Family Reads

Happy Thanksgiving!

We wish all of you a lovely Thanksgiving! Like most of you, we have had a wonderfully busy fall, filled with homework, orchestra performances, family visits, new work adventures and, of course, books!

Tonight, the three of us will gather on the couch for one of our favorite holiday traditions. Each year, we read a book as a family beginning on Thanksgiving night and finishing on Christmas Eve. What a delightful way to make sure we spend time together in the quiet of each night. The holidays can be so filled with hustle and bustle, we forget to take a deep breath every once in awhile and just be with one another.

For the last four years, we've read one of our absolute favorite books, Rascal by Sterling North. If you haven't read it, please seek it out. It's a sweet story about a boy and his raccoon, largely biographical, that beautifully captures small town, Midwestern life as World War I is winding down. It's also a wonderful book to read aloud.

This year, we've decided to read two Christmas classics: A Child's Christmas in Wales by Dylan Thomas and Charles Dickens' A Christmas Carol. Though the tales are familiar, we've never read the original versions together and can't wait to experience the rich language and masterful storytelling.

Consider choosing a family favorite or two to share together each night this season. It's a great way to end the day.

We haven't had as much time to devote to Family Reads recently as we'd like and it will likely remain a bit quiet over the next few months, but we hope you're still able to find many new books to explore in the nearly 150 reviews we've published. Just browse our categories and levels to find what you're looking for. Keep reading and stay in touch!

Interview with Recent Quick Pick Author Lisa Brown

Well Looky there! I get email updates each week from Lookybook (a picture book viewer site I wrote about earlier this year), and today they featured an interview with Lisa Brown, author of the most recent Quick Pick on Family Reads. Get a peek at her creative process and read the newsletter here.

This Week at Family Reads: America!

Just a quick heads-up...this week at Family Reads is America Week! As we approach Independence Day, we'll be taking a look at books that will help you celebrate the USA with your family. Be sure to check back for some dependably delightful patriotic picks!

The view from Alltop

Family Reads has found its way to the books category on Alltop! You'll find it at books.alltop.com.

What is Alltop? Alltop is a slick new site from author, serial entrepreneur and certifiably nice guy, Guy Kawasaki. The site selects a number of quality blog and news sources on a given topic and gathers all the content on single, lovely looking page. They have a number of topics already and more are being added all the time. We're thrilled to be included in the books category alongside some great sites.

Here's how Guy and his friends describe Alltop:

We help you explore your passions by collecting stories from “all the top” sites on the web. We’ve grouped these collections — ”aggregations” — into individual Alltop sites based on topics such as environment, photography, science, celebrity gossip, fashion, gaming, sports, politics, automobiles, and Macintosh. At each Alltop site, we display the latest five stories from thirty or more sites on a single page — we call this “single-page aggregation.” You can think of an Alltop site as a “dashboard,” “table of contents,” or even a “digital magazine rack” of the Internet.

No matter what your interest, Alltop is a great way to stay on top of a topic, while being introduced to new sites and people. Alltop already includes moms, dads, crafts, and education categories. Definitely worth checking out.

Introducing Emily Morgan

This February I had the pleasure of meeting our next guest reviewer and immediately took a liking to her. Emily Morgan is a wife, former grade-school teacher, and stay-at-home mom to four kids ranging in age from 3 to 13.  She lives in Anderson, South Carolina where she keeps busy helping with homework, volunteering at the schools, cheering for various youth sports, and keeping the family running like a well-oiled machine.  When she's not baking cookies for the baseball team or hosting dinner gatherings, she likes to read children's books and drink coffee.  She'd rather organize a closet than take a bubble bath and ONLY buys new clothes for herself when she has to.

Tomorrow Emily will be sharing a not-to-be-missed picture book. Emily, we're glad you're here!

Introducing Robin Storch

Tonight we have the pleasure of introducing a long-time family friend as our next guest reviewer. Robin Storch is a wife, mother of two, and teacher in the great state of Oklahoma. Not only is she funny and sweet, but she is the most refreshingly down-to-earth person I've ever known. Tomorrow she'll be sharing one of her family's favorite series of picture books. You can find more of her writing on her blog, Little Bits of Life. Welcome, Robin!

Our First Guest Reviewers

We have a special treat for you tomorrow — our first guest review! From the time we launched Family Reads, we always hoped that it would grow beyond the three of us to include some of you. We all share a love for books and sharing them with our children. So many wonderful books and so little time means that we're missing a lot of great reads!

Not any more! Starting tomorrow, we'll get to enjoy a few more delightful books each month. Two terrific ladies have joined Family Reads as guest reviewers and will be sharing some family favorites with all of us. We couldn't be happier to welcome them both and can't wait to discover new books right along with you.

First up is Gina Clifford. By day, Gina is an Internet guru. By night, she is the math and science instructor for her home schooled son. Gina is also the author of the eclectic home school blog Spotty Banana, where she shares information on all sorts of subjects.  She enjoys finding fun math and science-themed books for her son, who is a fanatic like her. Gina's blog is a great resource — definitely check it out.

We'll have more soon on our other, equally talented guest reviewer shortly. If you've been thinking about contributing a review or two (and we know you have), we'd love to share them!

Stop by tomorrow for Gina's first review and say hello!

A new feature for you!

Hello reading friends! We're winding down after a lovely Easter yesterday and enjoying one last day of Spring Break here in Texas. We hope you had a wonderful weekend with your family!

Of course we've been reading books during our time off and look forward to sharing some of them with you in the coming days. But first, we want to point out a new feature which we hope will make your time on Family Reads even more fruitful. In the righthand toolbar, you'll now find a handy search box! Whether you're looking for info about a particular title or want to find an idea we shared, just type a few words in the box and you'll be directed to a Google results page. Scroll past the obligatory ads, and you'll see all the relevant results from Family Reads.

You can also browse our reviews by clicking any of the categories on the left. For instance, you can easily find all the reviews of Level 2 books or books featuring cats. Enjoy!

A quick answer...

...from you, our loyal readers!

Last Friday, we asked for your feedback on whether or not you enjoy the link to Amazon in our reviews. We really appreciate your many comments. The response was unanimous - keep the links! Many of you enjoy reading more reviews and also like the ease of ordering when the local library doesn't carry a book. Plus, Amazon often sells used copies as well.

So, we'll happily continue to include the links. Thanks for helping to improve the site! We'll have more questions for you in the weeks ahead.

Bonus tip: Ever curious what might be reviewed in the near future? Visit the homepage and checkout Current Reads on the right-hand side. You'll find a handy list of what all of us are reading. If the books pass our rigorous quality control department, a review is usually just around the corner. Enjoy!

Quick question...

... for you, our loyal readers! 

Are the Amazon links in our reviews helpful to you? Should we continue to use them?

Since we launched Family Reads in December, each of our reviews has include a link to the Amazon page for the book. From Amazon, you can order the book (from which we receive a small reward) and read many more reviews.

So far, very few of you have ordered a book this way, which makes perfect sense; we, too, use our library more than anything else. We mostly order books for gifts or when we absolutely cannot wait until it's available at the library.

But what is less clear is whether you do enjoy the convenience of being able to read other reviews on Amazon to get a better idea about the book.

If most of you make your decision about a book almost entirely on our reviews, then we'll happily take that compliment and stop adding the links. If you enjoy easy access to more reviews or to make a purchase now and then, we'll be glad to continue including them.

Let us know what you think and we'll decide by Monday based on your feedback. Thanks much!