Personalization is enjoying a renaissance in the children’s market.  But why settle for just having your kid’s name in a book when the main character can look like your kid.
Even better, MJM Books publishes original personalized, customizable children’s stories with illustrations drawn by an artist.
All three available books are sweet stories about the unique perspective children have on the world.  My favorite is What Animal Are You? — a version of a game my daughter loves to play.  A series of friendly critters tries to determine what manner of creature …

As LeapFrog Summer Reading Ambassadors, we’ve been showing off the LeapFrog TAG and TAG Junior systems at schools, libraries, and playgroups in our area.

When I reviewed the LeapFrog TAG last year, I was impressed. As an educational consultant, I believe the TAG system is a great example of technology that genuinely engages kids in learning. Download classic stories onto the reading pen and children can listen to the whole story, hear individual words, and play games. Using the TAG helps build reading comprehension and fluency.

Look under a bush and high in the sky but you can’t catch all of the butterflies in the world–but along your adventure, you may just find something even more important.

Can’t Catch a Butterfly is a sweet book, illustrated in the style of children’s crayon drawings. I had the pleasure of meeting Michelle Zimmerman, author and publisher of Rainbow Star Books, at a local wildlife center fair. As a speech-language pathologist, Zimmerman has written a book filled with love and help for pre-readers and children with special needs…

Here’s a trio of books about dads for babies and young children. Check these out of your local library or purchase at a bookstore or online to share a little bit about what makes dads special–just in time for Father’s Day!

For kids, scatting is a natural creative outlet–made-up words with a bouncy rhythm? Sure! Two books provide children a great entry into this surprisingly sophisticated jazz form:
When Louis Armstrong Taught Me Scat ($11.50) is moving, grooving story about a little girl who dances to jazz with her mother before going to bed with her mother. At night, Louis Armstrong appears in her dream and helps her compose a bubble gum scat. The hip illustrations, reminiscent of 1950s graphic art, are as playful and effervescent as the rhyming text. Kids …

If you’re tired of reading “Twas the Night Before Christmas” for the millionth time, check out these newly released Christmas books for children:

The Gift of the Magi- I remember reading the classic O. Henry story in school. This new version for children is beautifully illustrated. For children unfamiliar with old-fashioned things like pocket watches, the illustrations will really add to their understanding of this moving story about love and the act of giving. I also think this particular version would be a wonderful gift for newlyweds on their first Christmas together.
 The …

Fueled by candy, children’s imagination runs wild at Halloween as they transform themselves into superheroes, animals, monsters, pirates, villains, and fairy tale characters. Feed your children’s imagination with some ghoulishly great books that they’ll enjoy long after they’ve eaten their fill of fun-size Snickers and Reese’s Peanut Butter Cups. You won’t need to trick your children into reading these lively tales of ghosts, witches, vampires, monsters, witches and more.  
Vunce Upon a Time is a charming and beautifully-illustrated Halloween story that might even help banish your child’s fear of the monster who lives under the bed.  Dagmar, the vegetarian vampire, …

To get in the Halloween spirit, Baby Mwah and I have been reading Halloween Treats: A Touch-and-Feel Book ($6.99) by Tom Arma, who the New York Times called “the most published baby photographer in the world.” Baby Mwah loves looking at these sweet, cuddly babies all dressed up for their very first Halloween in adorable costumes. He can pet the fuzzy polar bear, touch the satiny jack-o’-lantern costume, feel the queen’s velvet robe, the farmer’s denim overalls and the ballerina’s lacy tutu.
Looking at these beautiful, heirloom-quality costumes inspired me to find a photogenic costume for …

There’s a lot of talk in education circles about the literacy gender gap. Boys are lagging behind girls in reading and writing.
I’ve heard author Jon Scieszka of Guys Read.com on NPR talk about how to close this gap. One of his suggestions for closing the literacy gender gap is encouraging male role models for reading. 
I love reading to Baby Mwah, and so does my husband. But our choices of reading materials are quite different. While I’ve been reading Dr. Seuss, Mother Goose, Richard Scary, and other children’s classics, I’ve caught my husband reading …