{Blog Tour} Reading Without Walls

Welcome to my stop on the Reading Without Walls Blog Tour! Per the publisher:

The goal of the blog tour is to share Paths & Portals, and also to support Gene Luen Yang's "Reading Without Walls" platform as National Ambassador for Young People's Literature by encouraging people to read STEM books.

I am a big proponent of influencing children to become STEM students and nurturing their love of science and math and all things technology into something great. And that includes my own kiddo. Not that I really have to do anything more than put her on the right path because she's naturally very curious and industrious. ;0)

For my stop, my daughter and I are discussing Paths & Portals (our review is below) and chatting about STEM titles in general and what they mean to (and for) kids.

Title: Secret Coders: Paths & Portals
Author: Gene Luen Yang & Mike Holmes (illustrator)
Series: Secret Coders, book #2
Publisher: First Second
Publication Date: August 30, 2016
Source: received from publisher for review
Purchase: Amazon | Barnes & Noble

Gene Luen Yang is the National Ambassador for Young People's Literature.

There's something lurking beneath the surface of Stately Academy—literally. In a secret underground classroom Hopper, Eni, and Josh discover that the campus was once home to the Bee School, an institute where teachers, students, and robots worked together to unravel the mysteries of coding. Hopper and her friends are eager to follow in this tradition and become top-rate coders. But why are Principal Dean and the rugby team suddenly so interested in their extracurricular activities?

From graphic novel superstar (and high school computer programming teacher) Gene Luen Yang comes the second volume of Secret Coders, Paths & Portals, a wildly entertaining new series that combines logic puzzles and basic programming instruction with a page-turning mystery plot!

I sat Katie down to read Paths & Portals one evening while I was cooking dinner. One of her nightly assignments is to read for 20 minutes, and I thought that this book would last her all week and then she could help me review it. But she loved it so much that she read it all in one sitting! She's already shown quite the interest in coding -- which is why we're looking at getting her this for Christmas -- so it really shouldn't have been any surprise how easily this story captured her attention.

This book is a graphic novel, which isn't altogether my favorite format for reading, but I knew it would probably interest Katie even more than her usual reads because it was illustrated. And she agreed that it was definitely more fun to read than a regular novel. Katie also had fun pointing out that it was utilizing subject matter that she was already learning in school, such as rounding and patterns/repetition.

We both enjoyed the fact that Hopper is a girl who codes because it shows that anyone can code and that it's fun for both boys and girls. Katie said, "I liked the girl the best because she was kinda nerdy and basically always happy. She showed that girls can code, too. She actually does most of the coding, creating commands to make a robot do what she wants, even her homework."

And the fun thing is, you don't have to read the first book in this series to read this one, but Katie's already asking to read it AND when the next book comes out. And I just know that my nephews are going to want to borrow her copies because it's already a subject they enjoy and relate to.

GIF it to me straight:

About the author:

Gene Yang began drawing comic books in the fifth grade. In 1997, he received the Xeric Grant, a prestigious comics industry grant, for Gordon Yamamoto and the King of the Geeks, his first comics work as an adult. He has since written and drawn a number of titles, including Duncan's Kingdom (with art by Derek Kirk Kim) and The Rosary Comic Book. American Born Chinese received National Book Award.

He lives in the San Francisco Bay Area with his lovely wife and children and teaches at a Roman Catholic high school.

Find Gene:

Website | Twitter | Goodreads | Facebook

I'm so proud that Katie is already of the mind that girls can do anything they set their minds to, but I'm even more excited about her love of all things science and technology. She's constantly asking for science kits and loves watching the girls of Project Mc² and visiting Minecrafters coding on their YouTube channels.

But she also loves that there are increasingly more STEM titles being made available for kids. She says that having these kinds of books makes it easier for kids to get into those activities, and I have to agree that they definitely make the subject more accessible. Not every kid starts off as science- and technology-minded as Katie, but books like these are a great start.

Check out what others are saying about Secret Coders: Paths & Portals and then be sure to follow the rest of the Reading Without Walls Blog Tour:

READING WITHOUT WALLS BLOG TOUR 

August 31: Colby at Sharp Read

September 1: Jess at Reading Nook Reviews
September 2: Samantha at Forest of Words and Pages

September 5: Jennifer at YA Book Nerd

September 6: Maria at Maria's Mélange

September 7: Gigi at Late Bloomer's Book Blog

September 8: Jen at The Starry Eyed Revue

September 9: Cheyenne at The Hollow Cupboards

September 12: Anya at On Starships and Dragonwings

September 13: April at Good Books and Good Wine

September 14: Cindy at Charting by the Stars

September 15: Erica at The Book Cellar

September 16: Sandie at Teen Lit Rocks

September 19: Asheley at Into the Hall of Books

September 20: Daphne at Gone Pecan

September 21: Mary Ann at Great Kids Books

September 22: Kathy at The Brain Lair

September 23: Michelle & Leslie at Undeniably (Book) Nerdy

September 26: Laurie at Reader Girls

September 27: Margie at Librarian's Quest

September 28: Victoria at Art, Books, & Coffee

September 29: Cee at The Novel Hermit

September 30: Amanda at Forever Young Adult

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Labels: blog tour, children's books, gene luen yang, graphic novels, katiebug, macmillan, reading without walls, reviews, secret coders

Kiddos in Disguise

Halloween is tomorrow, but we'll be busy with family and trick-or-treating and pumpkin carving -- ya know, all the fun stuff -- so we thought we'd do the requisite Halloween post today. =)

Over the years, Katie has been a lot of different characters. There was her first Halloween, when she was a ladybug.

And the next year, she was an adorable black kitty cat.

The following year, we went to a costume party for Halloween, and she was a ridiculously cute -- and not at all creepy -- garden gnome. (Daddy's the scary guy in the mask. :D)

Katie was really into Lalaloopsie there for awhile, and so on her fourth Halloween, she was Feather Pillowbed.

Like all little girls, Katie's also gone through a princess phase. I don't think this one has ended yet.

Last year was the year my older sister dubbed "The Year of the Elsas" because 80% of little girls dressed up as the Frozen character, including Katie.

But this year, this year, Katie's going as one of my favorite characters.

We went to the Wizarding World of Harry Potter this year for Spring Break, and of course, I couldn't say no when Katie wanted Hermione's wand, a robe, and her very own broom. So, I made a deal with her then that she would have to be everyone's favorite girl genius for Halloween this year in order to get those things. My sister kept side-eyeing me and whispering that I could get that stuff so much cheaper on Amazon, but Katie wanted to be Hermione in that moment while we were walking around the park, and I didn't go all that way and spend all that money to deny her that. ;0)

I love seeing Katie through the years in these pictures. It makes me nostalgic and glad that I still have some time before she's grown up and won't want to dress up for trick-or-treating any more. (It also makes me want to invent a way to stop time, to keep her from getting any older. I kind of feel like Beverly Goldberg in this moment. :P)

Yay!!!! Happy Early Halloween! This is one of our favorite times of year in my house. Fall is just magical, especially here in Pennsylvania. The colors are to die for.

Aubrey has also dressed as many things over the years, and it's kinda nostalgic looking through all the pics to do this post. My gosh, I miss when she was a little thing. For her first Halloween, we dressed her as Princess Leia.

She was really obsessed with remote controls at the time. lol. The following year, she was a bumble bee.

That year, it rained so hard. We had to trick or treat at the Nursing home where Brian's Aunt was.

Then, there was the classic witch costume. She was thrilled to be having her picture taken.

She then went through a fairy phase. Back to back. lol. She ended up going full circle and dressed as a witch again last year, but I can't find a good pic. Only ones of her bundled up with her coat over it.

This year, she decided on the Live Action Cinderella move costume. Where she gets married.

I took this last weekend right before our Halloween Party. She looked beautiful, though I may be biased. I can't get over how grown up she's looking these days. Why do they have to grow up so darn fast!!!

We hope you all have a safe and happy Halloween! Be wary of things that go bump in the night, and don't eat too much candy!

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Labels: aubrey, halloween, holidays, katiebug

The Happiest Place on Earth

…is maybe not the happiest place on Earth, at least not for my particular family. But I'll get to that. ;0)

This is my first week back after vacation, and it's been rough, man. I need a vacation to recover from my vacation! But I wanted to share a little of what we did before I start forgetting the details. I'm including some pictures, too, which you may have already seen if you follow me on Instagram, but I haven't had a chance to upload the pictures from my good camera yet so I couldn't share any of those. :(

When my older sister Kat found out we were going to Universal Studios, she wanted in. She figured this was going to be her only chance to see The Wizarding World of Harry Potter, as she has no kids of her own and no Potterheads as friends. (I know!) So, while we drove the 16+ hour drive to Florida, she met us there after a quick plane trip.

Since we were driving, we took it easy on the way down (over?) to Florida, and made a few stops along the way before stopping for a couple nights in Pensacola. I'd read somewhere that Pensacola Beach is rumored to have the whitest sand in the world, and my goodness, it was definitely pretty. Much more picturesque than my last visit to a beach, that's for sure.

It wasn't very warm yet in Pensacola, only in the mid-60s, so it was a little too chilly to play in the ocean for long. And even though the hotel had a heated pool, the heater wasn't working while we were there, so that wasn't gonna happen. But that's okay because Katie had a blast playing in the sand and splashing around in the Gulf for a bit. We spent some time building sand castles and Katie buried herself in the sand and made volcanoes in the sand. We've only been to the ocean once before, when Katie was four, but I think she was even more fascinated by it this time around. She just stood there as the waves crashed to shore and stared out at it, entranced. I'm sure I got a shot of that on my other camera. :)

We left Pensacola on Monday morning and had to pick up Auntie Kat from the airport as soon as we got into Orlando, so we didn't have much time to explore when we got there. But we were less than two miles form Universal Studios, so we could see it from our hotel room, which was kind of awesome. I'm not going to lie…the biggest draw for us at this amusement park was definitely the Harry Potter-related attractions. We could not wait to get there and get our wands and drink our first butter beer.

We spent our first day at Universal mostly exploring The Wizarding World of Harry Potter, visiting Diagon Alley and Hogsmeade and casting spells using our interactive wands. Katie got totally outfitted as Hermione, complete with her wand, and we rode the Hogwart's Express between the two parks, which was fun but a tad disappointing. For some reason, I had it in my head that I'd see majestic hills and travel over bridges like they do in the movies. It was entertaining, though, especially considering my unreal expectations. :P

Katie and Kat both also really enjoyed Seuss Landing, too, both being fans of the silly books. Fun Fact: Kat's birthday was actually on March 2nd, which also happens to be Dr. Seuss's birthday. :) Jerrod's favorite part of the park was probably Superhero World or whatever it was called. He doesn't really like rides, but he enjoyed the Transformers and Spiderman 4D rides quite a bit.

Which was another reason I was glad Kat was on the trip with us…she likes roller coasters as much as I do. We rode the Dragon Challenge twice in a row because we lucked out and there was, like, ZERO line either time. Plus, the fact that you get to pick either a Chinese Fireball dragon or a Hungarian Horntail meant we had to try out both. I think the Fireball was better, but that might be because I rode it first and in the very front. Kat said she thought they were the same. *shrugs*

Our second day at Universal was pretty much dedicated to rides. We rode every ride we could fit in plus some that just had really short lines and ended up being pretty fun anyway. Kat and I also rode The Hulk, which was even more intense than the hanging Dragon Challenge. Kat and I both agreed there was no way we were riding that one twice in a row, lol. No clank-clank-clank up to the top for that ride…it just shoots you outta there! So freaking exhilarating!

When we asked Katie which park she wanted to go to first, she picked "Harry Potter", and so that's what we did since this was technically her birthday trip. (It was sooo nice how everyone -- and I mean everyone -- told her happy birthday when they saw her pin. :D) Which meant that left Disney World's Magic Kingdom for our last full day in Orlando.

Here's the thing. We didn't hate it. It's just…when you come from the awesome that was Universal Studios and go to Disney, where people were less courteous, much pushier, less friendly and there were generally just more people, it's a bit of a disappointment. The wait times for rides there were double or triple what they were at Universal. And the big kicker: they don't serve alcoholic beverages in Magic Kingdom. I don't know why we were so surprised at that, but since Universal did, I guess we kind of just expected that Disney would. Not that we have to have beer to have a good time, but we were on vacation and we were cabbing it all the way.

Once we got past our initial disappointment, though, we had a good time. We rode the rides we could tolerate to wait for. No Seven Dwarves Runaway Mine Train, though…that line never got down to less than an hour-and-a-half wait. We kept forgetting to set up our Express Pass rides, and by the time we remembered, that one was full-up. :(

Disney is mostly about the kiddos, though, so we let Katie navigate for the most part. She wanted to ride the teacups every time we passed them. We flew around in Dumbo. We saw Ariel under the sea. And I had to basically tell Kat the story because she's never seen The Little Mermaid.

We had time to relax when we got back to the hotel after Disney, so we had some pool time and played some board games, but we had to get Kat to the airport early the next day and head back to Texas ourselves, so we called it an earlier night than we had the rest of the week. :) We were going to stop and grab a hotel in whatever city we were in when we got too tired to go any further on our way back, but we got a fire lit under our asses to get back to our own beds, so we ended up driving straight home.

We didn't get here until 4am, at which point we immediately crashed. But it was worth it. The hotel beds weren't bad, but they didn't compare to that expensive ass bed we bought at the fair last year. :P And we made it without incident, so there's that. :)

I feel like there was so much more I wanted to tell you about our trip, but as I said, I'm still recuperating from our travels. I may do a second part to this post with more details and more pictures after I get them all uploaded to my computer. Just depends. ;0)

If you've never been to The Wizarding World of Harry Potter, I suggest you add it to your Bucket List if you've enjoyed any part of the franchise. It's such an immersive experience, like you're truly walking the streets of Diagon Alley. I can't wait to go back, and I hope they just keep adding to the attraction so I can experience more of Harry's world.

April's taking the same trip in May, and I can't wait to compare stories and pictures with her. I really wish we could've worked it out so we'd be there at the same time. :( Regardless, we had a great time and I'm sure April and her family will love the new additions since they were last there. :)

Happy reading & safe travels! :D

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Labels: disney world, happy birthday, harry potter, katiebug, resolutions, road trip, spring break, universal studios, Vacation

Judging a Book By Its Cover: The Summer After You + Me by Jennifer Salvato Doktorski

We so borrowed this idea from Sara at Forever 17 Books, who got the idea from an article on Babble called Judging a Book by Its Cover: A 6-year-old Guesses What Classic Novels Are All About. Basically, it's about getting a child's perspective on the story inside the book based on just the cover art. It can be hilarious, but it can also be enlightening.









This week, the girls are working on the following book:

Title: The Summer After You + Me
Author: Jennifer Salvato Doktorski
Series: stand-alone
Publisher: Sourcebooks Fire
Publication Date: May 5, 2015
Purchase: Amazon | Barnes & Noble

Sunbathing, surfing, eating funnel cake on the boardwalk—Lucy loves living on the Jersey Shore. For her, it's not just the perfect summer escape, it is home. And as a local girl, she knows not to get attached to the tourists. They breeze in over Memorial Day weekend, crowding the shore and stealing moonlit kisses, only to pack up their beach umbrellas and empty promises on Labor Day. Lucy wants more from love than a fleeting romance, even if that means keeping her distance from her summertime neighbor and crush, Connor.

Then Superstorm Sandy tears apart her barrier island, briefly bringing together a local girl like herself and a vacationer like Connor. Except nothing is the same in the wake of the storm. And day after day, week after week, Lucy is left to pick up the pieces of her broken heart and broken home. Now with Memorial Day approaching and Connor returning, will it be a summer of fresh starts or second chances?

Behold, the girls' attempts at recreating The Summer After You + Me by Jennifer Salvato Doktorski...

Aubrey's masterpiece & guess:

Aubrey says:

"I think it's about a girl who goes to the beach, but she is sad and doesn't want to swim because the birds pooped on her."

Yup, she's my child... through and through. lol  We then had a long discussion about how before she was born, I went to the Jersey shore and got pooped on by a seagull. Since this book actually takes place there, I thought her description was perfect. lol.

I have not read this one yet, but I hope to get to it soon. We haven't been to the shore since Sandy hit, but we plan to head over there this Summer for at least a weekend. Seaside will never be quite the same though. :(


Katie's artwork & thoughts:

Katie says:

"I think it's about a girl going to the beach. There was another person with the girl, and I think they went to the beach in summer."

I love that Katie decided to empty her entire marker box on the paper for her interpretation of that sunset on the beach. =) She was so proud of her ability to write the title in cursive, too. (Why is that still taught in school?!?)

I like that this third novel from Doktorski doesn't sound like your typical summer romance but more a story of loss. Having read How My Summer Went Up in Flames and also having an ARC of the second book on my shelves to read, I had to add this book to my TBR. I can't wait to read it.


Have you read this book or do you plan to? What do you think of the girls' artwork and their thoughts on the story's premise?

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Labels: aubrey, beautiful covers, contemporary, cover art, jennifer salvato doktorksi, judging a book by its cover, katiebug, sourcebooks, summer