Review: GoneReading.com

Something new an exciting today!  Brad Wirz over at GoneReading, "brilliant products for the reading lifestyle," very kindly offered us some of their products for review!  GoneReading has all sorts of book-themed things, from t-shirts to book shaped plates to trivia games.  I picked out three different products to try.

The first was this completely adorable reading log for kids called "Book Worm Journal."  This would be an awesome present for a middle school or younger kid.  There are pages where the owner can fill in their personal details, and then there are pages that ask what kinds of things they like to read about, and where they like to read.  There are sections to record new vocabulary they come across, tell what the book was about and rate it (there's a place for the kid to rate it and the parent to rate it, in case you're reading together).  The journal also encourages thinking beyond the story itself, asking kids to write what they think happens after the story is done. 

There's even space for kids to write a story of their own.  There are also little games like acrostics and mazes.  The journal is spiral bound, so it's easy to write in, and the printing is big and bold with wide spaced lines so younger kids will feel comfortable.  Over all super cute.  I'm just waiting for my friends' children to get a little bit older so I can give this to them.

Next up was this funny looking device called the Gimble Traveler.  It holds your book open when you're out on the beach or at the gym.  Or any other time you might need your book held open.  I think when it's holding a book it looks like an evil squid attacking your book.  But that's probably just me.  The Gimble can adjust to three different sizes and can hold a book up to 1 1/2 inches thick.  One of the loops that holds the pages down is larger than the other, so you want to put that one of the thicker side of the book.  I tried it at the gym while I was on the elliptical.  It was easy to use, and held the pages well.  I didn't have any problems pulling a page out from the right and slipping it under the left.

Last was a children's literature quiz card deck called Once Upon a Time.  On one side of the card is a question, such as "In 1949, an Irish-born scholar of literature and theology at Oxford began work on a series of adventure novels tracking the history of a magical fantasy world.  Name the author and his popular series, in which a lion plays a prominent part."  On the back is the answer plus additional information about the writer and his or her works.  Some of the questions I thought were pretty obscure, but I guess you have to have some hard ones in there!  I caught two mistakes, however.  The first was Madeline being describe as a Parisian orphan.  She's not an orphan.  She's just goes to boarding school.  We know she isn't an orphan because when she gets her appendix out she gets candy from Papa.  The second was a question about Where the Wild Things where the story was described as "dealt with a misbehaving boy's nighttime fears" which I think is totally off the mark.  Despite that, it would lots of fun to play with your fellow librarians or literary friends.  Especially if there were drinks.


Thank you so much to Brad for letting us try out some of their cool stuff.  And remember, it's never too early to start being a librarian.