I’ve been doing a little more research for the next Seven Kingdoms Fairy Tale. Look what I found! 🙂
Did you know you can get a Junior Ranger badge and book for your kids (ages 5 to 13+) at all of these National and State Parks?
If the list of 400+ parks overwhelms you, try this map to see what’s near you.
(If you’ve read LOST WITH LEEKS, you know we’re all about maps around here. I may get lost, but I always have ALL the maps. 🙂
Do you have a 4th grader at your house? Did you know 4th graders can get a free pass for the whole school year and the summer that follows? Sounds like adventure to me!
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If you’d like to stay in touch, sign up for my Reader’s List. Once a month, I share a new book recommendation for readers ages 9 to 12, story-related freebies, and/or related blog posts. If it’s not your thing, you can unsubscribe at any time.
Do you have a good sense of direction? How about the rest of your friends and family?
The second Seven Kingdoms Fairy Tale, LOST WITH LEEKS, is all about getting–you guessed it–lost. Prince Nero has a magically magnetic personality. He’s charming, but he wrecks compasses and maps.
I don’t know about charming, but I’m an expert at getting lost. One of the worst times as a child was in a huge campground.
I found the shower building. No problem.
But when I came out again, nothing looked familiar. Hundreds of tents and campers stretched out in all directions. The sunset showed me West, but that didn’t help me. I didn’t know where I’d come from.
I also didn’t speak any French. By filling my hands with water from the wash room sink, I tried to mime that our tent was near the lake. *blushes* Needless to say, that didn’t work.
The colors of the tents all faded with the light. Finally, I walked out from each side of the building. In straight lines, so I couldn’t get MORE lost.
Eventually, I tripped over our tent lines and recognized where I was. The arctic explorer returns to base camp. I could have died out there! *cue Star Wars theme*
My family was unfazed. *Okay, it was July.*
How about you and yours? Do you have a story about getting lost? What helped you get “found” again? What are your favorite tips to keep your kids from “staying lost”?
P.S. Today is the last day for the free Seven Kingdoms short story TROUBLE AT THE CHRISTMAS FAIR. You might get lucky if the price hasn’t changed everywhere yet.
If you missed it, you can sign up for my Reader’s List and get the first five chapters of TROUBLE WITH PARSNIPS free. (That’s the first Seven Kingdoms Fairy Tale, about the magic of speaking up.)
Each Tale stands alone, so they can be read in any order.
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If you’d like to stay in touch, sign up for my Reader’s List. Once a month, I share a new book recommendation for readers ages 9 to 12, story-related freebies, and/or related blog posts. If it’s not your thing, you can unsubscribe at any time.
Prince Nero is a trouble-magnet–for compasses, maps and magical creatures.
After an author spends a few months or years working on a book, it’s always SO exciting to find out what readers think.
If you’d like to support your favorite author, leave a review and/or rating on BookBub, Goodreads, or your favorite online retailer!
If you’re looking for more books to keep your readers busy, check out my reviews for 9- to 12-year-old readers (or 8-year-old super readers! 😉 in my downloadable guide. The handy downloadable guide links to all of my GoodReads reviews.
The first review for LOST WITH LEEKS! Thank you so much for taking the time to share your honest experience with others.First GoodReads review for LOST WITH LEEKS!
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If you’d like to stay in touch, sign up for my Reader’s List. Once a month, I share a new book recommendation for readers ages 9 to 12, story-related freebies, and/or related blog posts. If it’s not your thing, you can unsubscribe at any time.
This complete short story is a heartfelt THANK YOU to faithful readers. Or an appetizer for those of you who’d like to check out the Seven Kingdoms. For ages 9 to 12.
Eleven-year-old Prince Nero has got his hands full! His royal mother wants to solve their kingdom’s money problems with her Quality Blackfly Gingerbread.
The problem is. . .not everyone agrees with her ideas of what “Quality” means.
The gingerbread oven isn’t the only thing heating up!
This complete short story is an appetizer (22 pages) for the magical world of the Seven Kingdoms.
TROUBLE WITH PARSNIPS and LOST WITH LEEKS are much longer. Tales can be read in any order. 🙂
WHY READ SEVEN KINGDOMS FAIRY TALES?

In each Tale, a fairy godparent gives one lucky child the perfect leadership gift. Abracadabra!

If only they’d remember the training wheels! Yiiiiiiikes!

Whether it’s speaking up at a feast, or reading a map in a strange kingdom, these Tales are all about finding more magic in your life.
If you’d like to stay in touch, sign up for my Reader’s List. Once a month, I share a new book recommendation for readers ages 9 to 12, story-related freebies, and/or related blog posts. If it’s not your thing, you can unsubscribe at any time.
The next Seven Kingdoms Fairy Tale stars the Saffron twins, Magellan and Saffy, so I’m thinking about what kinds of things they might want to do in the future. No promises and no spoilers. 😉
This video is about what surveyors do and how to become one.
The graphic novel-style WikiHow guide to becoming a surveyor is more informative:
Did you know there was an International Ranger Federation?
The advantage of the reading and writing life is that you catch a glimpse of other peoples’ lives. 🙂
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If you’d like to stay in touch, sign up for my Reader’s List. Once a month, I share a new book recommendation for readers ages 9 to 12, story-related freebies, and/or related blog posts. If it’s not your thing, you can unsubscribe at any time.
Would your family like to celebrate St. Nicholas’s Day this year? At our house, it’s always been a nice start to a busy month.
Making Stutenkerle or “Bread Guys” is a fun, easy, and reasonably healthy after-school activity on December 5th.
Afterwards, the kids can do what German kids are doing: clean their boots and put them out for St. Nicholas.
On December 6th, our kids’ boots were full of things to get their own presents organized.
Gift bows or
tags,
ribbon,
a roll of wrapping paper.
And a chocolate St. Nicholas.
And the Bread Guys!
Bread Guys make breakfast the next morning VERY cheerful.
In the Rhineland where I live, you can buy Weckmänner in the bakeries.The word sounds like “Men who wake you up.” I’m still waiting for someone to explain that to me. . . 🙂
What, no German bakeries?
The easy way to do this:
refrigerator biscuit dough from the grocery store* and
raisins,
sprinkles,
almonds,
red hots,
or whatever you have for decoration.
*Fun fact: “Knack und Back” is the German name for those refrigerator rolls that you smack (“Knack”) on the counter and they pop open. “Back” means to bake.
Stuck for ideas for those shiny clean boots? How about a copy of. . . . [you saw that one coming, didn’t you? 🙂]
LOST WITH LEEKS
A Seven Kingdoms Fairy Tale, Book 2
Argh!Crown Prince Nero is lost again. That’s what he gets for trying to fly a hot air balloon. Thanks to his fairy godfather’s gift, every map and compass goes kerflooey as soon as Nero touches it.
Even worse, his royal mom has just kidnapped St. Nicholas.
If Nero can’t find his true North in a hurry, he’ll never rescue him before St. Nicholas’s Day!
If you’d like to stay in touch, sign up for my Reader’s List. Once a month, I share a new book recommendation for readers ages 9 to 12, story-related freebies, and/or related blog posts. If it’s not your thing, you can unsubscribe at any time.
Here’s my latest menu of books for hungry readers. I’ve read all of these (and many others) this year and you can see my reviews on Goodreads by clicking on the titles or covers of the books.
Feel free to share and to comment about favorite books you’ve read this year for 9 to 12 year olds!
Click on the “download” up above to get the one with links to my book reviews on GoodReads.
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If you’d like to stay in touch, sign up for my Reader’s List. Once a month, I share a new book recommendation for readers ages 9 to 12, story-related freebies, and/or related blog posts. If it’s not your thing, you can unsubscribe at any time.
