Books to gift everyone on your list

The Lightning Rod

Four years after The Escape Artist, a thriller book that earned Meltzer some of his best reviews, is back with its seque (续集). The Lightning Rod picks up where Jim “Zig” Zigarowski and Sergeant First Class Nola Brown left off (for good, they thought) when Zig finds something he shouldn’t have. They bring an unthinkable secret planning to light within the U. S. military. Longtime Meltzer fans will be surprised at an unbelievable Act I, and newcomers will be involved in without missing a beat.

Maps Quiz Book

Unlike any map books you’ve seen before, puzzles in Maps Quiz Book are related to the iconic (标志性的) buildings such as Australia’s Sydney Opera House from Florence, Italy, to the winding Tokyo rail system. Each map has questions of different levels of difficulty for both young learners and masters. Puzzlers will be given tasks with challenges from easy to difficult.

Maya Angelou’s Guide to Hope

A love letter was written by one of America’s greatest writers, Maya Angelou, whose Guide to Hope delivers encouraging pages in her work. The content includes 50 acts to help spread hope (Number 30: get power from friends, family, and ancestors) with Angelou quotes (her advice to job interviewees: “Take everybody with you all the time who has ever loved you” for support and confidence).

As an adult, I like nothing better than to sit on the beach reading. Give me a satisfying “beach read” and I’m happy for days. However, I’m sad to say it isn’t really a thing for kids. Most kids would rather take their boards out beyond their parents’ comfort zone than read. And who can blame them?

But the truth is that even when kids are on vacation, they need the same sort of relaxation, and reading time that we adults look forward to. The trick is getting them to sit for 5 or 10 minutes to refresh their bodies and to enjoy the pleasure of reading.

Books tend to be kind of heavy and they can get wet or filled with sand and are then pretty much ruined. Book chapters tend to be kind of long. Your child may refuse to read. And if your kids are anything like my daughter, they may hate to close a book in the middle of the chapter.

You know what I’m going to say, right? Magazines won’t weigh you down. They can be thrown away if they get wet, and will provide just the right amount of reading for the times when my daughter is ready to sit under the umbrella and cool down for a few minutes. Literary magazines will allow your child to read wonderful fiction paired with beautiful illustrations. Discovery magazines deliver articles on all sorts of topics that will excite and interest your nonfiction lover.

So don’t leave the beach read behind when you pack the beach bags. Slip a magazine or two in the pocket of the bag and when your child needs a few minutes of downtime, pull it out and get them to sit for 10 minutes or so.

Learn With Homer

Price: Free

Grade level: Pre-K, K

Skill: Comprehension, Phonics (拼读法)

Device: iPad

It's a learn-to-read app for kids aged 3 to 6 that includes drawing, voice recording, stories, songs, and more, along with more traditional phonics exercises.

This app can be helpful for kids who have speech production problems and language organization problems.

Inspiration Maps

Price: $ 9.99

Grade level: 4th and above

Skill: Comprehension, Writing

Device: iPad

Inspiration Maps is a mind-mapping tool that helps kids visually (视觉上) organize ideas. They can create maps, organizers, brainstorms, and text outlines. Outlines can be changed to maps, and maps can be changed to outlines. Users can share creations by emailing, printing, or saving to iTunes, Dropbox, Photos, or the app (as PDF or PNG files). The Lite version (简化版本), which is free, lets kids create up to five mind maps with no sharing choices.

Aesop's Quest

Price: $ 0.99

Skill: Comprehension

Grade level: 2nd, 3rd, 4th

Device: iPad, iPhone, iPod Touch

Aesop's Quest, based on Aesop's Fables, is a learning game where the student must remember parts of a story to complete a level. At the end of each story level, the student is rewarded with tests. After the tests are solved, the story is complete and the child can continue to the next story.

Developed together with the Virginia Department of Education.