Giggity: Finding Fun Stuff for Kids

By Bianca Schulze, The Children’s Book Review Published: August 31, 2009 Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs comes to the cinema September 18, 2009. Be sure to read the book before heading to watch it, and talk about the differences between the book and the movie with your child. Let me know if you’re planning to go see it. If you love reading Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs, Judi and Ron Barrett have a new book that you MUST check out, The Marshmallow Incident. Add these books to your collection: Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs and The Marshmallow Incident.

Oh, hi! Haven’t seen you in a while. We’ve been goin’ through some big ol’ life changes, and I haven’t had time to post any reviews of rockin’ new music lately.

Basically, my wife and I and our 3-year-old son moved back to my home state, where I’m getting my PhD in Human Development and Family Studies. There were several factors that influenced our decision, one of them being that we wanted to see if the MUCH slower pace of life in southeast Alabama appealed to us after living across the Hudson from Manhattan for eight years.

So far,

Miley Cyrus reclaims the top spot on the Kids’ Music Charts this week with her Hannah Montana 3 Soundtrack, as last week’s #1 album, Kidz Bop 16, falls to the fourth rung in the Top 10 ladder. They Might Be Giants’ Here Comes Science will be released September 1 on Amazon and iTunes, and September 22 worldwide, so expect to see

What do you get when you take an Apple iPhone, a Smule Ocarina App, and the music notation and recorded tracks to Debbie and Friends’ song “Three Pigs and a Wolf” and put them all together? A Family Jam Session!
Here’s a link to download our fun play-along PDF for you and your family to enjoy!
Debbie [...]

By Bianca Schulze, The Children’s Book Review Published: August 28, 2009 The Belly Button Fairy releases on September 1, 2009. Pre-order your copy here to add it to your collection: The Children’s Book Review Store

Looking for an inexpensive way to spend the day out with your family? Tomorrow morning, Saturday, August 29, marks the second annual Children’s Music Festival at the Folsom Aquatic Center in Folsom, California. Performances run from 10am to 12:30pm, and admission is only $6 and includes free admission to the center at 1pm, following the festival.

Families will get to hear Tim “The Piano Man” Williams,

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Joel Schwartzberg, featured blogger for the Newark, NJ-based Star Ledger, wrote a short piece this past Monday about kids’ music for NJ.com’s parenting blog, Parental Guidance. His article was a response to Lindsay Armstrong’s article for Babble.com that included “a master mix of grown-up tunes that

Ever since the Laurie Berkner special “Let’s Hear It For The Laurie Berkner Band!” aired on NOGGIN back on July 12, Laurie Berkner fans have chimed in asking if the program will ever be broadcast again. Word from Berkner management is that they know of no plans of a re-airing, so the best action to

By Reading is Fundamental Published: August 26, 2009 Long before they go to school, before they even know the alphabet, children begin to write. In fact, for most children, literacy begins at home . . . with a crayon. The scribbles of very young children have meaning to them, and scribbling actually helps them to develop the language skills that lead to reading. Young children who are encouraged to draw and scribble stories will learn to write more easily, effectively, and confidently once they head off to school. How can you encourage your children to write? From infancy on, reading books