I don’t often have the opportunity (nor motive) to look at childrens’ online products, but a rep just sent me passwords to look at Scholastic BookFlix, and, it being a frigid Northeast winter day, and my having more work to catch up on than I want to contemplate, I decided to log in and see what it was all about. Yes, procrastination.

And that was the beginning of one of the most peaceful, and delightful, online interludes I have spent in a very long time. First I watched a dreamily-animated version of Ezra Jack Keats’ The Snowy Day (I recommend this video heartily the next time you are feeling stressed; it’s soooo soothing). Then I read Katie Marsico’s Snowy Weather Days, the flip (aka, science-oriented) side of snow (the pictures are really great: they made me feel about snow the way I used to when I was a kid). Then I played a couple of edutaining Puzzler games that were oriented to the featured aforementioned books. I read more about Ezra Jack Keats (all of it new to me – I’m so glad I went to went to this site!), I “Explore[d] the Web” (going to interesting related vetted web sites on weather), and I checked out several categories of paired books (Watch the Story! Read the Book! is the device the product uses for presenting a pair of books about a subject, as you may have inferred from the Keats and Marsico book example above).

I’m impressed by the amount of material available here, and by the colorful, dynamic, tasteful way it’s presented. I’m glad this is a product available to libraries, in which children can fall in love with reading in the most natural way possible. And I’m thankful to have experienced such a lovely online experience on a cold, snowy January day.

You might want to see if your public or school library subscribes – if they don’t, you can always suggest a free trial. And if they do: check out the Keats book animation – I guarantee you will like it.

More as it happens,

Cheryl