Skip to main content

Time Off

Books

Unfinished Business

April 27, 2018

In 2013, Gennifer Choldenko published the third book in her Tales from Alcatraz trilogy. At the time, she thought she was finished with the series. It tells the story of Moose, the son of a guard at the prison on…

Culture

Liar, Liar

April 19, 2018

Can you tell when someone is lying? Pants on Fire is a new podcast game show by Gen-Z Media that puts listeners’ truth-detecting skills to the test. In each episode, kid contestants are asked to decide which of two “experts”…

Books

Rhyming in the Ring

April 19, 2018

Knockout, by K.A. Holt, is about a boy named Levi. As a baby, Levi suffered from a medical condition that made it hard for him to breathe. Now a seventh grader, Levi has recovered but still feels trapped. His dad…

Books

The Key to Creativity

April 13, 2018

Where does creativity come from? And what does it look like? These are the questions Colby Sharp, a fourth-grade teacher in Michigan, wanted to help his students answer. “I realized that ideas can come at any time and can take…

Books

Learning to Bounce Back

April 13, 2018

In Rebound, the new book by Kwame Alexander, Charlie Bell can’t seem to make the right choices after a family tragedy. But then he spends the summer with grandparents, using his newfound love of basketball to get back on track.…

Books

Clearing the Air

April 5, 2018

Can one kid really take on a big problem like pollution? That’s the question facing the hero of a new book, Iqbal and His Ingenious Idea. Iqbal lives in Bangladesh. His mother cooks indoors over an open fire. The smoke…

Movies and Television

Protecting Pandas

April 5, 2018

A little more than 1,800 giant pandas live in the wild. But scientists at the Chengdu Panda Base, in China, are working to increase that number. They are introducing captive-born pandas into the wild. Qian Qian (pronounced chen chen) is…

Books

A Victory in Space

March 16, 2018

On Christmas Eve 1968, NASA’s Apollo 8 became the first spaceship carrying astronauts to enter the moon’s orbit. Author JEFFREY KLUGER documents the remarkable journey in his new book, To the Moon! At the time of the launch, the…

Movies and Television

Facing Evil

March 16, 2018

On the Netflix show A Series of Unfortunate Events, LOUIS HYNES (pictured), 16, plays 12-year-old Klaus Baudelaire, a protective brother fighting off villains. When the three Baudelaire children are orphaned, their relative Count Olaf becomes their caretaker. But Count…

Young Game Changers

Listen Up!

March 9, 2018

Podcaster Eva Karpman is only 8 years old, but she’s inspiring kids and adults. Eva is the host of Dream Big, a podcast that urges people of all ages to pursue their passion. Dream Big has been downloaded more than…