October is National Bullying Prevention month. While it’s unfortunate that the issue of bullying has become so prominent over the years, the reality is that today’s students have greater access to tools online that make bullying easy. One of the best ways to manage bullying in your child’s life is to have regular discussions about what is going on at school, as well as online. We’ve rounded up some of our best free resources for parents and teachers – the links below will provide you with discussion guides, book lists, and helpful tips to use as you discuss bullying with your kids or students this month.

Parent Guide to Bullying – A collection of resources and expert articles about how to spot the signs of bullying and what to do about it.

Teachers: Everything You Need to Know About Bullying – A comprehensive guide for teachers with discussion guides, activities, and articles about preventing bullying in the classroom.

Storia eBooks About Bullying – A list of some great eBook titles about bullying, along with a conversation starter for kids.

Is it Bullying or Drama? – An article from Choices magazine about helping teens determine what is bullying and what is teen drama (For more great articles on bullying from Choices, check out their new blog, TeenBeing.com!)

"Read Every Day. Lead a Better Life." is our company's global literacy campaign, the backbone of all that we do here. Helping children gain access to books, improve their reading skills, gain confience and foster a love of reading— these are the goals behind every new project, every book, every campaign. 

A few months ago, we asked 13 children's book illustrators to show us what this statement—"Read Every Day. Lead a Better Life."— means to them. The result is a stunning collection of illustrations from some of our young readers' biggest literary heros: Dav Pilkey, Jeff Kinney, Kadir Nelson, Yuyi Morales, and Kazu Kibuishi, to name a few. In addition to the illustrations, we've created companion educational resources for teachers to use in their classrooms. We're calling the entire project "The Art of Read Every Day" and today, we're unveiling it to the world. 

Visit The Art of Read Every Day and you'll discover the following:

• Artwork from 13 children's book illustrators (see the full list here)
• Videos of the artists reading aloud and speaking about their artistic processes
• Discussion guides with writing and art prompts for students (grades K-2, 3-5)
• An opportunity to purchase a 2014 desk calendar that features the entire collection of art. Net proceeds go to one of our nonprofit parnters, Read Out and Read. You can also purchase the individual poster art as well. 

For the next 13 weeks, we'll be highlighting one artist per week (moving alphabetically through the list on our website) by sharing a resource from their collection every day. This week we're focusing on Harry Bliss, so you'll be learning more about his work as the week progresses. And be sure to keep an eye on all of our social media, where we'll be sharing pins, videos, posts, and all of the wonderful resources that comprise this project. 

We hope you enjoy the collection and that it inspires a life-long love of reading in your students and children. 

There's something pretty special happening in our NYC headquarters this week! Even if you're not in NYC, though, you can follow along!

From the Alliance for Young Artists & Writers blog: all week long, Scholastic Art & Writing Awards Alumnus Timothy H. Lee is transforming The Scholastic Store main display with his artwork as part of the Art.Write.Now.Pop Up residency! Each day from 11am – 7pm each, he's working in front of a watching public. We encourage you to stop by and check out his progress -- and to check out our Flickr account, where we'll be updating photos all week!

Take a look at what's happened so far:

Pretty awesome, we think. This artist-in-residency concept helps bring visibility to the role of art to a broader public, aligning with the Alliance's mission of recognizing and encouraging young talents for their work, as we celebrate the launch of the 2014 Scholastic Art & Writing Awards.

Be sure to follow @artandwriting on Twitter and Instagram, and the Scholastic Art & Writing Awards on Facebook for all the latest!

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

It's the first official Friday of the fall season, so grab a pumpkin latte and pull up a chair. We've got some great links to share!

Michael is getting ready to host Star Wars Reads Day in The Scholastic Store next weekend, so it's no surprise he sent me this link: Scientists have created light-matter similar to Darth Vader's light saber. (Currently brainstorming on how to turn that into a self-lighting bookmark for those of us who like to read in bed...)

If you're planning on doing some book buying this weekend, Brittany would like to remind you: Indie bookstores aren't dead yet! New data is showing that paper booksellers are acting as community hubs (and, happily, a place where authors can meet fans).

Meanwhile, you might have seen this one around: Jimmy Fallon and The Roots join the Sesame Street gang for a little music! It's sure to put a smile on your face. (Thanks, Alex!)

What links are you looking forward to catching up on this weekend? Feel free to share 'em below. Have a great one!

Did you know that today is National Love Note Day? To celebrate, we have a great guest post from Maggie McGuire at the Scholastic Parents Raise a Reader blog with some fun notes you can drop in your child's lunchbox that will make them smile AND exercise their reading skills!

I’m always looking for new ways to put a little fun and learning into everyday moments – and I love putting small surprises in my kids’ lunch boxes. It’s my little way of connecting with them during the day. So recently, I decided to marry these two desires and came up with a few ideas for making lunch time – well, literary too! Try out these ideas – and explore your own and see what your kids say. My kids were surprised and had a good time sharing them with their friends at the lunch table.

Pack a Few Jokes: Grab a few joke books and write down individual jokes on post-its, construction paper, or  whatever you have around the house.  I write the first part of the joke on the front of a small piece of paper and put the “big finish” on the back.

Riddles: My boys love riddles. There are all kinds – so experiment. I found a few cool “visual” riddles and drew the visual image out on paper and asked: What is this? On the back, I revealed the answers. My kids and their friends loved these. I’ve also thrown in word and math riddles to keep it interesting.

Personal Note: Personal notes are a reminder to my kids that I’m thinking of them. Sometimes it’s as simple as, “Have a GREAT day! Love, Mom” or “Hope your publishing party is really fun today. Can’t wait to hear how it goes!” Or  “Happy Friday! See you tonight for family movie night!”  Try making your note specific to the day or an event that’s happening so they connect that you’re aware of it and know it’s important to them.

For the rest of the tips, head over to Raise a Reader!

On Saturday, hundreds of museums around the country will open their doors for free as part of the Smithsonian's Museum Day!

Earlier this year, we did a virtual field trip with David Baldacci at the Smithsonian's National Museum of American History to celebrate the release of The 39 Clues: Cahills vs. Vespers: Day of Doom so we know first-hand how amazing a day at the museum can be!

The book requires Dan and Amy to visit the National Museum of American History to check out a compass used by Lewis and Clark. It was only with the help of a museum expert that they were able to get vital information in their race against the Vespers.

That's not the only book to come out recently set in a museum, though!:

• Wonderstruck is partially set in the American Museum of Natural HIstory in New York.
• Capture the Flag also centers around the theft of a priceless American artifact from the Smithsonian.
• There's also Bailey at the Museum for younger kids!

For a full list of the museums participating, check out the Museum Day webpage.

In the meantime, what are your favorite books set in a museum?

Growing up, I was definitely a diary kind of girl. From the hardcover journals with the little gold  locks to the electronic Dear Diary toy of the mid-90s (#throwbackthursday, anyone?), I absolutely loved having a secret place to store my thoughts. Some call blogging the modern-day equivalent of diary-keeping, but something tells me the Internet will never be able to replicate the sense of ownership and privacy that comes will keeping a private journal. 

September 22 marked Dear Diary Day, so we decided to take to OOM to share our favorite diary-like books. Whether it's a classic like The Diary of Anne Frank or a modern-day favorite like Diary of a Wimpy Kid, there are a ton of awesome options. Below, a round-up of some of our top picks:

• Alex, ever interested in education and teaching, recommendsThe Freedom Writers Diary. "You may remember it from the movie Freedom Writers (starring Hilary Swank)," she says. "Erin Gruwell, an incredible teacher, inspired a class of 'unteachable, at-risk' students raised in a world of poverty and street violence to write about their lives and publish their stories."
• "I'd go with the Anastasia Krupnik series," says Megan. "The books aren't technically written like diary entries, but they're in little episodic narratives and each ends with a list by Anastasia. The lists are so cute and are comprised of what she likes and dislikes. How those lists evolve kind of represent the growth of her character throughout each book."
• "The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian by Sherman Alexie is a modern classic," Tyler explains. "It's an inspiring story about a boy growing up on an Indian reservation who attended an off-reservation school. It’s about bullying, and a teenager seeking to find an identity all his own, and about a Native American teenager trying to forge his own identity too."
• Brittany loves Gone Girl by Gillian Flynn. "This book was so creepy and thrilling. I loved it. The dual diary format kept the reader guessing, making the plot more mysterious than if it was written without the diary format," she says.
• "P.S. Longer Letter Later, written by Paula Danziger and Ann M. Martin, is my absolute favorite!!!!!!" Emma writes. (Gotta love her use of exclamation points!)
• "Do the Club diaries in The Baby-sitters Club series count?" asks Morgan, our resident BSC guru. Yup, they sure do. Her second favorite? "Dear Dumb Diary. It's hilarious."
• And my personal favorite? The Dear America series. I love historical fiction and found that reading diary entries was a great way for me to contextualize and better understand what was happening in any given era.

What are your favorite diary-esque books? Share 'em on Twitter using #deardiary!

I haven't quite gone sweater shopping yet but Sunday was the first day of Fall!

Fall has so many great holidays...Halloween, Thanksgiving, National Punctuation Day! Let's not forget, though, why 'Fall' is FALL...Leaves!

We raked up a few and made a new Pinterest Board. Some of my favorites are:

• There Was an Old Lady Who Swallowed Some Leaves!
• Rainbow Magic Special Edition: Autumn the Falling Leaves Fairy
• We're Going on a Leaf Hunt

You can check out all of our Fall Favorites here. Do you have a favorite Fall book?

What if I told you in order to get a full clean bill-of-health from your pediatrician, you should read aloud to your child daily?

Reach Out and Read, a non-profit organization that helps implement early-childhood literacy awareness during a child’s regular office visits, has shown through research that this prescription will not only help your child be “school ready,” but also help shape his or her future success throughout life. We couldn't agree more, so we're donating 1 million books to help this cause. Our donation comes just after Reach Out and Read was recognized by the Library of Congress as the recipient of the David M. Rubenstein Prize!

Reach Out and Read is also one of Scholastic's Lit Champs and, as part of our Read Every Day. Lead a Better Life. campaign, we've been working with them to spread the word about the importance of books and reading.

The one million books will go to pediatric professionals and hospitals that provide these free books to low-income families that need to build home libraries for their children.  To learn more on how you can help every child gain the right to #ReadEveryDay, check out scholastic.com/readeveryday. 

Last week, Pam Allyn joined us for a "Back to School Night"-themed chat on the Scholastic Facebook page. Pam is a literacy expert, the founder of LitWorld, and a global ambassador for our Read Every Day. Lead a Better Life. campaign, and we absolutley love when she comes to visit.

Her energy and enthusiasm for reading is unmatched, and as I watched our Facebook page erupt with comments and questions coming in from attentive parents and teachers, I could almost see her reaching both arms through her computer screen, giving virtual hugs and high-fives out to everyone. 

If you missed the chat, check out these quotes we pulled from the evening. Pam emphasized that as parents and teachers, the most important things we can do for kids is to encourage them to reading voluminously, to read outside their comfort zones in order to build their "reading muscles," and to create comfortable reading environments (or shelters) for them at home and in school. 

My favorite peice of advice Pam gave was in response to a woman who posted a comment during the chat. She said that she loved to read whatever her child was reading as a way to get to know her better. Pam replied, "how wise to read along as a companion reader to your daughter. I also think we can have deeper empathy for our kids if we are IN the books with them...it's really hard to understand when they struggle and when they feel the joy if we don't jump in. So I love that you are doing this! As teachers, we can't know every book our students are reading, but we can take a look at the reviews and blogs, and websites so we can ask the kinds of questions that get our kids' thinking going in their independent reading lives."

Love!

Thanks for joining us, Pam. And thanks to all of the parents and teachers who participated!