From local to national, there are many programs that provide guidance, inspiration, incentives and rewards for your kids to keep reading all summer long. The “Dig Into Reading” summer reading program at Massachusetts libraries is a great place to start. If you’re looking for more ways to encourage your child to continue reading this summer and some fabulous freebies, read on for reading programs in Boston and beyond.
I love Robert McClosky’s Make Way for Ducklings as much as the next person, and so does my daughter; it’s hard not to get excited by how hyper-local it is, and how photogenic kids look posed atop of one of the bronze ducklings in the Public Garden. (Umm, especially when the ducks are wearing bonnets. Such cuteness).
But here are five local authors you may not have met yet (or maybe you have…at the playground!): Rebecca Bond, Mil Niepold, Peter Reynolds, Anna Stanizewski, and the Middle School Students at Mission Hill School in Roxbury. Read on for more about them and their wonderful books.
My family has found a new holiday tradition. For a few years now, our Christmas celebrations have begun to feel empty and stale. It seems to get worse every year, as the kids grow up a little more and want a lot more. (When she was two, the only thing my daughter wanted for Christmas was a candy cane. A more recent request was for a $300 American Girl doll camper!) One year, we really jazzed things up by taking the kids to Boston Ballet’s production of The Nutcracker. It was magnificent, but we knew going every year just wasn’t in the budget. Besides, we would like to have a more interactive family-time holiday tradition. Well, now we’ve found something to fit the bill: Family Trees: A Celebration of Children’s Literature at the Concord Museum. To find out all about the trees, what’s happening at the museum during the holidays, and score some tips for getting the most out of your visit with kids, read on.
This week promises to be a grand time for fans (or fans-to-be) of The Boxcar Children, with a festival this weekend in Connecticut and a book giveaway right here on Mommy Poppins Boston! Read on for more about the festival and how to enter the contest.
In the early 1940’s, a first grade teacher dreamed up a story about four orphaned children who set up house in a boxcar. It became a book called "The Boxcar Children," published in 1942. The teacher and author, Gertrude Chandler Warner, went on to write eighteen more books for the series.
Fast forward 70 years, to today. There are 130 books in the series, graphic novels, e-books, audio books, and a forthcoming animated film. In celebration of the 70th anniversary of the Boxcar Children series, a prequel written by Patricia MacLachlan (Sarah, Plain & Tall) has just been released, and there are events galore scheduled in New England. To get in on the action, read on for Boxcar Children-related activities and happenings in the Boston area and beyond, all the way to the hometown of Gertrude Chandler Warner in Putnam, Connecticut.
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