Encourage a love of reading

10 to try
The staff at Woozles in Halifax, the oldest children's bookstore in Canada, lists their Top 10 books for kids.

FOR BOYS
1. Holes (Yearling, 2000, $9.99) by Louis Sachar
2. The Thief Lord (Scholastic Canada, 2003, $10.99) by Cornelia Funke
3. Artemis Fowl (Hyperion, 2004, $18.95) by Eoin Colfer
4. Midnight for Charlie Bone (Eggmont, 2002, $12.95) by Jenny Nimmo
5. The Amulet of Samarkand: Bartimaeus Trilogy Book One (Hyperion, 2004, $26.95) by Jonathan Stroud

FOR GIRLS
1. Ella Enchanted (HarperCollins Canada, 1998, $9.99) by Gail Carson Levine
2. Journey to the River Sea (Macmillan Childrens, 2002, $9.99) by Eva Ibbotson
3. Because of Winn-Dixie (Candlewick, 2002, $27.99) by Kate DiCamillo
4. Secret Letters from 0–10 (Penguin USA, 2000, $6.99) by Susie Morgenstern
5. The Sky Is Falling (Penguin, 1991, $8.99) by Kit Pearson

The Net generation
There's plenty of cool stuff online to inspire surf-happy kids to pick up a book. Check out these sites together.

• Book Buzz is one of several online kids' book clubs from local libraries across Canada. At www.lib.pg.bc.ca/kidstuff/bookbuzz, kids can share their thoughts by writing, or reading, reviews.

• www.tesan.vuurwerk.nl/diaries: The Animal Diaries website includes a section where kids from all over the world write stories about animals together online, one paragraph at a time.

• www.bookcentre.ca: The Canadian Children's Book Centre promotes the reading, writing and illustrating of Can lit for kids. The site also has reviews and lists of kids' book stores by region.