Jason Boog's Blog: Born Reading, page 5

Building a Diverse Digital Library

How diverse is your child’s library? How diverse are the apps on your digital devices? I’ve collected some resources to help parents and caregivers build diverse digital libraries.

At the American Library Association’s annual conference, the “Promoting Cultural Competence in Digital Storytimes” session explored apps that parents can use to build a more diverse digital library. I’ve embedded the slides from that presentation below…

University of Alabama School of Library & Information Studies as...

Best Audiobooks for Kids

We love listening to audiobooks in my family. My daughterand I play at least one audiobook on the drive to preschool every morning. Every weekend, we visit the audiobook section of the library to find another book and CD to take home for the week’s listening.

Even if your library doesn’t have an audiobook section, you can find some great audiobooks for your collection absolutely free.Born Reading: Bringing Up Bookworms in a Digital Age contains scores of audiobook recommendations, but I collec...

Robert Munsch Born Reading Bundle

My daughter and I devoured stacks of books by the great Canadian picture book author, Robert Munsch. I mentioned some of his work inBorn Reading: Bringing Up Bookworms in a Digital Age,

You may have read one of his more famous books like The Paper Bag Princess or Love You Forever.Kids love his loopy sensibility, and the books are funny enough to keep parents engaged as well.

Munsch also has a great website, loaded with free digital materials that kids and parents can share. Below, I created a B...

Science Fiction Born Reading Bundle

My daughter Olive lovedreading Cosmo and the Robot by Brian Pinkney. This science fiction picture book recountstheadventures of two kids living on Mars. They explored the red planet, saved a broken robot and used a variety of space tools in their adventures.

In Born Reading: Bringing Up Bookworms in a Digital Age, I described how Olive and I turned that book into an elaborate game–reenacting the entire book with my daughter’s toys. Extending our interactive reading of the book, we literally ac...

Born Reading Bundle for Disney’s Frozen

Is the kid in your life obsessed with Disney’s Frozen?

Instead of forcing childrento read about something they don’t care about, help them find more books and multimedia materials related to the hit movie.

In Born Reading: Bringing Up Bookworms in a Digital Age, I encourage kids and caregivers to explore all kinds of media: good old fashioned books, eBooks, apps, educational TV and quality movies.

To build healthy media diets,I created a number of Born Reading Bundles–reading experiences thatcom...

Free Classic Books for Kids

When I was a kid, I adored theFree Stuff for Kids book series.

I read those books like a monk poring over a sacred scroll, writing companies for free samples of stickers, stamps, and little gadgets. There was something so magical about discovering something free in the book and sending out the letter myself.

I hope that your kids can have that experience of discovery too, even if they aren’t mailing letters. But instead of a Free Stuff for Kids book, you can help them find vast libraries of fre...

Born Reading Playbook

While writing Born Reading: Bringing Up Bookworms in a Digital Age, I interviewed teachers, librarians, child development experts, neuroscientists and many other professionals.

In the book, I distilled their advice about interactive readinginto a simple “Born Reading Playbook” for parents to use when reading.

To supplement that material, I created the freeBorn Reading: Storytime Tips from Great Readers slideshowcollecting interactive reading tips from some of the best readers I met along my jou...

Best Interactive Print Books for Kids

Reading a book to a child is a lot harder than it looks.

While writingBorn Reading: Bringing Up Bookworms in a Digital Age, all the expertstold me to be more interactive when reading. However, not all bookswill create an enthusiastic reading experience.

At the American Library Association annual conference, I had the awesome privilege to watch librarians around the country collaborate in a Guerilla Storytime. They gave me a HUGE list of print books that are guaranteed to make kids giggle, wiggl...

Best Children’s Book Treasuries

My daughter Olive loves it when we discover a new children’s book treasury at the library.

These special collections include multiple storybooks in a single book, giving her a chance to choose stories from the table of contents and keep reading her favorite books.

Over at Goodreads, I created a list of The Best Children’s Book Treasuries. These are the twentybest treasuries we uncovered at our library, books we have read over and over again at home.

What are your favorites? Add them to the lis...

Toontastic Storytelling Apps

The best apps help children create something new rather than passively playing on digital devices.

In Born Reading: Bringing Up Bookworms in a Digital Age, I interviewed Andy Russell, co-founder of theToontastic. The company creates apps that let kids make their own cartoonsusing digital charactersand powerful special effects. Kids can share their creations on ToonTube, a safe place where they can upload parent-approved cartoons.

“We like to think of ToonTube as a digital refrigerator – a place...