Heading home for the holidays? So are 43 million Americans. According to the latest travel reports, 90% are driving, which means there might be one epic car ride standing between you and that turkey. And if you're traveling with kids, they might get a little....errr...stir crazy. Not to worry! We've got a list of resources, books, games, and activities prepared for your commute.

It might not be the Best. Car ride. Ever., but we promise it will at least keep things interesting. 

Activities, Books and More

• There are so many unexpected teachable moments in the car, like predicting the cost of gas, reading road signs, and navigating a map. Check out a full list here.
• This video offers practical ideas for making the most out of any car ride. 
• This list round ups books that teach the importance of giving thanks. Thank you, Clifford is a favorite this time of year. You can find more suggested titles on our Thanksgiving Pinterest board.
• This activities collection from our Parents team has a plethora of printables, game ideas, and more, which you can sort by age range. I'd recommend making a pit stop at the printer before jumping in the car—you'll want to bring this "I'm Thankful" mini book printable, or this Gobble Gobble Graphing Activity. This corn on the cobb coloring sheet is pretty darn cute, too. 
• If you've got extra paper and a big enough space in the back seat to set up a little arts and crafts area, try this Thankful Garland, a beautiful present for hosts, dinner guests, or family members!

Apps

• Meet Sushi Monster, your new best friend. This math app is addictive and educational (the levels meet the Common Core State Standards) and fun for adults to play, too.
• Clifford's BE BIG With Words app is great for little ones. The app allows them to experiment with letters and letter sounds as they learn to spell three-letter words. 
• The Scholastic Reading Timer app is free (!) and lets kids log the minutes they spend reading with a cool interactive stopwatch feature. Just grab a book, set a reading time, and hit "start."
• Scholastic Storia (also free!) features an incredible selection of enriched ebooks that offer video, dictionary and reference tools, and more. For younger readers, Try Read-to-Me Audio eBooks—they can listen along to build reading confidence.

Have more resources to share? Add them here. Happy Thanksgiving!

I just returned from the annual convention of the National Council of Teachers of English (NCTE) in Boston.

Talk about a highbrow group. Let me add that anyone able to navigate the warrens connecting the Sheraton Boston to the Copley Place Mall to the Hynes Convention Center is plenty savvy. According to Wikipedia, the former convention center, which the Hynes replaced in 1988, was “ungainly.” I can only imagine.

Session topics ranged from “Teaching English Content to Bilingual Students Using Translanguaging Approaches” to “Dialogue in the Margins: Revision as Metacognition.”

Dozens of seminars offered strategies for implementing the Common Core. The operative word was “Help!”

In one session, teachers shared what they were reading for pleasure and sustenance. Here are 10 of their recommendations, in no particular order:

1. Neverwhere by Neil Gaiman. The protagonist of this novel set in the United Kingdom learns, as my dad liked to say, that “no good deed goes unpunished.”

2. The Testament of Mary by Colm Tóibín. What did the seemingly obedient mother of Jesus really think? In this novella, a reviewer for the Cleveland Plain Dealer writes, Tóibín "puts a jackhammer to the cozy, safe, Christmas-card version" of Mary.

3. Two Boys Kissing by David Levithan. A coming-of-age story haunted by the AIDS pandemic of the 1980s.

4 Quiet: The Power of Introverts in a World That Can't Stop Talking by Susan Cain. Shhh. (In this popular TED Talk, Cain explores the notion of reading as the ultimate social activity.)

5. The Warmth of Other Suns: The Epic Story of America's Great Migration by Isabel Wilkerson. An account, as the author says, of "the biggest underreported story of the 20th century."

6. My Twice-Lived Life: A Memoir by Donald M. Murray. A deft writer recounts his experiences through the prism of mortality.

7. Marmee & Louisa: The Untold Story of Louisa May Alcott and Her Mother by Eve LaPlante. Bonus: a refresher on Transcendentalism.

8. Vanity Fair by William Thackeray.

9. When Elephants Weep: The Emotional Lives of Animals by Jeffrey Moussaieff Masson and Susan McCarthy. Scientists are skeptical, but if you have a cat or a dog, you don't need to be told that animals are people too.

10. The Fault in Our Stars by John Green. The moving story of two teens with cancer, which at least one NCTE attendee read at the urging of her students.

Have any books you'd like to add to the list?

Last week, inspired by Grub Street's "Grub Street Diet" series (which features a name of note answering the question, "What did you eat this week?") we took to the hallways of Scholastic to ask employees a similar question: "What three things did you read this weekend?" The answers were great. (You can check them out here.)

Today, I polled my fellow OOMers to see what three things they read this weekend. (Spoiler alert: it looks like Donna Tartt's The Goldfinch is super popular!) Chime in below-- we'd love to hear what you read this weekend! 

Brittany:

• Ender’s Game by Orson Scott Card, which has been on my list for a while!
• Too much BuzzFeed, as always.
• The dinner menu at La Nacional Tapas Restaurant & Bar.

Anne:

• I read three recipes for my prep work for Thanksgiving.
• A catch-up email from my best friend, who lives too far away.
• Descriptions for yoga gear as I consider upgrading some items.

Morgan:

• I read a review of the Balthus exhibit at the Metropolitan Museum of Art (I saw the exhibit over the weekend -- and should have read the review first!).
• I continued reading Donna Tartt's The Goldfinch, which coincidentally has a plot point involving the Met.
• I read my Twitter feed right after watching The Walking Dead. I like to see how people react to the episodes! 

Emma:

• The handwritten recipe for my grandma’s delicious sugar cookies.
• The SoulCycle schedule for this week. (I need to plan when I am going to burn off all of those delicious cookies!)
• The first few chapters of The Goldfinch by Donna Tartt—I am loving it so far!

Megan:

• I started The Light Between Oceans, by M. L. Stedman. Everyone and their mother is recommending this book, so I thought I'd give it a go.
• I read my friends' wedding website (rather frantically because they're getting married in early December and I'm behind on planning! Luckily it was very thorough and their "how we met" story made me cry).
• I subscribe to Poets.org's Poem-a-Day (they email you a poem every day. It's lovely). Saturday's was "Austerity" by Janet Loxley Lewis and Sunday's was "Montparnasse" by Ernest Hemingway.

Suzanne:

• The list of sessions being offered ("Connecting Literature to Photography and Science” versus “Addressing Multiple Diversities in Literacy Teaching,” for example) at the annual convention of the National Council of Teachers of English in Boston. 
• The plaque affixed to 88 Mt. Vernon Street on Beacon Hill, where Robert Frost lived (1938-41) while teaching poetry at Harvard.
• The breakdown of state, city, and occupancy taxes on my hotel bill. Ouch.

Alex:

• The Dead and Buried, a YA mystery novel by Kim Harrington.
• Music on the juke box (artists included Ace of Base and Madonna)!
• am New York, specifically the horoscope section.

Jessica:

• Itsy Mitsy Runs Away by Elanna Allen (to the girls*)
• "Death of a Professor" on Slate.com (not to the girls)
• And I started The Perfume Collector by Kathleen Tessaro.

*"The girls" are Jessica's adorable twin daughters

My Reads:

• A few sections of my NaNoWriMo novel -- I promised myself I wouldn't dwell on edits yet, but it's so hard not to!
• This NPR review of the film adaptation of Catching Fire. (I saw an advance screening last week and wanted to hold off before reading any reviews.)
• The first few chapters of Divergent by Veronica Roth (late to the game, I know).

This week, we continue our celebration of The Art of Read Every Day with the artwork of children's book author and illustrator, Dav Pilkey. (Heard of him? Yea, I thought so.) 

Dav Pilkey is the acclaimed creator of the bestselling Captain Underpants series, which has more than 50 million books in print. Pilkey is also the author/illustrator of numerous popular and award-winning books for children, including the Ricky Ricotta series and The Paperboy, a Caldecott Honor Book. He's also teamed up with Jeff Kinney on "Story Smashup," a classroom webcast coming in January. 

Dav is a hero around here. Not only does he make children and adults laugh out loud with his Captain Underpants books, he also sends us incredible videos he's made at home (Reading Makes Cats Jealous, Reading Gives You Superpowers) and is constantly on the road visiting schools and delighted fans. 

Dav's artwork for our Art of Read Every Day campaign really says it all. True to his signature style of illustration, this artwork is colorful, lively, and playful. He wanted to focus his piece on the importance of togetherness, so he featured Super Diaper baby and his dad reading together. "Almost everything is more fun if you do it with someone you care about," he says. We agree, Dav.

Visit the collection and you'll discover a video of Dav sketching and painting this artwork (with his pet beetle!), a free downloadable poster, and companion Common Core-ready discussion guides (grades K-2 and 3-5). 

Enjoy!

Every Friday, we share a handful of links we found interesting, provocative, funny — or just plain cool. We call it In Our Feeds. Have a great weekend!

It has been a particularly exciting week here at Scholastic with the premiere of the second installment in the The Hunger Games movie trilogy, “Catching Fire”! Everyone in the office has Katniss Everdeen on the brain, including Kristen who found this adorable Sesame Street parody, “The Hungry Games.” Lia also dove in with this article examining the names used in The Hunger Games, along with an entertaining textual analysis of The Hunger Games, which analyzes Suzanne Collins’ favorite adjectives, adverbs, and ways of starting a sentence.

And while the Katniss, Peeta and Gale love triangle might be on everyone’s minds right now, we can’t forget about one of our other favorite characters, Harry Potter! Michael shared this story about a boy in New York City dressed as Harry Potter looking for the Hogwarts Express from Penn Station. Who knew that finding platform 9¾ could be so difficult?

Nadia took some time this week to remind us all of the beauty in books with this story detailing “The Lost Art of Library Postcards.” Let this serve as a much needed reminder for all of us to celebrate our public libraries, both past and present. In London, the National Literacy Trust is taking a much different approach to celebrating literature. The charity is in the process of installing BookBenches across the city, with volumes ranging from Kenneth Grahame's Wind in the Willows to George Orwell's 1984. And if you are on the fence about buying a particular novel, Megan suggests this list of 13 clever signs that will make you want to buy a book!

For all those times you feel like you've reached the end of the Internet, Morgan found this handy collection of the 100 best, most interesting blogs and websites of 2014. Have you checked out all of them? And while you’re at it, take a look at this fascinating article from Emma all about TV’s bookshelves – the subtle and deliberately positioned use of books in popular television shows.

Finally, to start the weekend off right, here are a few more fun links that the OOM team loved this week:

• 3 Girls Find Kickass Way to Play With Princess Toys
• Toddler naps with his 2-month-old puppy every day [15 pictures]
• The 9 Most Spectacular Ways To Get A Detention
• Florida State University AcaBelles Rock Lorde's 'Royals' A Cappella (VIDEO)

Have an amazing weekend everyone!

Did you catch Clifford on today's "KATIE"? 

Scholastic Reading Club teamed up with Katie Couric for her "Challenge for Change" grand finale and provided several surprises for the the New York City-based non-profit The River Fund. 

During field correspondent Cameron Hughes' reveal, Clifford surprised all the kids and parents with over 500 donated books. In addition, Scholastic Reading Club chipped in to help "KATIE" reach their goal of 750 Thanskgiving turkeys for The River Fund's food pantry.

I was there in person for the surprise and, I have to tell you, it was beyond emotional. Both the kids and parents lined up to give Clifford a big hug. There was not a dry eye in the house. It was definitely one of my best days working at Scholastic.

Over 500 Scholastic books. 750 turkeys. Dozens of happy kids. One "big red dog." It was the perfect equation for giving back this Thanksgiving.

A big thank you to Katie Couric, her amazing crew and producers for letting us be a part of this special surprise. 

Check out some of behind-the-scenes photos below.

Let us know what you are doing this year to help your local community this holiday season. Happy Thanksgiving!

Judy Newman, President of Scholastic Reading Club, shares the following about the passing of children's book author Barbara Park. Park passed away on Sunday, November 15; she was the author of many children's books, including the much-loved Junie B. Jones series.

Barbara Park was as important as any author to the Scholastic mission of getting kids to love reading. It goes without saying that Barbara broke the rules with her writing. She proved that first and second graders want to read about younger kids. She proved that boys will read about girl characters—if the girl is as spunky as Junie B. And she showed us all that grammar and spelling can sometimes take a back seat if those mistakes will allow kids to see themselves and their world in a book.
 
Kids want—and deserve—to read something wonderful. And book after book, that’s what Barbara delivered—wonderful reading!. Long after Junie B. should have graduated from college, kids will turn to these books and see their early elementary school lives reflected on the pages. And without question, young readers will share the books with their friends, laughing from cover to cover.

Barbara Park's truly unique gift and her genius was that she brought laughter to children who are just taking flight as readers. There is no better way for kids to see the magic of reading.

November is National Adoption Month and tomorrow is National Adoption Day.

For the past two years, I have celebrated this in the best way possible, by finalizing the adoption of a child.

While I know that the way I became a parent is different than the majority, I am not sure that after that, parenting changes much. Sure, I have to deal with the occasional question about my kid’s origin but that doesn’t really affect my day to day interactions with Lydia and Kian. Like wearing glasses, having brown hair or having a sister, adoption is part of who they are, and thus, who we are as a family.

That said, early in the process, we made a major decision that did affect how we parent. We chose that we would have an open adoption. Basically, that means we maintain a relationship with their biological parents and the kids will have access to their adoption records in the future. We are lucky enough to be relatively close to their birthplace (Kian was actually born in the same hospital I was…) so we are able to visit every so often.

This openness also helps with those occasional questions I referred to. I often am asked ‘Where are they from?’ My best guess is that most people are asking if my kids were adopted domestically or internationally. Since my answer of ‘Pennsylvania’ makes it quite clear, I normally don’t go into details but if I ever choose to, I know I won’t need to edit for my kids’ sake.

I know the next step is the questions from Lydia and Kian. While our openness about their adoption may head off some questions, it is also good to know that they will be able to ask those questions to everyone involved.

Growing up, my family used to read a Hanukkah book together every night before lighting the menorah. My favorites? Hershel and the Hanukkah Goblins and Papa's Latkes. With Hanukkah (and Thanksgiving) just around the corner, we've rounded up a few of our favorite holiday reads on Pinterest. We'll touch on Christmas books as we get closer, but the meantime, here are some titles to help ring in the Festival of Lights, which begins at sundown on November 27. 

• How Do Dinosaurs Say Happy Chanukah? by Jane Yolen & Mark Teague. From the warm glow of holiday candles in the menorah to the fun of family gatherings, little dinosaurs love to celebrate the Festival of Lights.
• When Mindy Saved Hanukkah by Eric A. Kimmel, illustrated by Barbara McClintock. In their cozy little home behind the walls of the Eldridge Street Synagogue, Mindy and the rest of her miniature family are preparing for Hanukkah. When a hungry cat sidetracks Mindy's father from his mission to find a candle, Mindy volunteers to help.
• Light the Lights!: A Story About Celebrating Hanukkah and Christmas by Margaret Moormath. Emma's parents come from different cultural backgrounds, so every year they celebrate both Hanukkah and Christmas.
• Sam I Am by Ilene Cooper. Twelve-year-old Sam Goodman's Christian mother and Jewish father are confused about how to honor each of their faiths during the holiday season. Their indecision leads Sam to seek his own answers.
• Hanukkah: A Counting Book by Emily Sper. This book lets children count each night of The Festival of Lights in English, Hebrew, and Yiddish with colorful die-cut candles and symbols that explain the story of Hanukkah.

Two of the world's most beloved children's book writers and illustrators are coming together for a "story smashup!"

Jeff Kinney, creator of the Diary of a Wimpy Kid series, and Dav Pilkey, creator of the Captain Underpants series, are releasing a “Story Smashup” event that will be available on January 15, 2014 at 1:00pm ET. What is a story smashup, you ask?

We're glad you did. It's basically a super fun way of teaching kids how to write a story—exploring character, setting, plot, action, and more. Kinney and Pilkey will work together to create an original story, with art and pictures, live on stage based on suggestions from an audience of kids. It'll be hilarious. (Seriously. Viewers will also watch Kinney and Pilkey’s attempts to draw each other’s characters and to see if they can draw their own characters, Greg Heffley and Captain Underpants, blindfolded!)

The webcast will be globally accessible for free starting January 15, 2014, and afterward for replay, at www.scholastic.com/kpwebcast. That same day, Kinney and Pilkey’s never-before-seen six panel story starter will be available for download.

Teachers, go to www.scholastic.com/kpwebcast to pre-register for the webcast and to download a contest entry form and ask your students to create their own brilliant, one-of-a-kind, three-panel ending to Kinney and Pilkey’s original story! One Grand Prize Winner will have his or her entry framed alongside Kinney and Pilkey’s first six panels, autographed by each author. Ten Runners-Up will receive their very own illustrated storytelling extravaganza book collection.

Save the date!