A Thinker in Space

As with most of the series I have started on this site, I wanted to begin this one with an explanation as to what it is. I have read quite a few novels in my life, and have a passion for reading and collecting novels of all shapes and sizes. As I have grown into more complicated novels, my love for the books that I used to read has not changed – I still love collecting and reading books that are targeted towards younger audiences, particularly books that I collected as a kid.

As an MS Language Arts teacher and now a parent, I am constantly awash with books of various shapes and sizes. My extensive reading experience has proved invaluable for my career, and I believe will remain invaluable as my little guy starts reading on his own. I have lately been looking back on things from my childhood, digging up old games with my Deep Cuts series and taking a look at books I used to read, particularly picture books that I can now share with my own child. I also quietly started a Younger Players section of my blog to collect games that are playable and enjoyable for elementary-age children.

This is one of the big reasons I have started this series – I want to provide reviews and recommendations for books that I love and that I think other families would love as well, and provide hopefully valid and thoughtful critiques of others. In doing so, I hope to continue to cultivate this blog into a place where honest and interesting feedback about various pieces of media can be found, adding a new facet to what I have been doing these past few months.

What is considered “Books for Young and Old” material?

The only books that will not be a part of this series if I review them are books that are explicitly targeting adults (they don’t have to have any negative content, just have an adult audience as their target). For example, my recently published review for The Way of Kings by Brandon Sanderson would not fall under this category. Young Adult novels, early reader books, and picture books are all on the table. For picture and early reader books, I will likely review more than one in an article. For Young Adult, it will be a tossup. If I write a review of the Ink series by Cornellia Funke, I would likely make each novel its own article. If I was to review Artemis Fowl by Eoin Colfer, I would likely combine multiple into one. Each article will be different in this respect.

What will an article consist of?

A Books for Readers Young and Old article will be flexible based on what I am reviewing. For now, my goal is to do the following: for each book reviewed in the article, I will be discussing multiple aspects of it. First – what is the novel’s target audience? Second – is book well written? Third – what is the quality of the art (if applicable)? I will then be making a judgement call as to whether or not the book is worth purchasing and reading, and will link to the book on Amazon. I will only be reviewing novels that are easily accessible unless I qualify that they are tough to find at the very beginning.

I will likely mostly be reviewing books that I enjoy, but I will also be tackling some that I believe are problematic – not every review will be an endorsement. In some reviews, I may even warn you against purchasing the novel. In this series, there will be multiple shorter sets of articles as I work through different series. In particular, in September I will be publishing the recommendation list I send to parents at the beginning of every school year, which I may update with new articles as I continue to add content to this blog. Though many of these articles will only cover around 1-4 books at a time, those will quickly run through a significant number of novels, many of which I will likely return to and write a complete article about.

How do I define a series?

Recently, I went through my favorite 160 films of all time, and published them in a series of articles, starting in early May and ending in early July. These were published, barring a few exceptions, on Thursdays. Since those articles began, I have started a number of different series, specifically: DC Reading, Deep Cuts, The Cosmere, Younger Players, and now this one. However, I have not consistently published them on certain days. So, what exactly do I qualify as a series? It is simply articles that can be grouped together, not necessarily sequentially. They are different types of articles that I have been publishing. A series might not be over, but you might not see another article for a while simply because I am focused on other things. Occasionally, a sequential series like My Favorite Movies will be started with weekly publishing, but otherwise I generally go with the flow, publishing what I feel like writing.

Final Thoughts

I am looking forward to continuing to put out biweekly articles on this site – it has been a joy to get back into it! I like to think that I have already set up a solid hill of high-quality content, and I hope to continue and grow in the months to come! Thank you for reading – I hope this new series is as enjoyable for you to read as it will be for me to write!’

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