Pendred Noyce's The Ice Castle Wins a Mom's Choice Award

Scarletta is excited to announce that Pendred Noyce's second book in the Lexicon Adventure series, The Ice Castle: An Adventure in Music, has won a Gold Award from Mom's Choice Awards® in the category of Juvenile Level 2 (ages 9-12)!
The Mom's Choice Awards® honor the best in products and services for children and families. Evaluating in over 150 categories, the Mom’s Choice Awards® use an esteemed panel of judges including educators, media and other experts, parents, children, librarians, performing artists, producers, medical and business professionals, authors, scientists, and others. "The program is globally recognized for establishing the benchmark of excellence in family-friendly media, products and services," and the result is a list of materials that parents and educators can feel confident using. (-Mom's Choice Awards®)
Noyce's first book in the series, Lost in Lexicon: An Adventure in Words and Numbers, was also a Mom's Choice Award® Gold winner, and the second book continues that tradition. The Lexicon Adventure series provides young readers with entertaining and exciting stories that are rich in language play, description, complex themes, and multiple points of view. Not to mention its embedded explanations of science, math, language, and music make the series a great educator's tool for use in cross-curricular learning.
We're proud to have The Ice Castle: An Adventure in Music recognized as one of the best in family-friendly media!

Lost in Lexicon: A Great Tool for Teachers

We've been talking a lot lately about Penny Noyce's newest book, The Ice Castle: An Adventure in Music, but we don't want to forget the first book in the Lexicon Adventure series, Lost in Lexicon: An Adventure in Words and Numbers, which we published in 2011. In fact, Lost in Lexicon is such a great book and tool for teachers to use in the classroom that the National Council of Teachers of Mathematics reviewed it this month in their Teaching Children Mathematics magazine. Now the bad news is that you need a subscription to read the entire magazine, but fortunately we've posted the review here for you:

"Two thirteen-year-old cousins travel through an imaginary land called Lexicon, searching for clues to help them locate and return children who have gone missing from their villages. As the cousins, Ivan and Daphne, use a compass and Cartesian plane to make their way across Lexicon, they encounter a village overrun by punctuation, are joined by a four-legged thesaurus, and use mathematical formulas to help repair a town. In their travels, the cousins use words and numbers to gather clues that eventually lead them to the location of the missing children. Here they call on their growing confidence and knowledge of language and mathematics to rescue the children and help them return to villages.
Noyce’s imaginative, playful use of words and numbers keeps readers engaged throughout the story. Most tween and teen students will likely recognize an underlying message about the dangers of mindlessly watching television and playing video games. This book also answers the age-old question asked by students: “When will I ever use this in real life?” The charming story, along with the focus questions and extension activities at the end of the book, make this an entertaining selection for student-led reading discussions at the upper elementary and intermediate level."
—Jennifer Geoffroy, D.C. Public Schools, Washington, D.C.

A big thank you to Jennifer and the National Council of Teachers of Mathematics for saying such great things about Lost in Lexicon.
And if you're a teacher or educator, we want to know, what do you look for when picking books to use in your classroom?

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 .

Students Add More Illustrations to Lexicon

Last November students started sending author Penny Noyce the drawings they made while their teacher read Lost in Lexicon to their class. And since we love seeing how students interact with the story we decided to share more drawings with everyone!

To the left we have a drawing of spiderwebs and the quote that inspired it:"Ivan and Daphne walked through the woods finding spiderwebs festooned with tiny droplets." (pg 16), and underneath, an image of aunt Adelaide's barn: "The barn now stood in the middle of a pond with water reaching halfway up its side." (pg 29).

To the left here, we have a drawing of Lexicon: "Just a broad expanse of rolling meadow strewn with wildflowers under a cloudless blue." (pg 29), and underneath, some of Lexicon's flowers: "On either side, purple wildflowers ducked their heads in rippling grass." (pg 33).

These pictures made our day, and we're so glad the students decided to share them with us. If your students or children have done any drawings of Lexicon, we ask that you either send us an electronic copy to info@scarlettapress.com or a hard copy to Scarletta Press 10 S. 5th Street #1105, Minneapolis, MN 55402. We'd love to add them to our collection!And if you're looking for other ways to get your students to interact with Lexicon, make sure to check out Penny's Lost in Lexicon Villages Event.

Students Bring Lexicon To Life With Drawings

Students recently sent author Penny Noyce pictures they had drawn of Lexicon while their teacher, Cary Sneider, read Lost in Lexicon to them aloud.

On the top we have a drawing of Aunt Adelaide's barn and the quote that inspired it: "The barn now stood in the middle of a pond with water reaching halfway up its sides." (pg 29), and to the right, an image of the pig that lives in the barn: "The pig lay on her side in a stall, with her eyes half-closed, the fine hairs on her side quivering as she breathed." (pg 23).

To the left here, we have another drawing of Lexicon: "Sheep grazed in the distance, far off at the horizon, steep white-and-purple mountains cut into the sky." (pg 29), and underneath, we have an image of Daphne and Ivan's adventures: "The two cousins built a raft of branches and rode out onto the river below the bridge, where the raft promptly sank." (pg 15).

These pictures are fantastic and we're so glad the students decided to share them with us. If your students or children have done any drawings of Lexicon, we ask that you either send us an electronic copy to info@scarlettapress.com or a hard copy to 10 S. 5th Street #1105, Minneapolis, MN 55402. We'd love to add them to our collection!

Thoughtful Reflections

Lost in Lexicon author Pendred Noyce recently opened up about a plethora of issues in an interview conducted by Thoughtful Reflections host Sylvia L. Ramsey. She addressed the difficulties of naming her characters, what it's like to be published in today's industry, writing for yourself vs writing what you think others want to read, and more. Here's a taste of some of her answers:
How do you come up with the names of places and characters in your books?
"It is funny, but I always have a hard time writing until I know the names of my main characters. I need a name that sounds like the picture I have in my mind, and I really do not know how to find those names. It is sort of like figuring out what to name your baby: you flounder around until suddenly you know."
Are there any problems in getting children’s’ books published?
"Editors are always looking for what is hot right now. They told me Lost in Lexicon was too old-fashioned or too didactic for today’s kids. In the end, I decided the only way I could prove them wrong was by publishing the book myself, and making a success of it. I pulled together a great team – an editor, an artist, an art director, and a designer – then published a book that has won awards and enthusiastic followers. While I was doing a radio interview and bookstore visits in Minneapolis, I finally ran across a publisher, Scarletta Press that understood what I wanted to do in providing challenging, thoughtful fiction for kids. Scarletta acquired Lost in Lexicon to anchor their brand new line of children’s books."
To read the interview in its entirety, click on this link.

Sweet on Books

Did you know Sweet on Books is sweet on Lost in Lexicon? Sweet on Books is a locally-based initiative with reviews written exclusively by mothers as part of the ABC7 Learning Section. Each week they bring readers the latest reviews of books geared toward children in grades K-5. Here are some of the wonderful things they had to say:

"Under the guise of an adventure novel, Lost in Lexicon expertly incorporates educational elements into the storyline to deliver a true learning experience. Just as The Phantom Tollbooth…did years ago, this book pushes readers to see the familiar from a new perspective and to open their minds to fresh ideas."

"Both The Phantom Tollbooth and Lost in Lexicon serve as reminders that we are all equipped with a perfect cure for boredom—our own brains. I hope that this story inspires many young readers to observe, think, have open minds, and most important, to rely on themselves for entertainment."

You can find the rest of the review here!