Announcing my participation in The Templeton Twins Blog Tour

Just want to give you a heads up that I will be participating in the blog tour. My post goes up next Saturday, which is a rum old day for blogging, but there you have it. This is a jolly good book--and I'm betting that the author is a hoot. Pop on over to The Mundie Kids at http://mundiekids.blogspot.com today to start of the blog tour with a bang!

Here's the entire blog tour, for future reference. And come back and see me on Saturday. In the meantime, Natalie Aguirre over at Literary Rambles has a surprise guest, plus a chance to win one of the most talked about books of the season.

The Children's Book Review	11-Sep	Guest post from author Ellis Weiner	www.thechildrensbookreview.com
There's A Book	12-Sep	Q&A with The Narrator	http://www.theresabook.com
Watch.Connect.Read	13-Sep	Guest post from author Ellis Weiner	http://www.mrschureads.com
Stiletto Storytime	14-Sep	Guest post from author Ellis Weiner	www.stilettostorytime.wordpress.com
Middle Grade Mafioso	15-Sep	Q&A with The Narrator	http://middlegrademafioso.blogspot.com
sharpread	16-Sep	Q&A with The Narrator	mrcolbysharp.com
The Book Cellar	17-Sep	Q&A with author Ellis Weiner	www.thebookcellarx.com
Mother Daughter Book Club.com	18-Sep	Guest post from author Ellis Weiner	http://www.motherdaughterbookclub.com
Media Darlings	19-Sep	Q&A with author Ellis Weiner	http://www.mdarlings.com/
The Book Monsters	20-Sep	Guest post from author Ellis Weiner	http://www.thebookmonsters.com/
Karin's Book Nook	21-Sep	Guest post from author Ellis Weiner	http://www.karinsbooknook.com
The O.W.L.	22-Sep	Guest post from author Ellis Weiner	http://owlforya.blogspot.com
The Children's and Teens' Book Connection	23-Sep	Guest post from author Ellis Weiner	http://childrensandteensbookconnection.wordpress.com/
Pink Me	24-Sep	Guest post from author Ellis Weiner	http://pinkme.typepad.com/
Book Dreaming	25-Sep	Guest post from author Ellis Weiner	http://shannonkodonnell.blogspot.com

How Can We Reach Them?

(Sorry guys, I hate it when these things don't post on schedule!!! Blogger Fail yet again!)

I am a huge fan of the blog Literary Rambles. Casey McCormick started it in 2008 and it is the definitive resource for finding out all about your favorite agents. Natalie Aguirre came aboard this year and is doing all sorts of book reviews and interviews with authors. Great stuff!

Yesterday, Natalie began her new series which she's calling "Ask the Expert." And who is this expert? None other than the guys for whom we middle grade mafiosi (and ninja and jedi and just plain writers) write. You can find her first interview with a guy named Justin here.

It was fascinating. Justin is an 8th-grader and a reader, but he doesn't find his reading choices on blogs. He gets recommendations from friends or sees ads on Facebook or Wikipedia.

In fact, this is what Justin has to say about writers and their blogs: If authors had websites that looked nice, loaded quickly, and were updated on a daily or weekly basis, I would follow them.

I don't know about you, but I've been to a lot of websites and most of them look lovely, upload quickly, and are updated regularly. So what can we do to get teens to visit, barring having them bussed in by the Don and his underlings?

I have to hand it to Justin, though. At least he reads. Because I am not at all sure that middle school kids are reading much these days. Unless it's the text on their iPods, iPhones, and iDon'tKnowWhatElses.

I googled "time teens spend reading," and came up with this blog post from a teacher in Canada called Elona Hartjes. Apparently, a report published in the Chicago Tribune called "Generation M2: Media in the Lives of 8-18 year olds" found that children in this age group spend about 53 hours a week looking at screens. As Elona Hartjes continues:

Kids spend most of their time on their cell phones checking out Facebook, MySpace, texting, playing video games, watching TV and listening to music. They actually don’t spend much time actually talking on their cell phones. Those 53 hours kids spend on media takes away from family time. Communication between parents and kids is almost non existent.

All I can say is that when my 14-year-old finally saved enough money to buy himself an iPod touch, his screen time went through the roof. He used to be a big reader; now I have to force him (most of the time) to crack open a book.

(And I know, I know. It's the parents' responsibility to keep track of the time their kids spend on their devices and impose limits. I laugh now when I think of the "One hour of screen time a day" rule I had when he was younger!! As he points out, with a teen's chutzpah, "you're always on the computer yourself, Dad.")

With summer fast approaching, I can look into my crystal ball and see certain things happening: 1) If I want my kids to be active, as well as spend their down time reading, I'm going to have to 2) spend way less time blogging and more time connecting with them.

Either that, or I'm going to have to wake at 4 in the morning for my blog fix. I mean, who needs sleep, anyway?

Anyone else have "a friend" whose teen spends too much time on-screen? If so, what strategies does your "friend" use to make sure his/her child knows what a book looks like? A middle grade mafioso would be grateful for some advice.