The Ice Castle Activity Fair

We just finished editing our new promotional video for Pendred Noyce's second book in the Lexicon Adventure Series, The Ice Castle: An Adventure in Music, and we must say, it looks pretty cool!
The book is out on August 9, and it comes with discussion questions and activities to get kids involved with music and science. What's even cooler is that we've put together a set activities so that you can host your very own Ice Castle Activity Fair at your local school, library, or museum.
So check out our video to get an introduction to the book and the activity fair, and if you want to host an event, email our publicity director, Desiree .

Why We Love Books in a Series

There is always talk about what the big trend is in YA literature. Right now it’s vampires and dystopias, but soon it will probably be mermaids and cyborgs, or maybe it will be dinosaurs. Who knows? It fluctuates, and despite anyone’s claim, it can’t really be predicted. But what does seem to be a lasting trend is the popularity of books in a series.

Flavorwire posted a list the other day of what they deemed to be 10 of the greatest YA series of all time, and it made us wonder, what is the appeal of a series over a single book? We’re not arguing that there aren’t great single books out there, or that they can't be as popular, but you have to admit that when you think of the best-selling books of the time, they are all series: The Hunger Games, Twilight, Harry Potter, Chronicles of Narnia, Lord of the Rings. The list could go on. And books continue to be bought by publishing houses not just as a single title, but in groups of three or more. There's always a discussion of whether the soon-to-be acquired book could be turned into a series.
And we're no different. We have a few new series in the works, and book two of Scarletta Junior Readers’ Lexicon Adventure series, The Ice Castle: An Adventure in Music, hits shelves in August. (The series follows cousins Ivan and Daphne and their exciting--and sometimes dangerous--adventures in the land of Lexicon. If you haven’t read them yet, you definitely should.)
But back to series as a whole, what’s so great about them? Here’s our list so far:
1. Kids grow up with the characters. When I read the first Harry Potter book, I was the same age as Harry. As the books continued to be published, I stayed roughly the same age as the characters, and it made me identify with them even more.

Great Food, Great Prices: Twin Cities Restaurant Week

Until Friday, it’s restaurant week here in the Twin Cities, and that means great food from some of the area’s best restaurants and chefs at unbeatably low prices! None of us at the office has participated in restaurant week before—blame a mixture of procrastination, forgetfulness, and not enough time—but this year we are determined to change all of that.
We’ve been looking over Mpls.St. Paul Magazine’s list of participating restaurants and their respective menus, and we have to say, there are some great options. A couple of us are already planning on going to The Oceanaire Seafood Room, and I’m personally really excited to try the Firelake Grill House and Sea Change at the Guthrie.

And not only do we want to go to some of the best restaurants, but we want to hear what restaurants you’re excited to finally try! Tweet us with your restaurant plans this week, using the hashtag #MNRestaurantWeek, and you could win a copy of local foodie Bob Macdonald’s new book, Knives on the Cutting Edge: The Great Chefs’ Dining Revolution. In it, you'll find everything from the rise of celebrity chefs to the healthy eating movement and the growing use of bold flavors by chefs all over Europe and the U.S. It's a great accompaniment to all the delicious food you'll be experiencing this week! Plus, it's not out until August, so you'll be the first of your friends to read it!

We're Building a Castle!

With the holiday this week, it’s been pretty dead in the office. In fact, there’s only been a few of us here. So to keep our spirits up, we decided to build a castle out of our inventory of Pendred Noyce’s forthcoming book The Ice Castle. Fun, huh?
But it's not just for fun. We need to make a video for an upcoming virtual conference, and rather than film our publicity director, Desiree, simply talking about the book in our conference room, we wanted to make the background a little more interesting. And yes, we're always looking for an excuse to build a book castle and call it work.

This arched doorway didn't hold up very long, so we needed to try something else.

It's still a work in progress, but it doesn't look too bad for our first attempt.