ReadKiddoRead!

James Patterson writes thrillers, and that's not all. He is the best-selling author in the world, with more than 250 million copies sold worldwide. Some of his books became feature films (Kiss the Girls and Along Came a Spider) and others became made-for-TV movies.

Why is he the subject of a post on an education blog? For one thing, he is also the author of several young adult novels, including the fantasy/thriller Maximum Ride series. Max, the fifth book in the series, won him the Children's Choice Book Award for Author of the Year in 2010, and he was a finalist in 2012 for Middle School, The Worst Years of My Life. This guy, who retired from advertising in 1996 and became a writing machine, has two English degrees, a B.A.from Manhattan College and an M.A. from Vanderbilt University, not too shabby.

Again, though, I saved the best for last: ReadKiddoRead is Patterson's initiative "dedicated to making kids readers for life." There you'll find videos, lists of suggested books by level and genre, suggestions for lesson plans, discussion groups, and SO much more - too much more for this post. I'll be dedicating some future posts to specific features of this amazing website, but you have it now, so you can begin exploring on your own!

Here's one thing that we would ALL love:

ReadKiddoRead gives away a box of his books to 25 high school and 25 middle school libraries every month. Anyone can enter, and if you don't win this month, you can enter again next month. I couldn't find any schools from Tennessee on the winners' map, so you be the first!

Now you understand why James Patterson is worthy of a post on an education blog, right?