Someone Else’s Kids

Books To Help Children Deal With Bullying

Unfortunately, bullying has been with us for a long time. Fortunately, (but for sad reasons), it has recently captured the attention of the media and we hear anti-bullying messages. Of course, it is we adults who are the media consumers of the news stories. The kids may only catch bits and pieces of the news stories. Even then, they may be missing the context and the “big picture” of what bullying means and the real and tragic consequences that can occur as a result.

In the guest post below in her own words, this is why Australian author author Katie W Stewart wrote a middle grade novel about bullying.

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My son was eleven years old when I started writing The Dragon Box
. He came home one day, upset at being called names by one of the older boys because of his lack of ability at Australian Rules football. Long and thin, he had no interest in the game whatsoever, but the name-calling was getting him down. A word to the school put a quick end to it, but it got me thinking about bullying and self-esteem. My son’s first love was his computer and electronic games, so I decided to try to combine a lesson about dealing with bullies and fear, with a fantasy computer game world.

The Dragon Box tells the story of a young boy who, like my son, is being bullied about his football skills. He has other troubles, too, but is befriended by an old, rather eccentric neighbour who gives him an electronic game he has invented. The game transports him to a fantasy world, where the characters all resemble people close to him in real life. He is sent on a quest to retrieve a crystal that will help the Queen’s champion, a dragon who has lost his wings. To succeed, he must problem solve and do things he never thought he could possibly do.

Though James, the main character in the story, is able to do magic within the fantasy world of Grobnog to which he’s taken, it can never completely solve his problems. Also, though he has a mentor and a group of friends to help him, he is left alone at crucial moments so that he has to work out the solutions for himself.  Through his own problem solving, James comes to understand that a bully is only as powerful as you allow them to be and that sometimes a bully without friends is too weak or cowardly to act.
 
The book is available on Amazon US and Amazon UK.

Someone Else's Kids also acts as an affiliate marketing partner for The Total Transformation Program supplier Legacy Publishing Company.

Do you get as frustrated as I do with food manufacturers pumping everything they make full of hydrogenated oils and corn syrup?

I was debating whether I wanted to write about how aggravated I was at the supermarket the other day. Then I decided that it’s my blog and I’ll rant if I want to!

It just drives me crazy that practically everything in the grocery store, no matter what the brand, has partially hydrogenated oils and high fructose corn syrup. I’ve written in the past about high fructose corn syrup in yogurt. At least I was able to find some yogurt brands that don’t include corn syrup.

There are a few items such as commercial egg nog products like egg nog shakes from McDonald’s or Hood flavored egg nog that are going to have high fructose corn syrup and you either take them or leave them. I can live with that. However, this stuff is in almost everything.

Since it is close to Thanksgiving, I was looking for packaged stuffing. I couldn’t find a single kind, either store brand or national name brand that didn’t include both of those undesirable additives.

Later, in the frozen food aisle, I noticed that the store brand of onion rings I had been buying had partially hydrogenated soybean oil. I read labels are fully, but somehow I had missed that one. Perhaps it’s because I think onion rings should consist of onions, bread crumbs, flour, and egg whites, just like you would make them at home. I understand the necessity of preservatives in our food supply, but maybe onion rings aren’t meant to last forever.

When I am grocery shopping and reading labels, I always ask myself if I would use the same ingredients that the manufacturers are using if I was making the item myself from scratch. I have never reached for an overflowing cup of high fructose corn syrup. Have you? Similarly, I never dump partially hydrogenated soybean oil or partially hydrogenated palm kernel oil into my bowl of cookie dough. (By the way, what the hell is partially hydrogenated palm kernel oil? Yes, I know I could go look it up, but that’s kind of the point of asking the question – we shouldn’t have to look up the definition of an ingredient in our food!)

End of rant. I hope you have better luck trying to avoid items with high fructose corn syrup and partially hydrogenated oils in your grocery items.

Someone Else's Kids also acts as an affiliate marketing partner for The Total Transformation Program supplier Legacy Publishing Company.

Santa Claus Holiday Stamps

It’s that season of the year when early planners start searching for the perfect Christmas cards and matching postage stamps. One style of holiday stamp that is always fun and popular features Santa Claus. These are especially fun if you are letting the kids help write out the family Christmas cards or if you are teaching the kids to start a new tradition and make out their own cards to send to friends and relatives. Of course, I can’t forget to mention that Santa stamps are also perfect for those letters from the kids to the North Pole!

I really like this one because it’s a great choice for greeting cards that are going to military family members that are serving our country away from home this holiday season. It’s also a fun surprise to send to family members of troops who are away at the holidays to show that you are thinking of them and to show your support for the sacrifices they make.

Military Christmas Santa Claus Supports Troops

Do you love to personalize items with your own photo? Here’s a cute one for you if you want to add a personal touch to your holiday postage stamps. You can easily upload your own photo into this template. People love to use a picture of their own pets sitting under the Santa hat!

Santa Hat Template Christmas Stamp

The title of this one includes the word “magical” and it truly feels that way when you look at the artwork on this Christmas stamp. It’s like you are looking at from Santa’s own point of view as he holds a snow globe which can show him any scene from the North Pole to anywhere else in the world as he checks to see if you are being naughty or nice!

Santa’s Magical Christmas Snow Globe Stamp

This Santa Claus photo stamp is perfect for instances when what’s in the envelope is actually the gift. Of course, it’s also a perfect seasonal icon of Santa delivering gifts.

Santa Gifts USPS Christmas Greeting Postage 2011

Finally, this stamp conveys the “rom our family to your family” or “from our house to your house” sentiment because you personalize it with your own surname or other fun message for the holidays.

USPS Personalizable Christmas Greeting Cards Postage Stamp

See more Santa Claus Postage Stamps here and pick the best one for your holiday greeting cards.

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Someone Else's Kids also acts as an affiliate marketing partner for The Total Transformation Program supplier Legacy Publishing Company.

YA Horror Novels

Today’s guest post is by young adult novelist Tawny Stokes.

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Tell us about your book Static.
During the summer before her senior year, 17 year old band groupie, Salem Vale, has been following her favorite punk rockers, Malice, from gig to gig hoping that one night she might get backstage and meet the sinisterly sexy guys. She’s been saving her virginity for the lead singer Thane. One fateful evening she gets her wish. It’s a dream come true.

Except the dream turns to a nightmare when she wakes up in a dumpster, tossed away like yesterday’s trash, with no memory of what happened the night before. She feels strange, different, as if something is trying to get out. Soon she realizes she’s changing…turning into something not quite human.

Now a hunger deep inside claws at her to feed, to siphon energy from those around her. Before she can do just that, Trevor, the band’s roadie shows up and stops her from killing. With his help, she learns to control the hunger inside, because he’s just like her. And in return he wants her help to do one little thing…

Help him kill the members of Malice.

Do you have a favorite character? Someone who was the most fun to write?
Villains are always fun to write because you can literally get away with murder. I loved writing Thane. He is evil, but also has his charming moments. At one point I almost thought of redeeming him….but nah, that wouldn’t have been any fun.

What is your favorite genre to write?
Love writing paranormal YA. So much more freedom to it. It’s what naturally comes out for me.

Is there any story (or genre) you’re dying to write that you haven’t yet?
Would love to write a steampunk. Or a straight up horror. Or maybe I should mix those, and write a steampunk horror YA book.

Are you a pantser, or a planner?
I used to be a planner, but now I’m a pantser. For me the story is stronger when it is written organically. I like to be just as surprised when something happens as the reader is.

Where do you get your inspiration/ideas from?
All around me. From music, movies, TV shows, people I see on the street, things I hear, stuff I dream. The world is my plot idea.

What authors influenced you the most?
Stephen King for sure. I grew up reading his books. More recently though, Kim Harrison, Rachel Caine, Suzanne Collins, Michael Grant, Simon Green.

What advice would you give to aspiring writers?
If this is what you want to do, then never give up. Write every day. Surround yourself by other writers.

What’s coming up next for you?
I just released another YA book called the Demon Whisperer. It’s about a young exorcist who does exorcisms in Hollywood.

Where can readers find you?
Readers can find me at www.tawnystokes.com or procrastinating on twitter, follow me at @TawnyStokes and I’m on facebook at http://www.facebook.com/pages/Tawny-Stokes-Author/202358929804134

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I want to thank Tawny for providing such a comprehensive Q & A about her writing and her young adult horror novels. I love the cover of Demon Whisperer so much that I included it above. It is so evocative of classic horror. I love the movie The Exorcist so I think it will be interesting to see a take on it with a teenage exorcist. demon whisperer, fiction, novels, static, tawny stokes, YA horror, young adult horror

Someone Else's Kids also acts as an affiliate marketing partner for The Total Transformation Program supplier Legacy Publishing Company.

Parents Behaving Badly

Have you heard about the new book, Tales From Swankville:The Town May Be Fictional But The Problem Is For Real, that is causing controversy among in the media among parents, especially those in the author’s hometown who say the town’s fictional setting of Swankville is really their own real town of Pleasanton, California in disguise?

This is one of those books on Amazon that garners a huge discrepancy in the ratings, varying wildly and almost entirely between one star reviews and five star reviews. In fact, reading the reviews and the comments on the reviews can sometimes be almost as entertaining as reading the book. (This is also often the case with a books by politicians and media figures whose shows are about politics.)

It seems that parents are upset about the book because the authors, S.B. Fried and Georgie H. Ikuma, examine and expose bad parenting traits in suburban parents. Since the real parents in her town of Pleasanton believe the story is really about them, they have created a backlash against the book and the authors.

I don’t know what the authors intentions were and how close to reality this fiction lies, but the ironic thing is that it would be just like overbearing, competitive, and aggressive suburban parents in a subdivision to complain about a book that they felt portrayed them in that manner!

This whole thing sounds like it could be a subplot from an episode of Desperate Housewives. Maybe they will ask Siah Fried to guest star on an episode in this final season.

Someone Else's Kids also acts as an affiliate marketing partner for The Total Transformation Program supplier Legacy Publishing Company.

What would it take for you to believe in magic?

I’m pleased to announce the first guest post in the new series to help readers find an author (or ten!) that just may become their new favorites.

Here is what Author Valerie Gillen has to say about her new book, A Little Magic, and what inspired her to write in this type of novel.

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A Hidden Power: Stepdancer Siobhan Kelly didn’t believe in magic - until the magic chose her.

A Promise Made: She’s been warned magic is evil, but with her grandmother felled by a deadly curse, she must make a bargain with the local Fairie prince - the return of their sacred Jewel in exchange for her grandmother’s life.

And it just might work too - if only she can escape the dark witch who’s made Siobhan her prey in the hunt for a deadly blood spell.

I was inspired to write my YA fantasy novel, A Little Magic, primarily because I loved the Harry Potter series so, and I wanted to write a book set in the world of magic and fantasy. Siobhan, the heroine, is a competitive Irish stepdancer, as I am myself, and I wanted to share that love of dance with others. She discovers a power hidden within herself, and must enter a whole new world, in order to save the one she lives in.

Get A Little Magic here.

magic, Valerie Gillen, ya authors, YA books, YA novels, young adult authors, young adult books, young adult novels

Someone Else's Kids also acts as an affiliate marketing partner for The Total Transformation Program supplier Legacy Publishing Company.

Discover New Children’s & Young Adult Authors

I’m really excited to let readers know that I’m opening up the blog to guest posts by various children’s authors and young adult authors so they can introduce themselves and their books to new readers.

If you are looking for new books to read to your children, be sure to keep coming back to this category: Children’s Books | Kid’s Books | Middle Grade Books | Young Adult Books on Someone Elses’s Kids to see who is being featured next. This will be a great resource to learn about new writers including their latest books, what inspired them to write the books, and other aspects of being a writer.

If you’re looking to find new author to read for yourself, remember that many authors also write novels for adults as well so you and your kids can both read works written by the same person. How’s that for a fun family reading activity?childrens authors, childrens book, ya authors, YA books, YA novels, young adult authors, young adult books, young adult novels

Someone Else's Kids also acts as an affiliate marketing partner for The Total Transformation Program supplier Legacy Publishing Company.

When Children Commit Crime

I don’t usually write much in this blog about current events news stories that feature kids behaving in a criminal manner. There are plenty of those type of headlines out there on plenty of sites with their sensational headlines about child criminals. I usually write articles here that are universal and timeless so they can apply to any parent who happens to be reading the blog on a given day.

However, I happen to see two shocking news stories today about kids committing crimes. These are the kind of stories that make reasonable people say, “How could this happen? These kids should be home studying spelling words, not terrorizing neighbors with guns or committing acts which, intentional or not, lead to murder.

The first story was about a woman in Georgia who made a joke to a group of neighborhood children who were out trick-or-treating that she was going to take their Halloween candy. In response, one of them pulled out a real gun and aimed it her.

The second story was about a woman in New York who was purchasing Halloween candy for underprivileged kids in a mall when a group of young teens four levels above her threw a shopping cart over a railing. The shopping cart landed on her head. As of this writing, she is now hospitalized in a coma.

Unless you believe in the theory put forth in the thriller The Bad Seed, which states that some children are just born evil and there is nothing to be done about it, then you have to ask yourself how can things like this possibly happen. These kids didn’t just wake up one day and start acting like this out of the blue. To reach a point where they ended up in the news like this for committing juvenile (in age, not responsibility level) crime, there had to be a lot of bad behavior up to that point that they got away with one way or another. Either there were no consequences to the misbehavior or the kids didn’t take the consequences seriously and actually learn lessons from prior incidents.

That’s why it is so important to immediately make sure that kids learn how to treat people properly right from the beginning and learn that negative behavior is unacceptable. It can never be allowed to fester to the point that they end up in the news like these kids.crime by children, crime by kids, criminal activity, criminal behavior, juvenile crime

Someone Else's Kids also acts as an affiliate marketing partner for The Total Transformation Program supplier Legacy Publishing Company.