Many parents are alarmed at the amount of time their kids spend mashing buttons on their X-Box or Playstation controllers. They worry that, instead of being enriched and ennobled by the wonders of literature, their developing brains are being turned into ooze by these hypnotic machines.
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It may come as a small surprise, but all three of us at MJM Books enjoy a video game now and then. In fact, World of Warcraft has given us a place where, despite our geographic separation, we can all “hang out” together… killing bandits and ogres.
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So what are we as publishers to think? Aren’t video games the enemy of higher thought? A place were we go to spend mindless and fruitless hours? Shouldn’t kids be reading instead?
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It may surprise you that the choice isn’t either/or. In fact, our books are based on the same principle as many video games: immersive, interactive adventure. Video games (and our customizable kids’ books) place you directly in the story, making you the protagonist. Often, the games involve an epic story that… wait for it… you read over the course many hours of playing. The examples of this are everywhere from Zelda to Paper Mario to World of Warcraft.
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Even if there isn’t an epic story to read, there are often many on-screen instructions to be read during the course of a game (which buttons to press to move around or instructions about the goal of the game), and even more still if you pick up a game guide (a magazine that tells you how to access all the hidden secrets in the game).
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Some games have more emphasis on story and incorporate more reading than others so if you’re worried about junior’s lack of reading, consider the middle road and get him a game that will secretly and seamlessly fuse reading and zombie evading.
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You’re lucky, games nowadays focus more on story than ever before. Remember “Pong”? No story whatsoever. Interestingly, this may be changing… I just discovered a new version of Tetris that is First Person… Instead of explaining, I will simply direct you to this awesome site.
If you’re like us, your heart is breaking at the suffering and devastation in Haiti caused by the massive earthquake. That’s why from now until the end of February, MJM Books will donate $1 from every book sold directly to the Red Cross’s Haiti Relief and Development fund.
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To be clear, if you REALLY want to do the most good with your $15.95, you should go directly to the above link and donate it all, or Text “HAITI” to 90999 to send $10 to the Red Cross Earthquake Relief. After we’ve all done that, if you had been thinking about buying a child in your life one of our special books, you can know that you’ll be helping just a little more.
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For more information about donating to Haiti, avoiding donation scams, and why money is more important than canned goods, go here.
As many of you may or may not know, when I’m not moonlighting as a suave super-cool book-publisher-ninja-spy, I eek out a living as an IT nerd. Or according to my business card, a Network Consultant….
Although most of my clients are businesses I do on occasion make house calls. These house calls usually fall into one of two categories.
There’s the:
”Uh, I was surfing on this totally non porn site last night and now I’m getting these weird pop-ups on my screen telling me my computer isn’t safe and I need to give them my credit card to buy an Anti-Virus program…” kind.
Or the:
“Uh, my pet rhinoceros slipped on a banana peel in my office last night and fell on my laptop…” kind. Okay maybe the rhino one doesn’t happen all that often.
In any event, the first question I ask is: “Do you have any sort of backup of your data?” Guess what the answer usually is?
People, listen to me. Computers break. They break all the time. They sit up at night and calculate when the worst possible time to crash would be… and then they do it! I have been an IT nerd for over ten years and the reason I’m still in business is because computers break. HPs, IBMs, Dells, Gateways, and yes even those precious Macs will eventually shrivel up and die.
The good news however is that these days computers are dirt cheap. Thanks to the World Wide Web if you are a thrifty shopper you can buy yourself a whole new computer for about 200 bucks. So, if your pet rhino does smash up your hard drive, no biggie, that can be replaced for less than fifty bucks.
HOWEVER, that thesis you’ve been working on for last six months, those pictures of your grandchild’s first birthday party, those scanned documents outlining the government’s plot to assassinate JFK… those are now gone. Like forever gone… unless… YOU HAVE A BACKUP!
So now that I’ve gotten the lecturing off my chest, here are 3 quick and easy things you can do to avoid disaster in the future:
Windows XP, Vista, and 7 all have a nifty built in program called, oddly enough, Backup. Use this program to backup all of your stuff to an external hard drive. Why an external hard drive? Because it’s “external” to your PC. The theory being that it’s unlikely that both devices will crap out at the same time. Unless of course your house gets hit by a meteor… but then you have bigger problems. External hard drives can be bought just about anywhere they sell electronics and can be found for under 100 bucks.
Back your data up online. Now a days there are tons of companies out there that will for a fee backup your data and store it at their facility. This is done via your internet connection. Check out: http://mozy.com/ or http://www.idrive.com/ for a couple of examples. The nice thing about backing your data up online is that your data is now stored at a separate location. So in the event that something catastrophic does happen at your home (see meteor) your data should be safely resting at a quiet climate controlled facility for you to retrieve… once the fire department puts your house out.
Backup your data to CD or DVD. While a bit cumbersome by today’s standards, the tried and true method of copying data to a CD or DVD is still a perfectly acceptable means of storing your info that you’d rather not lose. In some cases, say like for storing photos or documents, it is even preferred as there are no moving parts on said CD/DVD to break. Thus for long term data storage, backing info up on those round coasters is a great idea. Again, Windows XP, Vista, and 7 and Mac OSX all have the capability to copy info to a CD-RW or DVD-RW. If for some reason your PC/Mac does not have a CD or DVD burner in it you can probably buy one online for 15 bucks.
So I hope I’ve given you a couple of ideas on ways you can save yourself from a real headache when the inevitable computer crash comes around. Don’t be a slacker. If you’re not backing things up regularly… get on it. Remember, it’s not “if”… it’s “when”.
We’ve pointed out different public domain children’s book sites like Project Guggenheim and the Rosetta Project before, but those might have been too dated and retro-awesome for some modern mommies, daddies and kiddies.
Over at ChildrensLibrary.org they have full color scans of hundreds of kid’s book titles that are a little more current than my favorite from the 19th century, The Children’s Friend!
As you can see from the image above featuring a lovely dung beetle, the buttons at the top make flipping through (and even enlarging) the books easy, though it will never be the same as having a REAL book in your hands. For the price, though, who can complain!
Another great reason to check this site out is the international translations. A book written in both English and Spanish could be great study tool or presentation topic for your high schooler!
Part of the fun of writing a children’s book is the unlimited palate of fanciful characters and situations available. I have said it before, but I would purposefully compose scenes that I thought would be murder to illustrate. Ruler Of Space really let me “go crazy”, so we found our main character zooming through space on Nintendo-esque X-rays and having their hair cut by cats wearing rocket packs.
Compared to those, playing hockey on Neptune was pretty tame! Perhaps I forgot to mention the opposing team… take a look.
NOM!
