Staring At Blank Pages

Wilder Girls by Rory Power Review

Mark it on Goodreads!

Title: Wilder Girls Author: Rory Power Publisher: Delacorte Press Page #: 353 Genre: Young Adult, Apocalyptic, Survival, LGBTQIA+ Age Recommendation: 13+

It’s been eighteen months since the Raxter School for Girls was put under quarantine. Since the Tox hit and pulled Hetty’s life out from under her.

It started slow. First the teachers died one by one. Then it began to…

One of the biggest questions and perhaps most difficult things to navigate with your kids is how exactly to transition out of the kids section. Most kids are ready to start reading Young Adult titles around 11 to 12 (some sooner and some a bit later) but that is still relatively young when the teen section boasts a great variety of themes like sex, suicide, mental health, war, etc.  The rest of…

Series: The Keepers #1 Title: The Box and the Dragonfly Author: Ted Sanders Publisher: Harper Collins Page #: 544 Genre: Middle Grade Fantasy Even before I had finished this guy I was handing it out to kids because I knew it was great.  If you have a child that really loves Harry Potter or fantastic worlds that are set within the real world this is definitely a series to check out.  The first two…

As someone who has the joy and the challenge of a two and a half year old I will be the first to tell you that nap time and bed time are two of the most stressful times of the day … despite being necessary reprieves. If you, like me, need some help with the bed time routine it might be a good idea to grab one of these books and make it part of the routine.  It might be boring for you to read the…

One of the greatest complaints I have heard from parents, grandparents, and the general public concerning children is a simple question? Why don’t kids understand that what they say has repercussion. Kids are cruel and seem to say the one thing that cuts deepest without even a nanosecond of hesitation.  Part of this is something learned over time.  Part of it has to do with the development of the…

The new year is just getting started and many of us feel that it is a great place to restart.  I am definitely an organize obsessed person, the sheer amount of color codes and systems in my weekly planner and bullet journals are a by product of that. I am definitely one of those people who look at my reading and try and see if there are things I want to do differently, do more of, do less of,…

I’ve been working on a way to share the books that are coming out each month for kids with you guys and it has been hard to find a system that I like, I am going to keep playing around with it but for me, browsing the cover art is helpful since they tell you a lot about a book and also lets you know whether your kids will be interested in it. This month I tried making a Pinterest Board that would…

The new year is beginning so I figured I would wrap up a couple of the books that I read last year that I think should be more popular than they currently are. Now this book was originally published in 2016 but it came out in paperback last spring and is a really ambitious novel written through poetry.  I would say it is written in verse, but its more like a collection of poetry with a plot.  If…

I have spent the last month or so trying to decide how best to structure the blog going forward.  I have always known that I wanted to post Mon/Wed/Fri but I wasn’t sure what to do to help stream line my content. I work best in some sort of structure and I think that what I will be doing moving forward is making each day have a theme.  Friday’s theme will focus on Young Readers.  This is a wide…

5 Great Spooky Middlegrade Books/Series

These are the recommendations I have been waiting for.  As a child I couldn’t get enough of the horror genre … and that may have pervaded into my adulthood as well.  I want to talk about some hidden gems in the kids section that are on the scary side but definitely worth picking up around this time of year.  Whether it is just meant to be a good spooky tale or an outside reading project any of…

5 Halloween Craft and STEM Books for Kids!

I really want to talk about some great books that include all sorts of crafts, activities, and science experiments and what better time than just before Halloween.  If I could get my hands on all of these and had all the time in the world, you know that I would be making all sorts of crazy crafts, interesting meals, and just all out fun science. So Harry Potter in itself is not necessarily very…

5 Monster Picture Books for a Fun Halloween

For this week leading up to Halloween week I wanted to throw out some great spooky recommendations for kids. I’m starting with the youngest and as they are meant for little kids these stories are not so scary, but star some of our favorite Halloween Horrors.   This one in particular is one of my favorites.  Monsters of all shapes and sizes are staples this time of year and many kids can relate to…

New Releases in Children’s Literature October 2017

I wanted to bring together a bunch of the releases for the month, I slightly underestimated just how many books come out in one month for kids.  I don’t know if October is just a heavy month for book releases, gearing up toward Christmas and all that or if this is the sheer volume of new releases in the section every month.  I suppose if I do continue with this section I will get an idea. There…

Black Moon Rising: The Library Book 2 by D. J. MacHale Review

I have now had the pleasure to read the advance reader copy of both books in this series, which feels like a dream knowing that MacHale wrote my favorite series from childhood.  I have some mixed feelings on it, but I will tell you about the good and the bad as we get there. Title: Black Moon Rising Series Title: The Library Author: D. J. MacHale Publisher: Random House Books for Young Readers…

5 Commonly Banned Books and Why I Loved Them

This post is what it says on the tin.  I attempted to look at some of the most commonly banned books over the ten years or so (found on the american library association website) and pick out a couple of books that I really loved.  I wanted to show them for their merit.  Now I don’t think that there has been a single book on any of the lists that made me upset or worry for the health and safety of…

Banned Books Week, Censorship, and Tackling Difficult Topics!

Good evening folks, Apologies that today’s post is excruciatingly late, I have been having a hard weekend mental health wise. I didn’t want to miss this week though!  It is a big week in the bookish world: Banned Books Week! If, somehow, you have never heard of it, this is a week long event meant to raise awareness for the countless books that are brought up for removal from libraries and…

Graphic Novel Recommendations for Kids: Fantasy

One of the biggest booming industries in the middle grade genre at the moment is that of the graphic novel.  Now of course,  comic books have always been a beloved pastime of the young nerd in training but the cultural ideas around comics and graphic novels has been shifting and with that has come a whole new genre of books available to kids both avid readers and those who require something a…