I have to applaud Rick Riordan for consciously creating casts of characters of color starting with his Percy Jackson series, particularly his Heroes of Olympus and Kane Chronicle series. Does it make a difference to see yourself in a book? I think so. Does a multi-ethnic cast of characters help a series go supernova? It…
Author: Pragmatic Mom
14 Historical Fiction Books for Tweens
I’m part of the Between the Lines by Claudia Whitsitt blog tour, a historical fiction chapter book. Today, I have Claudia posting on her Top 10 favorite historical fiction chapter books for kids. This came about because my 10-year-old son in 4th grade has been on a steady diet of action adventure chapter books, mostly…
Our New Aquent Office
A few readers had asked me to blog on my entrepreneurial experience so I posted on the history of Aquent and our culture of innovation. We were gearing up for a big office move; we had been at our old office for seventeen years and we needed more space. The old office had four floors…
Top Art & Design Colleges for Undergraduates
This is a list for my daughter, Grasshopper and Sensei, who wants to go to Art School but does NOT want to be a fine artist. I suspect she will end up doing commercial art, mostly because she dislikes working alone but, on the flip side, is amazing working collaboratively. A Fairly Comprehensive List…
Video Games for STEM Summer Learning
I have been working hard planning my son’s summer and it’s a video game-themed summer but I plan to sneak in math, computer science, art, and reading. He’s 10 years old and will be a rising 5th grader. Why video game learning? My son is screen-obsessed. It’s not unusual to find him in front of…
Middle School Writing: How to Use the COMMA
PickyKidPix asked me to help her edit her English assignment last night. She said that she’s having trouble with sentence fluency which is bringing her grade down. I wasn’t sure what “sentence fluency” meant but after reading her essay and helping her fix it, I’ve decided that I need to do a four-part series to…
24 Wonderful Multicultural Picture Books About Food
My favorite way to learn about other cultures is through food. It can be intimidating to cook a new ethnic cuisine for the first time, so consider this list a menu of sorts to decide if there is anything you want to make at home. What wonderful multicultural picture books about food did I leave…







