ReadWriteThink is a site from the International Reading Association and the National Council of Teachers of English. It offers resources for teachers and students that will aid in reading and language arts education. Find lessons, standards, online resources, and materials for students.

BookPALS | Storyline has Screen Actors Guild Foundation members reading children’s books aloud online via streaming video. Books include The Polar Express read by Lou Diamond Phillips, Brave Irene read by Al Gore, and WIlfrid Gordon McDonald Patridge read by Bradley Whitford.

If you want to see an incredible public library site for children, take a look at The Early Elementary Library from the Public Library of Charlotee and Mecklenburg County. It has interactive features, a separate section for pre-schoolers, guides to children’s literature, recommended books, and much more all done with a sense of humor, great style, and warm spirit.

Mad About Manga reports the interesting news that several American newspapers are going to start including manga in their Sunday funnies to try to attract more young readers. Participating papers include the LA Times, Denver Post, Vancouver Sun, and Seattle Post-Intelligencer.

Frontline has done another incredible program, this time looking inside the teenage brain. It is a program that those of us working with teens should watch, and best of all the Frontline programs are available online in their entirety.

Harper Collins has created a controversy by editing the photograph of Clement Hurd, author of Goodnight Moon in the new edition. The editing removed the cigarette from Hurd’s hand. Goodnight Reality is a site where you can vote about whether you approve of the change or not. Personally, I don’t see any reason to remove a cigarette from the hand of an author. How does removing a cigarette help children? I think we need to protect children, yes, but this is not how it should be done. Sanitizing the world doesn’t help our children understand the world they live in nor does it make them any more safe.

Finding Wonderland: The WritingYA Weblog is a blog all about writing for teens. They cover news, recommend links, and offer advice.

A very nice service from Simon & Schuster is their collection of Simonsays.com >State Reading Lists. You can search by specific grades, and authors & illustrators.

This article on Children’s Movies Push the Boundaries of PG comes after I had a run-in with Millions, the movie version of the book by Frank Cottrell Boyce. I adored the book and loved the movie. Due to the PG rating, I chose it as a movie for the library’s family movie series. Luckily, I found time to watch the film the night before we showed it, because I had a mother show up with two very small children, ages 4 and 6 and I gently recommended that they not stay and watch. PG doesn’t mean what it used to.
I am not saying that the movie shouldn’t have been shown as part of our series. But it does mean that I have to be on my toes about what kind of PG movie it is, so I can help parents understand that times are changing. Our most popular film in this most recent film series was Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants where I had a gaggle of preteen girls all enjoying the movie immensely. Some boys came in to meet their sisters and walked out in disgust because there was kissing!