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Spring has sprung for most of the country, and here in North Carolina, that means it's time for camping. Time to pull the tents and backpacks out of the attic, dust them off and air them out. And since Father's Day is only a month away, it means dropping hints so that you can weigh your pack down with the coolest new camping gadgets available.

Let's look at some great additions to any outdoors-geek's arsenal, and some toys to help introduce kids to the art of the bivouac.

• Black Diamond Wiz Headlamps. What kid doesn't want a headlamp? These are safe, they have an automatic shut-off to save battery power, and they come in kid-friendly color palettes. Finding your way to the toilet in the middle of the night is so much easier when your light source is hands-free.
• SolLight Water Bottle. If you're hiking in to your campsite, you want your load to be as light as possible. Multi-taskers are key, and the SolLight Bottle has a built-in, solar-powered LED Light. It lasts for twelve hours with four hours of solar charge, which means that any geeklets that might be afraid of the dark don't have to worry about draining the batteries in their headlamp.
• Garmin Colorado 400C Handheld GPS. It's a little pricey, sure, but it has everything that a hiker might need in a GPS: topo maps, aerial photography, U.S. marine charts, 65K color display, compass, altimeter, thermometer, and ANT. It's marketed to the marine crowd, but would surely come just as handy on a long hike as it would on the open sea.
• Swiss-Spice Salt and Pepper Dispenser. When we go camping, part of the fun is coming up with new and tasty recipes that can be prepared at the campfire. With a little salt and pepper (and the thrill of eating by a campfire), that freeze-dried beef stroganoff will be one of the best meals you've ever tasted.
• Swiss Army Knife. Say what you will about Leathermans (Leathermen?), when I was a Boy Scout, Swiss Army knives were our tools of choice. Through Father's Day, Amazon is having a sale on Victorinox Swiss Army products. $10 off a $50 Swiss Army purchase, so get a matching pair for you and the geeklet... but only if they've got their Whittling Chip, of course.

What tools are in your pack? Which toys are you looking forward to trying out for the first time this Father's Day? Leave a comment.

Posted by Michael Harrison at 11:04 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Children's literature is big business these days. Just go to any mega-chain bookstore and check out the square footage devoted to the kids. It's fantastic that there are so many options for young readers, but the popularity of children's literature is hardly a new phenomenon.

The bookn3rd blog, which focuses on book history, has some great links and commentary for rare children's book scans from the early 20th century. My favorite is Nathaniel Hawthorne's A Wonder Book For Girls & Boys, from 1893. The color plates (see the thumbnail to the right) by noted illustrator Walter Crane are absolutely amazing.

Rare Children's Books at the Library of Congress (from bookn3rd.com)

Also see: Children's Book Online: The Rosetta Project

Cross-posted from Geekdad

Posted by Michael Harrison at 12:15 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

My wife just finished listening to Neil Gaiman's Neverwhere on audiobook. She's been gushing all month about how fantastic of a reader Mr. Gaiman is--he narrated the book himself--and how he gets all the accents just right. This is something very important to the two of us, as we both love stories read aloud, but we hate when they aren't narrated well.

To prepare for our own upcoming adventures in delivering memorable storytimes--our boy is nearing the age where he'll soon appreciate such things--I thought it would be wise to gather together some resources on reading to children and getting them interested in books.

• The Read-Aloud Handbook, by Jim Trelease. This is the book for parents who want to read to their kids.  Trelease first details the benefits for reading to your kids--longer stays in school, better vocabulary and comprehension--and then goes on to discuss methodology and reading materials appropriate for kids of all ages. There's also a section of read-aloud stories for you and your kids to enjoy. Excerpts of The Read-Aloud Handbook are available online, and Trelease has an additional collection of great read-aloud stories called Hey! Listen to This.
• How to Get Your Child to Love Reading, by Esmé Raji Codell. Another good resource for finding good books to match your kids' interests. It's more than an index, though, because Codell has lots of fun experiments and activities to make lasting memories about each story.
• United Through Reading Read Aloud Resources. A few techniques and suggestions for reading to your kids, as well as some recommended books.
• The British Library Collect Britain Project. For those of you planning on reading the Harry Potter books to your geeklets, spend a few hours here listening to over 650 extracts from the Survey of English Dialects. Search by place name or date to find that perfect Hagrid accent.

Cross-posted from Geekdad

Posted by Michael Harrison at 8:07 PM | Permalink

Lenore Skenazy, who wrote a controversial piece in last week's New York Sun about letting her 9-year-old use the NYC subway, has a new blog called Free Range Kids, all about giving kids the same types of freedoms that we all experienced when we were younger:

"Do you ever... ..let your kid ride a bike to the library? Walk alone to school? Take a bus, solo? Or are you thinking about it? If so, you are raising a Free Range Kid! At Free Range, we believe in safe kids. We believe in helmets, car seats and safety belts. We do NOT believe that every time school age children go outside, they need a security detail. Most of us grew up Free Range and lived to tell the tale. Our kids deserve no less. This site dedicated to sane parenting. Share your stories, tell your tips and maybe one day I will try to collect them in a book. Meantime, let's try to help our kids embrace life! (And maybe even clear the table.)"

It's easy to get caught up in the media blitz and to constantly worry about your wee ones. We're always being told that the world is a harsher, more unforgiving place than it was when we were all kids. Is that true? I think it takes a lot of guts to let go of media-generated overprotective tendencies and let children discover the world around them, warts and all.

Cross posted at Geekdad, via BoingBoing

Posted by Michael Harrison at 11:25 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

This is very cool! I just posted it to Geekdad, but it's worth mentioning here, too. In advance of their new kids' album, Here Come the 123s, perennial geek music favorite They Might Be Giants have a new weekly podcast for kids. I just got the notice from the latest edition of their email newsletter (sign up and you get a bunch of free MP3s!):

TMBGs FRIDAY NIGHT VIDEO PODCAST FOR KIDS IS HERE!
See the brand new video "High Five" and then forward the link to your friends with kids!
The new generation of TMBG-lovin'/Barney-not-needin' kids are counting on you!

TMBG's "Birdhouse In Your Soul" was the one and only song that would put our geeklet to sleep when he was a newborn, and my wife and I have been listening to them since we were teenagers. We're all looking forward to the new album, and I can't say that about some of the other kids' music that we have to endure.

While we wait, it looks like we'll have some fun videos to put in the iPod. "High Five," hosted by puppet versions of the two Johns, is fun and quirky, with a cute song that my kid is already bopping around to. The podcast should be updated on a weekly basis in January.

Click here to subscribe to the podcast in iTunes, or just download the "High Five" video.

Posted by Michael Harrison at 10:51 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Bring up your geeklets right! With Baby's First Mythos, written by C.J. Henderson and illustrated by Erica Henderson, you can teach them to rightfully fear the Outer Gods, all while learning their 123s and ABCs! From the review at Geekparenting.com:

"Though it isn't bound in flesh or inked with human blood, Baby's First Mythos does come in a nice hardback that reminds me of Golden Books. You know, if Golden Books pushed you to the brink of madness."

Cross-posted at Geekdad, via Boing Boing.

Posted by Michael Harrison at 1:29 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

As Christmas approaches, a few people have asked what to get me. Two easy rules!

1. If it's on my Amazon Wish List, chances are I really want it
2. If it's on the Geekdad Gift Guide (or mentioned anywhere on the Geekdad blog, it's also a good bet

We've also set up a Wish List for Liam.

And here's one for Natania.

And please, don't be afraid to surprise us. After all, that's part of the fun of the holiday!

Posted by Michael Harrison at 3:58 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

My latest article is up at Geekdad. Entitled Who's Afraid of the Big, Bad Beowulf?, it's about introducing mythology to young children.

It's getting a lot of comments, which is especially cool.

Bonus Awesomeness: Looks like Wil Wheaton linked to my post in a great post of his own, about a great book, Classic Myths to Read Aloud. Everyone's getting their kids on the mythology bandwagon! W00t!

Posted by Michael Harrison at 10:28 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

I stumbled across Flickaday way back in June, and, off and on, I've been taking daily webcam photographs of myself.

I'm not really sure why I've been doing this. I guess I saw Noah K Everyday and thought it might be interesting to see how my face changes, how my hair changes, etc. Is that vain, or is it just curiosity?

But it got me thinking... I'm an adult, my face will change very gradually. But Liam, he changes every day. We went to California for a week, and when we got back, I swear he was taller, bigger, older. This little web app has the potential to replace the door jamb measurement system that my parents put in place for me (apply child to door frame, measure their height, rinse and repeat over the years, then get sentimental and sad when you have to move and paint over the whole thing).

I'm gonna give this a go, probably post it on Geekdad.

Anyway, I've set up my own Flickaday gadget over to the right in the sidebar. See me in all my bed-headed glory.

Update: I did post this to Geekdad.

Second Update: Ross Lucivero at Flickaday saw my post on Geekdad and mentions it on the Flickaday blog. The Internets are awesome.

Posted by Michael Harrison at 11:13 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)