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I hopped on Periscope this afternoon for a quick Q&A about Journey North Mystery Class. If you’d like a peek at our graph (behind as usual) and a walk-through of the project, here you are.

Took a long break from scoping while I kicked that icky cough. Jumped back on today for a quick catchup. I’m giggling now because I didn’t notice until afterward that my phone had changed my #tidallearning hashtag to “#disappearing”—ha! Anyway, we wound up covering a lot of ground in this one: kids’ audiobooks, Creativebug, geocaching, letterboxing, Outside Lies Magic, hand-carved rubber stamps, Sketchbook Skool, Postcrossing…whew!

I hope to jump back on tomorrow at 2:30 Pacific time to talk about Journey North. See you there!

My friend Sarah Mackenzie of the Read-Aloud Revival podcast is in town for a speaking engagement, so we got to hang out for a while. (Kortney, we missed you!) We decided to hop on Periscope for quick hello and wound up chatting about Betsy-Tacy and Little House and middle-grade vs. chapter books, and all sorts of bookish things. Super-fun. Come back soon, Sarah!

Sarah interviewed me on Read-Aloud Revival a while back—here’s the link if you missed that episode. If books are your jam, you should subscribe to the podcast; Sarah has some awesome guests lined up for next year—and the archive of previous episodes is full of riches.

How to find us on Periscope: I’m @melissawiley and Sarah is @amlovelythings.

1. Christmas Trolls by Jan Brett: always our first book of the season. My younger three love it every bit as much as my older three did. I’m right there with them—the troll voices are so much fun to read aloud, and there’s a bit at the end that chokes me up every single time. Plus we have a red wooden horse exactly like the one in the book!

(Why has Amazon started slapping a copyright notice on book covers? They’re fair use.)

2. I really appreciate the downloadable lock-screen calendar Inkwell Press provides for free every month. What a nice gift! I like being able to turn on my phone and see what day it is without clicking to my actual calendar. I’m lazy that way. If you sign up for their email list, Inkwell will send links to each month’s wallpaper options—lock screen, home screen background, and desktop. Pretty nifty.

3. I mentioned this on Facebook and Twitter last night, but for those who missed it: 50 Incredible Minecraft Seeds You Must Try is free on Kindle right now and it’s pretty darn cool. It includes seeds for PC, Pocket Edition, XBox, etc. My kids and I were pretty excited to explore some of the Pocket Edition maps today…there’s one with four villages squished together and another with a mountain village that looks like something out of Howling Fjord. I ran around the mountain one for a while and it was a hoot. The blacksmith shop is high up on a rocky crag above the rest of the town.

4. The Jacquie Lawson Advent Calendar! We look forward to this every year. It’s an animated Advent calendar with some new little piece of story to click on every day. I’m glad my friend Phoebe reminded me to download it today. (Costs $4.) This year’s theme is “Victorian Christmas,” which, you know, had me at hello.

5. Periscope: I’ve done about one scope a week since I started. I never know if I should post them here! You can view all my replay videos at katch.me/melissawiley, but I could upload them here on the blog, too, if it would be helpful. Actually, I suppose I ought to start posting a list of links for stuff I mention in each scope, since show-and-tell seems to be what I wind up doing every time. Okay, there’s a plan (but not for tonight). Yesterday’s was called “A quick Monday hello” and is pretty chatty. Sometimes I have a structured topic, and other times I’m just there to gab.

Popped onto Periscope today to discuss readalouds, including how I approach character voices. You can catch the replay at katch.me (or watch it below). I dust off my Scottish accent around minute 27.

Picture quality seems a bit dodgy–sorry about that. It looked fine on my screen during the recording!

Happy November! Just a quick list (no commentary) for this week’s books recap—my weekend is running away again.

Family Read-Alouds:

I finished The Search for Delicious. The kids were glued to every page. Stay tuned for a Periscope in which I will discuss what book I chose for our next read-aloud and how I arrived at this choice. I’ll also talk a little bit about how I approach character voices.

Speaking of doing voices, Scott just started reading the first Harry Potter book to Rilla. His Dumbledore is magnificent.

Some of the picture books we enjoyed last week:

Ninja Baby by David Zeltser and Diane Goode

No, That’s Wrong! by Zhaohua Ji and Cui Xu

Blue Whale Blues by Peter Carnavas (links to pdf)

The Berenstain Bears and the Spooky Old Tree by Stan & Jan Berenstain

This Orq (He Cave Boy) by David Elliott. We received a copy of this book from a friend at Boyds Mills Press and it became an instant hit. I booktalked it on Periscope on Thursday, if you’d like to hear more about why we fell in love with it. (The link will take you to katch.me where my scopes are archived, or you can scroll to the bottom of this post and watch the replay there.)

What Rilla read:

The Best-Loved Doll by Rebecca Caudill

Several Oz graphic novels (see this post for more about why they’re her favorite books)

Rowan of Rin by Emily Rodda (in progress)

What I read:

“The Purloined Letter” by Edgar Allen Poe for a class I’m teaching

Around the World in 80 Days by Jules Verne (in progress), also for the class — this is Beanie’s reading list, too

Beanie also read:

Genghis Khan and the Making of the Modern World by Jack Weatherford

20,000 Leagues Under the Sea by Jules Verne

I know I’m forgetting something. And I forgot to ask Rose for her list at all!

My boys are both enjoying:

The Magic Tree House books — they’re both working their way through the series. It’s such fun to see them side by side with their coordinating books.

Things Scott has recently read:

Light and Shade: Conversations with Jimmy Page by Brad Tolinski

Swag: A Novel by Elmore Leonard

Comfortably Numb: The Inside Story of Pink Floyd by Mark Blake

The Light That Never Goes Out: The Enduring Saga of the Smiths by Tony Fletcher

News!

I’ve launched a series on Periscope. I’m calling it “Something Old, Something New, Something Borrowed, Something True” — this will be a regular feature in which I do my favorite thing: talk about books. A family favorite (that’s the “old”), a new gem, a library book, and a nonfiction title. I tried out the format last week and I think it’s going to work nicely! Here’s the first installment. I’ll announce future editions here and on Twitter.

Related:

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I’ve been meaning for a while now to give Periscope a try, because I think it would be a great platform for the kind of book- and resource-sharing I like to do here on the blog. This evening I decided to pop on for a trial run, just to see how the platform worked. To my surprise, viewers started arriving within seconds! I spent about ten minutes chatting with some very supportive friends, and I loved it. I’m hooked. This is something I can have a lot of fun with.

I’d love to know what topics you’d be interested in hearing me chat about. Today’s viewers gave me some excellent suggestions, including doing some read-alouds of my work. I’m keeping a list of ideas and will try to do a scope at least once a week, if I can work out some better lighting than what I was getting in my bedroom for today’s impromptu recording.

Because I hadn’t yet signed up with katch.me to archive my scopes, this one will only be around for the next 20-something hours. By tomorrow evening (Pacific time), it’ll be gone. I’ll aim for another round early next week, so let me know in the comments here what you’d like to chat about! And thanks so much to the sweet friends who dropped by and encouraged me with all those happy little hearts bubbling up on my screen.

You can run but you can't hide. I've been kissed by an angel and tagged by the honorable poet and author Laura Purdie Salas to divulge my darkest secrets.

How come these online memes never ask us to probe the meaning of oxygen or the importance of being earnest? Not sure what there is left to confess that I haven't already spilled onto the screen here but I'll try.

I wonder if I know myself enough to know the obscure things about me that would seem interesting to a reading audience. ;>

1: I used to listen in on phone calls at the switchboard when I worked behind the desk at a hotel during the summer a million years ago. My parents stayed at the hotel and the job was given to me out of courtesy to my mom and dad. (It was an old switchboard with plugs and buttons. Straight out a 40s movie set.) That was the summer I was hypnotized by Stephen King's SALEM'S LOT. I read, I plugged, I listened, I made a lot of mistakes. I learned a lot of secrets.

2: My first true kiss and true love was with a 19-year old trumpet player to my 14-year old goofiness. Our first date was an afternoon movie ("Ode to Billie Jo") because my father would not let me go out at night. That was the summer I found Sylvia Plath and romance all at once. I can still remember the moment of that kiss. I can see myself on the couch, wearing oatmeal-hued jeans and a brown tube top. I wrote a lot of love letters that year.

3: My Can't Dos: Sew, Play cards, play PlayStation games or Dance Dance Revolution, cook, make braids, eat fish or eggs, understand math, draw, dress fashionbaly, throw out a book, figure out how to put on the DVD player in the living room, go to sleep like normal people do, change a flat tire, bear the sight or mention of a mouse.

4: Almost Famous: The closet ham in me is not too shy to admit my off off off off off off off Broadway acting roles: (Think camp, school:) Annie Oakley (ANNIE GET YOUR GUN), The Courier (1776, Hi Hope, Best Play Ever) , Tuptim (THE KING AND I, school production), ANNA (camp production of THE KING AND I, took over the role when the star got sick and my mother forced the head counselor to give the role of Anna to me, ahem ahem), The Cowardly Lion (THE WIZARD OF OZ), Patty (YOU'RE A GOOD MAN, CHARLIE BROWN) and some sort of robot/woman of the future in the high school SING show. The funniest talent show moment: when I was a little nothing and sang WHY MUST I BE A TEEN AGER IN LOVE, accompanied by my own miserable guitar playing.

5: If I see people throwing trash outside their car windows, most notably cigarette butts, I even my car next to the offending driver and stare the person down until my message is loud and clear. When I am in the mood, I roll down my window and shout: "Why did you have to do that?" (Really. Who DO they have to do that? Are there not enough garbage pails in the world?)

This was a ridiculously random spew of airhead factoids. It was a long day. I was in a hospital/nursing home in Brooklyn for much of the day. I can still smell its putrid aroma on my skin. I don't like knowing a family member is there but that's all there is for now. My grandma (father's mother) died in that same building. I walked into the doors and all the ugly memories of the last time I was in that building washed over me. I can still see her thin, pale wrists tied to the bedrails to avoid her hurting herself. She had very little recognition left but I do remember saying my name and watching me with her big blue eyes as I kissed her clammy cheek and left her room. I never saw her alive again.

Hey. Who brought the Sad Sack in here? :{

This is supposed to be a fun project. {}

Ready to make some noise, make some more fun? I choose.....

(Drumrolls and glockenspiel clinking, maestro, please! Oh and did I mention I pretended to know how to play the glockenspiel in our junior high school band class? I don't know how I got away with that one.)

Next battah battah is...

newport2newport Melodye Shore... because if anyone can make a random obscurity make sense, it's My California Girl, the one and only Original First-Place Trophy Friend, Melodye. {{{}}}

Take it away, Mel, mon chere.

-Pamela, worried my obscure confessions make for one, massive snore-fest...