Kids and summer reading

Parents really love it when their kids enjoy reading -- but it’s a pretty big job sometimes, for both parents and their children, to get them headed in that direction. Lots of stuff has been written on the subject of how to get your kids to like to read; there’s a few good sites you might like to take a look at with the links below.

But here’s a question we’d like to ask: do you wish there was a book for your young reader that wasn’t about witches, swords, or zombies? Or how about a book your kid could read that was just enjoyable, that wasn’t trying to teach them how to cope with death, or mom and dad’s divorce, or some other such tragedy that is all too common in today’s world?

Obviously, Cindy and I see nothing wrong with a book teaching our children how to cope with things that are beyond their control, but certainly reading can -- and should -- be something that, at least sometimes, is just done for fun.

We believe our Sarah’s World ebooks would be a wonderful addition to your child’s library, because that’s their aim: just let kids enjoy reading about kids and things kids do. The first three stories are short and can be your introduction to Sarah. The fourth book, The summer to remember, includes not only those three, but three more chapters of Sarah’s life that summer. We have lots of interactive links in the books that we know your child (and you!) will enjoy ... summer is coming, and we hope you and your children have a happy one that you’ll remember in the years to come too.

How to get your kid to be a fanatic reader
Reading Rockets: Reading Tips for Parents
Scholastic: Books Parents Loved as Kids
PBS Kids: Reading and Language

https://www.amazon.com/author/noeandcindy.write

Get your free Amazon Kindle apps

About Sarah's World print copy

We recently published Sarah's World: The summer to remember on Amazon Kindle. We wanted to get the digital version out so everyone could see all the nice illustrations in living color! All Illustrations in our books are drawn by Noe, then fiddled with by me using Picasa software and various free fonts available on the internet.

But you know, a lot of us would still like to have a hold-in-your-hand print copy, so for the past few weeks we've been learning all about that. Lulu seemed to be a good place to go, because they will make your book available for sale in various places, and seemed pretty easy to do. Sounded like they'd be reasonably priced, etc.

Once we got started, though... wow! First of all, we use Google Docs to do all our work, and they do have different sizes you can choose from to make a document. So I chose what is called B5 (6.93" x  9.84"), thinking that would be about the same as the 6x9 size I was trying to make on Lulu. But Lulu said that was not formatted right, that I'd have to choose another size for our book or resize the document. Then I saw Lulu had what's called the A5 size (5.83" x 8.27") and so does Google Docs, so I chose that.

Now, after having put in all the color illustrations, we downloaded a copy in pdf form (the kind Lulu asks for), and it looked really good. Then we went all the way to pricing, and for full color -- they said it would cost us about $33 to print!! And to sell, it would be about $44!! You see, the book turns out to be 100 pages long and there are 26 illustrations, so that must be the reason it would cost so much to print. Ok, back to the drawing board!

I began transforming the illustrations into black & white, but after downloading the pdf again, you could see that some illustrations came out pretty good, others really lousy. Back to the beginning again! Now I'm making them darker and with more "saturation" of color before changing them into black & white or sepia... I guess you kinda have to either know what I'm talking about, or be there so I can show you.

Anyway, that's where we're at with regard to making a print copy... still in the process. It's not that Lulu is hard to do, it's just that you have to learn how and then keep at it till you get it right. It's a journey, leading hopefully to a satisfying result. If you have any suggestions, do post them please.

UPDATE: We are not going to do this print copy ... sorry
Thank you for reading what noeandcindy.write !

New Sarah's World book coming soon!

We are thrilled to announce the upcoming release of our new kids book, Sarah’s World: The summer to remember. It is a compilation of our three previous Sarah books (Sarah and Pcee, Sarah looks out the window, and The Nickname) along with the addition of two new stories and an introductory prelude.

The introduction takes us to school with Sarah, and there’s just a couple of days left before summer begins. This brief view at school gives us an idea of the kind of student Sarah is and shows her excitement for the summer to follow.

In the introduction, we also see Sarah’s pleasant family life. This first look at her family shows how encouraging, supportive and loving her parents are, and sets the tone for the stories in Sarah’s World. There is real fun to be had by young ones as they are given the freedom to explore and do things under the watch-care of loving parents.

We’ll keep you informed as to when it is available on Amazon Kindle.
Thank you for reading what noeandcindy.write !

https://www.amazon.com/author/noeandcindy.write

Get your free Amazon Kindle apps

About "Sarah's World: The Nickname"

This book Noe wrote was also an idea of mine from my childhood friendship with Margaret, introduced in our second book Sarah’s World: Sarah looks out the window.

As I remember it, Margaret didn’t like her name, mainly because of Dennis the Menace and his friend he was always calling “Dumb ol’ Margaret”! 

Now, I can completely understand that, as I’m sure you can too. But she couldn’t come up with a different name to be called that everyone liked... she tried Meg from the book Little Women by Louisa May Alcott, but no one liked that name back then, so none of us would call her that.

Actually, all I ever called her when she and I were able to see each other was Margaret. "The Nickname" for her came along after she moved away... we had both promised to write each other, and I think on my very first letter to her, it just came to me -- Margie was a perfect name for her! I guess her family thought so too, because I remember her writing back, excitedly telling me that’s what she was now called, everyone in her family loved it. We eventually lost touch, but I’m pretty sure that nickname stuck with her.

My name is also a nickname for a longer kind of odd name. I was only called that “birth certificate” name when someone was looking for the kid that did something wrong -- there were six kids in my family and I was rarely the culprit. But hey, Mother was an equal opportunity parent, so we all got our full names hollered once in awhile!

Anyway, as a result of it being odd, my only being called that name when I might be in trouble, and the fact that no one knows me by that name, I don’t like the new rules saying we all have to go by our “legal” “birth certificate” names these days... because really, names mean a lot to us, and that’s why I included this at the end of the book:

Dedicated to everyone that is called another name they love besides their legal name,

because even though it’s not the name on a birth certificate, a nickname is really you.

I hope you enjoy reading our book. It reminds me of my childhood and that dear friend, Margaret... um, I mean, Margie!

Thank you for reading what noeandcindy.write !

cindy

More Pcee illustrations!

We've been working on some more illustrations for Sarah and Pcee... just need something to liven that book up! We plan to go to Amazon and update the book with these illustrations sometime, but that's another project for another day.

Here's this one, after Sarah brings Pcee in to her 

"aquarium without water."

Hey, we're mentioned on Squidoo :-)

(scroll down under "First Those for Kindle")

Noe (with a little help from Cindy)
copyright ©2012

https://www.amazon.com/author/noeandcindy.write

Get your free Amazon Kindle apps

About "Sarah looks out the window"

We really enjoyed doing this book. I had an idea of Sarah having her cousin come stay for the summer, the way our cousins used to do when I was young. Well, sometimes it wasn’t all summer, and sometimes we were all staying at our grandmother’s house, but still ... seems that’s missing in a lot of young people’s lives these days.

For a time at the trailer park my uncles owned -- which they named after me: Cindy Acres! -- a lot of families in the military would live there instead of on the base. That way they could have a little more “normal” family life, I guess. Anyway, we got to be friends with many of these families, and one of them had a daughter the same age as me, with another daughter the same age as my sister. Margaret was my friend there for two summers, and we played together when we’d go visit my grandmother on weekends during school and in the winter.

Margaret was so cute and funny, with a great sense of humor. I loved her laugh, and so did she, actually. When she got a new cassette player, we had so much fun listening to our own voices on playback -- little did we know, you really sound different to everyone else than you do to yourself! But Margaret especially liked to laugh and play that back over and over, silly girl!

Noe wanted to use the idea of Sarah and her cousin Margaret in his second book of the Sarah’s World series, Sarah looks out the window. And he’s always been interested in birds and knows which is which, not like me! He sees one and asks, did you see that Mockingbird?... or Redheaded Woodpecker, or Red-winged Blackbird and so on. Of course, I hardly ever do, I’m not as keen-eyed as him.

Anyway, taking these two subjects, he put them together into such a cool story! And we self-published it on Amazon Kindle, but this time added a bunch of illustrations, unlike our first one, Sarah and Pcee. I love the way Noe is able to draw his own ideas of what Sarah would look like, how her yard would be, the decorations in her room.... even the expressions of the birds’ faces! Guess you can tell, I’m no artist ...

We also took advantage of the fact that, in an ebook, you can add links to websites with more information, so we looked around for some good ones and put the links at the end. It makes such a nice addition.

If you haven’t had a chance to get this book, please do -- I know you’ll like it ~

Thank you for reading what noeandcindy.write !

cindy

My opinion only ...

Ok, here goes another post you'll either strongly agree or disagree with!

Our son is grown and we have no grandchildren yet, so we don't have to "worry" about finding good books to read to a young one... and I am so glad about that. Being the writers that we are of the Sarah's World series books, we can't help being interested in books for young people, though. 

These are a few I've seen recently; I have not read them and don't recommend them:

(Noting where I saw the books and got the info)

From Barnes and Noble (B&N Exclusive Edition), under Best Sellers section

The Serpent's Shadow -- for kids ages 9-11 years, 4.5 stars

He's b-a-a-ack! Despite their best efforts, Carter and Sadie Kane can't seem to keep Apophis, the chaos snake, down. Now Apophis is threatening to plunge the world into eternal darkness, and the Kanes are faced with the impossible task of having to destroy him once and for all. Unfortunately, the magicians of the House of Life are on the brink of civil war, the gods are divided, and the young initiates of Brooklyn House stand almost alone against the forces of chaos. The Kanes' only hope is an ancient spell that might turn the serpent's own shadow into a weapon, but the magic has been lost for a millennia. To find the answer they need, the Kanes must rely on the murderous ghost of a powerful magician who might be able to lead them to the serpent's shadow . . . or might lead them to their deaths in the depths of the underworld.

From Amazon

The Amulet of Samarkand -- for kids age 10 and up, 4.5 stars

Nathaniel is a magician's apprentice, taking his first lessons in the arts of magic. But when a devious hot-shot wizard named Simon Lovelace ruthlessly humiliates Nathaniel in front of his elders, Nathaniel decides to kick up his education a few notches and show Lovelace who's boss. With revenge on his mind, he summons the powerful djinni, Bartimaeus. But summoning Bartimaeus and controlling him are two different things entirely, and when Nathaniel sends the djinni out to steal Lovelace's greatest treasure, the Amulet of Samarkand, he finds himself caught up in a whirlwind of magical espionage, murder, and rebellion.

From Barnes & Noble

The Rising -- for teens ages 14-17 years old

“Will keep teens who are undaunted by its 600 pages on the edge of their seats. Interweaving the stories of Jamie, Dracula, Frankenstein, and a mysterious man wandering the American desert, this book is closer to the elaborate works of Stephen King than many vampire novels marketed to teens.”—VOYA

James Bond meets Dracula in this epic saga of one boy and a ton of weapons versus the world's oldest evil—vampires as you've never seen them before!

Sixteen-year-old Jamie Carpenter's life was violently upended when he was brought into Department 19, a classified government agency of vampire hunters that was formed to deal with a little problem . . . known as Dracula.

Now why do you want to let your kids read books like these? This kind of book has been out for ages, they aren't anything new. There sure seems to be more of them now, however, and with darker themes and more hideous characters. Shouldn't reading be relaxing, entertaining, and educating (but fun)? Noe recently posted "The right magic" and in there talked about make-believe and the kind of imagination that is good for all of us, young and old. 

I do hope parents and authors will really think about what young people are reading, and give them good stuff to stimulate their minds and hearts. Hopefully Noe will one day put his pen to paper on a book for teens... that would be great!

Here's an open letter from one of our friends to some of her friends, to let them know about our Sarah's World books:

Hi everyone!
  I just wanted to introduce you to the childrens book series "Sarah's World" which is written and illustrated by my personal friends, [Noe and Cindy].
  I wanted to share with all of you this wonderful series. You'll never have to second guess the information or lessons being taught in these stories. No magic, monsters, or anything else unsavory here. 
  Please pass this along to absolutely everyone you know! These books can be given as gifts to young ones we care about. We need all the help we can get to mold young minds toward wholesomeness in this rotten system!
  One is interactive with educational links; it's awesome!
  They have just begun this endeavor and are up to three books now, so get your little ones in on the beginning of "Sarah's World".

Well, like I said, you're gonna either agree or disagree with this post, but hopefully it gave you food for thought. You can leave a comment if you want, of course.

Thank you for reading what noeandcindy.write !

cindy

The right magic

Describing the Sarah’s World books, I have said: “The stories are not filled with witches, swords, magicians and such, but are written in the belief that children are intelligent and can find enjoyment and interest in the real world just being kids.” In saying this, I was not suggesting that I am against children’s stories containing make-believe with talking animals and such things. Make-believe really is different than magic, although it can be called "magic" in a sense, and that's okay. In fact, I have made up more than a few stories like that, with my niece being the main character. I haven’t published them yet, but do intend to, although none of my stories will have witches or sorcery, since I feel those subjects are not entertaining.

Years ago when my niece was young, Cindy and I recorded a few of these stories on audio cassette, with Cindy playing the part of my niece and I voiced all the other parts. We even included our cat Shem in one of the stories -- Cindy had to squeeze him to get him to say his part on que! This is not really a picture of Shem, but he looked just like this guy... we really loved him, he was so smart. He would even play hide-and-seek with Cindy! Everyone should have a Maine Coon cat:

Sadly, it was so long ago that the tape of our stories for my niece no longer exists, but those were some real "magic" adventures with singing animals and a faraway island. It was a fun project for us to do, and my niece loved listening to it over and over. It's a great gift idea for aunts and uncles or parents to make for a young person in their life. 

I am presently working on a larger story for Sarah’s World, and when I’m finished with that one, hopefully you will see some of these other stories published.

Take a look at the books in Cindy’s book store for some nice stories for little ones and older kids too. (See the Kids Books and Great Reads pages)

https://www.amazon.com/author/noeandcindy.write

Get your free Amazon Kindle apps