Education Archives - Page 7 of 7

Why is required school reading so depressing?

31 May, 2013 by ES Ivy

book stack (Photo credit: sarah_browning)

With the end of the school year approaching it may seem like an odd time to be thinking about what the required reading novels will be next year. But we recently had to fill out course selection sheets for all three kids, and the same questions always comes up. Do we let our kids sign up for preAP English knowing that the reading selections will be more “challenging”? Because in effect we have found what it really means is that the novels will be more disturbing….

Books, Babies and Bows reviews children’s book Miri Attwater and the Ocean’s Secret

11 May, 2013 by ES Ivy

What does an octopus have to do with mermaids? Read Miri Attwater and the Ocean’s Secret and find out!

When I came up with the idea to write a book about a girl who didn’t know she was a mermaid, my intention was to write a book that was pure fantasy….

A kid’s’ review of Miri Attwater and the Ocean’s Secret

24 December, 2012 by ES Ivy

This review is special to me because it’s my first official kid’s review of Miri Attwater and the Ocean’s Secret!

Holly is in 3rd grade. She says, “I like mermaids and I loved the bubble world in the book.”…

Do fish really come that color? Yep, they do!

6 October, 2012 by ES Ivy

Photo By Adrian Pingstone, Wikimedia Commons

This is a photo of a fish called a yellow tang, like Miri saw at the aquarium park. See the tiny white spot at the base of its tail? That’s the piece of bone that is as sharp as a surgeons scalpel! Another name for tang is surgeonfish.

When I went snorkeling for the first time off the Big Island of Hawaii, we looked down on the rocks in the water and noticed bright yellow stripes. We thought it was really nice of the local swimmers to paint them so newcomers would know the best place to enter the water. But when we got in, the “stripes” swam away! They were fish. They were a bunch of yellow tangs! They were so bright that they seemed to glow like the yellow stripes on the road at night.

The aquarium wasn’t the only place Miri saw Yellow Tangs. Can you remember another place she saw them?

A reader asked if I have a preview of the cover of Book 2. Sadly, I do not. I’ll tell you what I do have, though. And excerpt of Book 2 coming next week! So don’t take your eyes off this blog!

Welcome to my blog!

4 October, 2012 by ES Ivy

Hi, I’m E.S. Ivy, writer of fun, middle grade fiction. I do a lot of research for my books, so if you’re not careful you might accidentally learn something. 🙂

This blog will cover a variety of topics related to my books and turning kids into avid readers by making reading fun. I have a background in science and I’m also pretty crafty (I’ve published crafts in Family Fun Magazine) so all of that will influence the blog. For my first series, Miri Attwater, I also did a lot of research into the structure of governments and how they have evolved over time, so you’ll find a little bit of history as well. Posts should occur about once a week, starting …. um….. soon, I hope!

Miri Attwater and the Ocean’s Secret is currently available in Amazon! After I get all my blogs and webpages up and running, get the final draft of Book 2 off to proof readers, and learn how to sing on my E.S. Ivy twitter account, I’ll start getting The Ocean’s Secret up on other platforms including Barnes and Noble, Smashwords, and Kobo. If you have a vote for which platform you want it on first, let me know in the comments.

For now I’ll just leave you with a larger version of The Ocean’s Secret to gaze at. I designed the cover and Techno Tim, my resident tech guy, made it a reality. I even got a refresher course in Photoshop and drew in some of the coral! Doesn’t the yellow one in the lower right hand corner look particularly nice?