Pop’s Blog - Michael Thal

Middle Grade Fantasy/Detective Story

ByMichael Thal September 1, 2018

Chef Nana, the head cook at the New Harmonia, an exclusive New York City hotel, is dead. Her son, Michael Lawson, is tapped to replace her, and Chef Lawson needs to move from Chicago to New York with his son Stephen. Stephen Lawson is a pre-teen boy raised by a single parent….

College | education | high school

Teaching teens study skills

ByMichael Thal August 30, 2018

With school back in session after summer break, many students are thinking about improving their grades with college as a goal. How can parents teach study skills to ensure their children’s success? We all learn through experience, and developing strong study skills is part of that process. Here are a few ideas that may work. First,…

A Rapunzel Story Better than the Grimm’s Fairy Tale

ByMichael Thal August 24, 2018August 24, 2018

Remember Rapunzel? She was a Grimm’s Brother’s princess locked in a tower and rescued by a prince willing to climb her long golden tresses to save her. Ever wonder what happened to the princess when released from her prison? Wonder no more. Leila Howland solved the dilemma in her creative fairy…

Amelia, the Merballs and the Emerald Cannon: Character Interview

ByMichael Thal August 19, 2018

About the Book Title: Amelia, the Merballs and the Emerald Cannon Author: Evonne Blanchard Genre: Children’s Books Amelia and Uglesnoo land on Mercury. They meet the Merballs, the friendly aliens that live there. All goes well, until an asteroid hits their planet. Amelia and Uglesnoo find themselves in deep trouble. How will they convince the Merballs of their innocence? And…

education | gifted child | high school | Parenting | School

Back to School Rituals

ByMichael Thal August 17, 2018

As the 2018-2019 school year begins, we want our children to perform at their peak performance. Parents can help by providing the environment children need to be top notch students. The best thing parents can do is to provide daily rituals designed for peak school performance. First, establish parameters. Kids work best with daily rituals…

A Peter Pan Re-Telling Better Than the Original

ByMichael Thal August 15, 2018

In 1783 Wendy Darling was a foundling placed at the door of a London almshouse. As a child, she read The Live and Strange Surprising Adventures of Robinson Crusoe,and ever after longed to sail the seven seas and experience all the magical wonders of the world. Mortimer Black, another orphan, knew the ways of the…

Magic 2.0: A YA Fantasy Series

ByMichael Thal August 9, 2018

A twenty-three-year-old computer hacker illegally enters the computer of a cell phone manufacturer and finds a curious file. It’s huge with five terabytes of plain ASC11 text characters with a boring name—repository1-c.txt. He gives it a look and finds something curious; many of the numbers change constantly. Then he searches the file for his name….

5 Things You Can Learn from Supergirl

ByMichael Thal August 1, 2018

Supergirl has won the Saturn Awards for Best Superhero Adaptation Television Series three years in a row. It originally premiered on CBS October 26, 2015 and moved to the WB a year later where season four will unfold Sunday nights at 8:00 pm. Supergirl has lasted this long because actress Melissa Benoist (you may remember her as…

History

America’s Worst Presidents

ByMichael Thal July 30, 2018

Andrew Soergel and Jay Tolson in a 2014 U.S. News and World Reportarticle analyzed 44 presidencies determining “The 10 Worst Presidents.” In their analysis, Soergel and Tolson determined John Tyler as the fifth worst president. Tyler served as our tenth president in 1841 when William Harrison died of pneumonia thirty days into his term of…

The Heart of Aleppo- a YA Coming of Age Novel

ByMichael Thal July 28, 2018

About the Book Title: The Heart of Aleppo Author: Ammar Habib Genre: Young Adult / Coming of Age / Contemporary Page Count: 235 After standing for over 7,000 years, Aleppo’s ruin came overnight. Separated from his family during the night the rebels attacked the city, thirteen-year-old Zaid Kadir is lost in the middle of a…