Click to see Ghost Buddy on Amazon~starting at $5!
Recently, I was at a Philly Social Media Moms event, and some PR reps there asked if I had a “teen or tween.” Nope. My kiddos are small. I still expressed interest in reviewing these books from Scholastic.
Random Story: When I was 5 or 6 years old, my mom bought me a white t-shirt at the local A&P. It had the Fonz on it, and it had him flipping his thumbs and saying “aaaayyyy.” Why did I tell you that random story? Because it was my first celebrity crush t-shirt, and 35 years later, it’s what I think of when I hear the name Henry Winkler.
Thankfully, both he and I have grown since the mid-1970s. He has gone on to be a successful producer and director and now, children’s book author! How cool is that? I received two books co-written by Mr. Winkler–Zero to Hero and Mind if I read your mind?
My part-time job consists of being a special education advocate, so therefore I attend lots of workshops and conferences related to education. I was at one such workshop last year, and we heard one of the country’s most noted reading specialists. She gave us some real take-away information we can use. She said–Read to your kids, every day. Twenty minutes a day, that’s all it takes, and you’ll see a difference. Since then, I’ve really been trying to get our 20 minutes in each day, faithfully. And reading the little board books….it takes many of them to take up 20 minutes! So I was very glad to receive these, to try something new. But would my kids be able to follow ‘chapter books’ at their age? Yes!
The books are fun. Yes, they are more geared for your tweens and early-teens that are reading chapter books. However, for smaller kids, I’m finding that they work well for bedtime stories. My kids are remembering the chapter that I read to them, and asking appropriate questions the next day. They remember the characters and the series of events. I love that they are written (in part) by Henry Winkler, so it connects with me. Lin Oliver is his co-author. I have two boys, but I think that girls would enjoy them equally as much. The only issues I’m having with my smaller children is explaining what a ghost is. That’s actually been fun and it’s great to have them both increasing their receptive and expressive vocabulary. It will be interesting to see in a month of so if they can still make the connection to ghosts when it’s Halloween time. And…I know I’ve posted this on both blogs–but I went to a workshop from one of the country’s best reading specialists, and she said that one of the best things you can do for your kids is to read to them 20 minutes a day, every day. With these books, the twenty minutes goes by so quickly and it makes it more enjoyable for both of us. Twenty minutes is a very long time when you are reading board books that have only a word or two per page.
We are almost finished with the first book and looking forward to the rest of the series. If you’ve been wondering what is a great series of books to start with your kids, definitely give the Ghost Buddy series a look.
