Today is the release day for My Magic Wand: Growing with the Seasons! From bestselling Latina author Pat Mora comes a collection of poems celebrating a young child’s growth and everyday experiences throughout the seasons of a year. Vibrantly colored illustrations by Amber Alvarez and fun, lyrical poetry for young readers make My Magic Wand the perfect read aloud for every season.
Tag Archives: Reading Aloud
Behind the Novel Effect Soundscape: Baseball Saved Us
Novel Effect, a free voice interactive storytelling app, syncs theme music and sound effects to stories as you read them aloud. By now, you may have explored some of the Lee & Low titles available on the app, including Baby Born, The Story I’ll Tell, Sparkle Boy, and Baseball Saved Us (and more on the way!). What you may not know is that Novel Effect works with award-winning composers from film and gaming to custom create each and every soundscape.
We sat down with composer Ian Silver and Audio Lead Matthew Boerner, two of the talents behind several Novel Effect soundscapes, to ask them about creating the Lee & Low soundscape for Baseball Saved Us.
Tips for Reading Poetry Aloud to Children
Since Poetry Month is in full swing, we asked some of our poets at Lee & Low Books to provide tips for reading poetry to kids and students. Read suggestions from Pat Mora, author of Yum! ¡Mmmm! ¡Qué Rico! Americas’ Sproutings; Confetti: Poems for Children (Confeti: Poemas para niños); and upcoming title Bookjoy, Wordjoy, listen to the wisdom of Marilyn Singer, author of A Full Moon Is Rising and upcoming title Every Month Is a New Year, and find the passion with Guadalupe García McCall, author of Under the Mesquite, Summer of the Mariposas (El verano de las mariposas), Shame the Stars, and upcoming Fall title All the Stars Denied, when reading poetry to kids. Continue reading
10 Do’s and Don’ts for Writing Realistic Dialogue
You’re a writer working on a manuscript and you’ve finally got your two most important characters in the same room. There’s tension between them. One character has a question and the other has the answer. The conflict your plot has been riding on has finally come to a head—these characters need to say what’s been on their minds for pages!
But how do you make sure that your characters say what they need to in a way that’s believable to the reader? Nothing ruins a moment like this more than when the dialogue doesn’t flow or sound believable. If this is a problem you’re grappling with, don’t worry. We asked two previous New Voices Award-winning authors, Pamela M. Tuck (As Fast As Words Can Fly) and Glenda Armand (Love Twelve Miles Long) for their tips and tricks on writing successful, realistic dialogue.
15 Ideas When Your Child Hates Reading
Short quiz:
Which best describes why you are reading this post:
A.) Your child is a struggling or reluctant reader
B.) You are looking to refresh your family’s bedtime reading routine
C.) You are trying to restart your family’s reading routine
D.) You are trying to create a family reading routine
Celebrate International Jazz Day with Viola Davis
For your next read aloud, how about adding in some lively rhythms of New Orleans jazz and an award-winning storyteller?
Teaching Tolerance and Anti-Bullying
Want to foster empathy and tolerance?
Through Booklist, we recently explored how to use culturally responsive titles in a library’s tolerance and anti-bullying units and book collections.
Next Story Time, Have Dulé Hill Read to Your Students
As Fast As Words Could Fly 
was selected by the Screen Actors Guild Foundation for its latest read aloud on Storyline Online, an interactive literacy website where well-known actors read popular, award-winning children’s books to help students fall in love with reading.
As Fast As Words Could Fly was written by Pamela M. Tuck, illustrated by Eric Velasquez, and read by actor Dulé Hill now on Storyline Online.
Building Classroom Community in Second Grade
Check out LEE & LOW BOOKS’ Building Classroom Community Unit for Second Grade! The FREE and downloadable unit consists of eight read aloud lesson plans to inspire your best classroom community yet. Continue reading
Celebrating 25 Books Over 25 Years: Bird
LEE & LOW BOOKS celebrates its 25th anniversary this year and to recognize how far the company has come, we are featuring one title a week to see how it is being used in classrooms today as well, as hear from the authors and illustrators.
Featured title: Bird
Author: Zetta Elliott
Illustrator: Shadra Strickland