 8th grade daughter

I was talking to my 8th grade daughter the other day about the books she is currently reading. She was telling me she was a little board, since she didn't have any new books to read and was re-reading a lot of the ones she read last year.

I took this opportunity to have a conversation about reading and was trying to get her to think about the books she reads or would like to read. As you might imagine, it was a short conversation. So we went onto Barnes & Noble and started looking around, and then I got the bright idea to start asking questions, who is your favorite author, what books are your friends reading, and what books have released sequels. Here's the list of 4 books we ordered from Barnes & Noble.

1. The Mysterious Benedict Society and the Prisoner's Dilemma by Trenton Lee Stewart


2. Just Listen by Sarah Dessen


3. Leap Day by Wendy Mass



4. The Hunger Games by Suzanne Collins


Happy Reading!

The Christmas Bear

One of my thrills to this point in writing a blog and being a member of the Squidoo community is the conversations you have with people who find my pages. I recently had such an encounter with Paul Stickland who illustrated the book The Christmas Bear (written by Henrietta Stickland).


The Christmas Bear is a wonderfully illustrated book about a baby polar bear who falls into the North Pole on Christmas Eve. Santa takes the baby polar bear on a tour of his workshop. It's a great story for the entire family. The illustrations of the books are out of this world, and even though I've read the book, now, probably 100 times, I never fail to find something new in the pictures I haven't seen before. This coming Christmas Eve on CBeebies, Dr Who star David Tennant, will be reading The Christmas Bear.


Paul Stickland is a wonderful writer and illustrator. His stories and illustrations are captured in books such as Ten Terrible Dinosaurs, Trains, and Swamp Stomp.

Christmas books for Kids

My family loves reading Christmas Books. My youngest is 6 years old, so we are teaching her to read Christmas Books on her own. Jan Brett, is one of our favorite authors and has a whole lot of books about winter and Christmas. Our favorites are The Hat and The Mitten. She has also adopted some traditional Christmas stories like The Night Before Christmas and The Twelve Days of Christmas.

Some of our other favorite Christmas books include The Polar Express, The Christmas Bear, Dream Snow, The Grinch Who Stole Christmas, and many more that can be found on the links above.

I hope you have a Merry Christmas!