The eternal problem, when you’re way up on the top bunk, is that you can’t get at your stuff.

And by “stuff” I mean “books.”

And Kleenex, and bedside light, and drinks… and books.

So, in the “I-can’t-believe-someone-didn’t-come-up-with-this-sooner” category is: The Bunk Bed Buddy.

It’s essentially a lightweight, sturdy holder for all your stuff. It hangs up there on the wall beside where you sleep in your bunk bed.

My son loves his. He keeps a variety of books in it, and… well, mostly books. And magazines.

So now, his bed is like a little fort, with all his favourite stuff within reach.

He doesn’t have to climb all the way down the ladder when he’s finished his book—he can just grab another one from the Bunk Bed Buddy.

The Bunk Bed Buddy is manufactured by TidyBooks. It’s appropriately priced at $79.99 and it’s available through amazon.com. (No, I don’t get a commission.)

Jane has just dashed downstairs to the kitchen to snatch up a hasty dinner for her young charge; she hoped to avoid the fine ladies gathered at Thornfield Hall:

Presently the chambers gave up their fair tenants one after another: each one came out gaily and airily, with dress that gleamed lustrous through the dusk. For a moment they stood grouped together at the other extremity of the gallery, conversing in a key of sweet subdued vivacity: they then descended the staircase almost as noiselessly as a bright mist rolls down a hill. Their collective appearance had left on me an impression of high-born elegance, such as I had never before received.

Is classic literature difficult to read? Yes, sometimes. Is it worth it? Yes, always.

I almost didn't want to put a picture with this post, so as to leave it all to your mind's eye--but then I saw this lovely and appropriate one on the blog Real West Dorset.

I haven’t read either of them yet. But I’ve read all the other books in the two series and they’re terrific.

The first is blockbuster YA (young adult) author Rick Riordan’s latest. Serpent’s Shadow is the third and final book in his Kane Chronicles, which is set in Egypt. Siblings Carter and Sadie Kane have to battle–well, a magic snake (hate it when that happens). The whole series is fast-paced and exciting and loaded with real-life facts that kids love, mostly about Ancient Eqypt. If you’re thinking that Riordan (rhymes with ”fire-dun”) sounds familiar, it’s because he’s the one behind the huge and wonderful Percy Jackson series.

The second one is a prequel to the fantastic Benedict series. In The Mysterious Benedict Society series a band of extraordinarily gifted children, led by Mr. Benedict–himself extraordinary and gifted–save the world from an evil-doer who is trying to claim our thought waves. In author Trenton Lee Stewart’s new book, The Extraordinary Education of Nicholas Benedict, we meet the man himself as a young boy. I can’t wait! These books are quirky, fun and thoughtful… and a little teensy bit dark.

Here’s the trailer for the new Benedict book:

Phrazzle Me! is essentially 200 blocks of wood with words imprinted on them.

The simplest way to play the game is to take seven blocks (each block has four words to choose from) and make a sentence. The next person builds on your sentence, going up and down or across. You get a point for every block you use.

If a phrase doesn’t make sense (“The table barked”) you lose a point.

But Phrazzle Me! (“phrase” + “puzzle”) can go beyond just game-play. If you’re teaching ESL, you can take the game in lots of different directions.

For one thing, the words are colour-coded. For instance, green is “to be” and gerunds “-ing words.” Red is “to have” and past participles.

Now, people who already speak English will probably stop right there. Because in North America, most people don’t know their gerund from their modal–that’s just not the way we normally like to learn languages.

But in most of the rest of the world, teachers and students are very familiar with past participles and auxiliary verbs, and are quite comfortable learning that way.

So for them especially, Phrazzle Me! can be a tremendous teaching tool.

For instance, the teacher can take just the question words, the auxiliary verbs and the subjects and then tell the students to make questions using this format:

Question + auxiliary + subject + verb.

“Where are they flying?” Boom, that’s a great question with every word in the right order.

You can easily change the rules. If you’re working on gerunds, make them worth double the points. If you’re working on past tense, make that key to the game. Let students take more or fewer blocks.

Phrazzle Me! is elegantly designed and sturdy. There’s no board; players set up the game on any flat surface. And it includes a draw-string bag that holds the pieces afterwards.

The game can be played without a moderator, but it works much better when a teacher is involved who decides if phrases are correct or not. It’s designed to provoke discussion and a long-term understanding of English.

We played Phrazzle Me! with our family and found that it can be quite challenging. It just goes to show how complex and difficult the English language is, even for native speakers.

The game is available through phrazzleme.com. There is also a Toronto-based distributor; contact them at dr.montecinos@gmail.com.

At $100 a game (which includes shipping) it’s not in the same pricing ballpark as most just-for-fun games. But this is the kind of game an ESL teacher would buy and use throughout her career because it will last forever.

Scary tongue pumpkin; Image: André Koehne, Wikimedia Commons

Cyberspace can be a strange and dangerous place.

Here at Getting Kids Reading we’ve had our share of troubles lately.

First we got hit with a nasty virus. It was lousy, but we learned some things. We upgraded our safety features and software and I hope it never happens again.

Then, one of our plug-ins went haywire.

I want to thank my amazing husband/tech support person who worked for many hours to rectify both of these problems. And I want to thank the people at WPZoom for their responsive and helpful suggestions and for sending us files and information. Real advice that worked. (And trust me, there were other firms who finger-pointed, sent us useless, half-thought-out suggestions or tried to sell us stuff that wouldn’t even fix the problem.)

WPZoom is the only company that actually helped, and in a timely manner. It’s a great firm and I urge you to check them out if you’re looking for a WordPress template. I’m not getting paid for this endorsement – I just really think they’re a great bunch.

I also need to thank several people who have sent me products and/or books for review. I haven’t been able to post reviews–and I’ve got a slew of amazing literacy resources to share. Needless to say I’ll be posting like crazy in the coming weeks.

Lastly, thank you to you, loyal reader, who has had to put up with all of this Interweb nonsense. Thank you, everyone! To botch an African saying, ”It really does take a village to maintain a website.”

Hey, remember this recurring character from Night Court? (:31 seconds) “I’m feeling muuuch better now!”

Thanks to Tina, via her FB page, for this.

Sometimes, it’s the subject matter that puts them off.

Take me and The Hunger Games, for instance.

I have tried to read it several times. But every time I picked up the book… yep, still about children killing each other.

It’s not for me.

I don’t get the whole dystopian thing. I find it creepy, depressing and scary.

But I also get that The Hunger Games, and the whole dystopian genre, is hugely popular with kids. They love it.

The Hunger Games is well-written and compelling. The characters are well-rounded, the world itself intricate and thoroughly thought-out.

But… it’s about children killing each other.

I saw the movie on the weekend.

When the lights went down, it felt like I was on a rollercoaster to a scary destination, from which I couldn’t disembark. And essentially that’s what happened.

From the first moment, when we see how the people in District 12 are living – and all throughout the movie – it’s my version of hell. Watching children living in horrible distress, being set up by adults, and ultimately watching some of them die.

It’s the reason I walked out of Slumdog Millionaire. (Which was billed as “uplifting” – a marketing lie I still haven’t forgiven.)

I didn’t want to see the The Hunger Games, but as a children’s literacy blogger and writer I could no longer avoid this literary juggernaut. I had to get into that rollercoaster and buckle up. (With my 10-year-old, who thoroughly enjoyed every second, wasn’t very disturbed by it, and helped me through the scary bits. “Remember, it’s just a movie, mom!”)

All of this has given me insight into kids who are forced to read material they haven’t chosen for themselves.

No matter how well-written or popular it is, sometimes you’re just not into certain books.

If I were a kid and The Hunger Games was on the curriculum, I can imagine the teacher saying, “it’s a great book! Millions of kids love it!” But it wouldn’t be my choice and all those other kids loving it still wouldn’t make me want to read it.

I’m glad I saw the movie. I’m not sure if I will ever be able to get through the books – although now that I’ve met Katniss Everdeen I do kind of want to know her better.

In the meantime, where did I put my copy of Scott Pilgrim? I need a chaser.

• Story-building
• Fostering imagination
• Putting events in sequence
• Inspiration for writing a story
• Staving off boredom while you’re waiting at a restaurant
• General all-round silliness.

There are nine dice. Each one has six simple pictures. For instance, a happy face, a magic wand, a tree.

You use the nine images to build a story.

For instance:

I was happy when I found a magical tree.

or,

The magician used a tree to make his wand. It was a happiness wand.

or,

I “wand-ered” over to a tree, where I stopped and smiled at my own pun.

The great thing is that there are no wrong answers. And all kinds of possibilities.

Rory's Story Cubes come in a compact, efficient little magnetic box.

You can use as many or as few dice as you want. You can ignore some. You can make the images mean just what you want—even if that wouldn’t be someone else’s interpretation of the picture.

And you can get as silly as you want.

Rory’s Story Cubes are portable and stored in an elegant little magnetic-closure case. We bring them to restaurants and roll them while we’re waiting for the food to come.

The app sells for $1.99.

If you’ve got a few kids in your group—even if they’re very diverse in terms of age or interests—it’s a great way to keep them occupied. And laughing.

There’s a great back-story to this game. Rory originally invented his cube game for companies to foster creativity and teamwork. He has since come up with a number of different versions, including a version with just “action” pictures (verbs), one that’s about voyages, and a smart phone app.

Rory’s story cubes sell for about $15 and they’re available at most toy stores or online at the Rory’s Story Cubes website.

In fact, we consider it one of the top three most important things you can do to help your kid develop a love of reading.

Every day – but especially on Wed., March 7 – take the time to read to your child.

Or even someone else’s. Or a bunch of kids. There’s no downside – and a huge upside.

More information on WRAD here.

Dragon’s Tail gives you the beginning of a story, and your kid writes the rest.

There are 13 book bites in all, each one an intriguing start, whimsically illustrated, to a story that your child will finish.

Here’s my favourite:

Dracula and Son

“Wake up, son! It’s time to terrify the neighbourhood!”

Papa Drac stretched and yawned, flexing his long, white hands and testing his bright, white fangs with a handy fork.

Ping! They were solid and scary–ready for all the terrifying stuff he had planned for the surrounding countryside, the lonely farmhouses, and the craggy castles.

“Nah, I’m tired,” said Drac Junior. “I wanna sleep in.”

“You’ve already slept in for nine months! It’s Hallowe’en–time to sharpen those pearly whites and to practise blood-curdling screeches, climbing down walls, and flapping about in a creepy way!”

It goes on, but you get the idea.

Dragon’s Tail would be great for homeschooling, for teachers and for parents with kids who are keen to write but need a bit of inspiration.

And best of all, kids can go to the book publisher’s website and upload the endings they’ve written for any of the stories. Fun!