Soul Surfer DVD Giveaway!

Have you entered the STACKS Blast Sweepstakes? Every month is a chance to win a different prize. For July, we are offering you a chance to win a free Soul Surfer DVD (rated PG)! But, here's the thing. You can ONLY enter if you subscribe to the STACKS Blast Newsletter.

The STACKS Blast is our free monthly e-mail newsletter. You give us your e-mail address and an e-mail address for one of your parents, and once a month (usually around the 15th), we give you a newsletter full of games, videos, celeb news, books, message board happenings, and a sweepstakes you can enter. First, you sign up for the newsletter. Then you wait until July 15 when Hooray! the STACKS Blast will arrive in your e-mail inbox. Inside, you'll see a special section for the STACKS Giveaway. That's where you enter to win the Soul Surfer DVD.

While you're waiting for your newsletter to arrive, you can check out this trailer for the Soul Surfer movie.

Sign up for the STACKS Blast Newsletter now so you can enter the sweepstakes when it comes. Good luck!

— Sonja, STACKS Staffer

Kid Review: Stargirl

Kid Reporter's summer reads include Jerry Spinelli's classic, Stargirl.

"She was elusive. She was today. She was the faintest scent of a cactus flower, the fitting shadow of an elf owl. We did not know what to make of her. In our minds we tried to pin her to a corkboard like a butterfly, but the pin merely went through and away she flew."

She was Stargirl.

For a day, I was tangled in the pages of Stargirl, a book written by Jerry Spinelli. I sat on my bed and couldn't stop reading. Spinelli doesn't drag you from chapter to chapter — he has you running to catch up.

Stargirl is a book about a girl who's different from anyone else. In the book, Stargirl has been home-schooled all her life. At her new school, everyone is the same and only cares about their own business.

The other kids are shocked when Stargirl sings "Happy Birthday" in the cafeteria with her ukulele to people she doesn't know, leaves packages and gifts on doorsteps with no card, and cheers for both teams at sporting events. They don't know what to make of someone so different, and as the story unfolds Stargirl has to make a decision about just how important being "accepted" really is.

She was different all right, and I would recommend Stargirl to anyone because the book is different, too. It didn't have any adventure or big action scenes, but I still couldn't put the book down. The writing is radiant, and the characters seem so real.

Everyone is different, and everyone has a Stargirl inside of them. Reading this book, the Stargirl that's in you will come out.

Get the latest on national and international events, movies, television, music, sports, and more from the Scholastic News Kids Press Corps.

 — Chloe Jones, Scholastic News Kids Press Reporter

Rango Answers

A few weeks ago, we invited Rango, the bug-eyed green lizard to the STACKS to answer YOUR questions about his life as sheriff of Dirt. Well, here he is with his answers!

Read on. . .

Trivia Tuesday: Book Titles in Other Words

Titles in Other Words!

Usually authors don't get their titles just right on their first try. Instead, it takes a lot of thought and editing to get a title just right. But what if a writer decided to go with a slightly different title for your favorite book? Here's a game called Book Titles in Other Words, where we give you the titles of some famous books with slightly different phrasing and you have to figure out what the actual title is.

Here's an example, the clue is: Miniature Females

Give up? The answer is Little Women by Louisa May Alcott! Now here are 10 more titles for you to decipher.

1. Journal of a Cowardly Child: The Grotesque Facts
2. The Exploits of Major Long-Johns
3. The Toddler Recliners Society
4. Utter Dairy Products and Perish (Hint: A book in the Goosebumps series)
5. The Starving Contests
6. The Electricity Burglar
7. Crevices
8. To the United States
9. The Sultan's Cipher (Hint: A book in the 39 Clues Series)
10. Harold Planter and the Two Quarters Hemoglobin Royalty

Now get those thinking caps out and post your answers in the Comments below! Check back next week for the answers.

— Brian, STACKS Summer Intern (a.k.a. BlackBird268)

Writing Prompt: Favorite Book Characters

EPIC Character Questions!

Skyelark Moon on the Harry Potter Message Board has some great questions for today's Writing Prompt. The questions are meant for Harry Potter characters, but I think they work with any book characters. So think about YOUR favorite characters and come up with your answers to these epic questions. . .

• Who is your favorite character?
• Which character would you want to go on a date with?
• If you were away, what character would take care of your pet for you?
• What character would you like to live with?
• What character would be your best friend?
• If you could take a character camping, what one would it be?
• If you had the choice to go anywhere with a character, what place would you go, and who would you go with?
• If you could be a character, which one would you be?
• What character would you want in your dorm at Hogwarts?

For example, if I were away, I would want Theodosia Throckmorton from Theodosia and the Serpents of Chaos to take care of my cats, because they sometimes act really crazy and Theo will be able to tell if it's because they are cursed.

And if I could take a character camping, I would take Kate Weatherall from The Mysterious Benedict Society. I would want to see her build a tent out of all the crazy stuff she carries in her bucket!

Answer one question or answer them all! Leave your answers in the Comments.

— Sonja, STACKS Staffer