By Lisa Cohn

Teachers and parents, join our Kidlit Chats, during which Michael, age 6, discusses his and your kids’ favorite books (sometimes along with his friends and cousins).

Our Kidlit Chats are all part of our mission to instill in kids a love of books—especially dog books! Michael, who was featured on the Today Show for his passion for books and his YouTube book reviews, enjoys talking to children of all ages about books.

Unless you’re in Portland, Ore., the best way to do a KidLit Chat with us is via Skype in the classroom. Teachers can sign up here:

https://education.skype.com/projects/9544-kidlit-chat-with-michael-age-6-mom-award-winning-authors

Generally, I ask a few questions to get the discussion going, and the kids jump right in!

Michael likes to point out character traits, identify patterns, discuss themes, and compare book series. And he loves to review books, explaining why he likes them and giving them ratings, sometimes in the billions of stars!

Here’s a video in which Michael discusses his favorite characters in the A to Z Mysteries. He compares their personalities:

Here’s a Skype in the classroom discussion about a “Henry and Mudge” book:

How did all this get started, you may ask? Sadly, it began with the sudden death of our beloved Golden Retriever, Lucy, at the age of 6 due to cancer. To help us overcome our grief, we wrote our first book, “Bash and Lucy Fetch Confidence www.BashAndLucy.com.

When it was time to create a blog, we called it “Michael’s Dog Blog,” www.BashAndLucy.com/blog, and decided to feature videos from Michael and friends, age 4 to 13. It was his choice to share his enthusiasm for dog books, and we posted our first dog book review when Michael was still 4 years old (almost 5) Here it is:

http://youtu.be/BgSQ8KcI4wc?list=UUaqm7IBSHh24KbrP0J7dTXQ

Michael, his friends and cousins have reviewed many books on our YouTube channel. Some of the reviews were in response to requests from independent authors.

We recently expanded our discussions to include mysteries, which are also Michael’s favorites.

We learned about the A to Z Mysteries by talking to kids globally via Skype, during our “Write, Publish, Publicize” Skype in the classroom lesson. That lesson teaches kids all about writing and publishing, and you can find it here:

https://education.skype.com/projects/7536-write-publish-and-publicize-an-award-winning-book

During these lessons—with kids of all ages from all over the world–we often found ourselves discussing favorite children’s books, so we decided to offer another lesson, this Kidlit Chat.

Teachers and parents, please join in the fun! If you don’t have computers or can’t do Skype lessons, email us at BashAndLucy@gmail.com and we’ll arrange a visit somehow! We visit schools here in Portland. You can also email us your thoughts, or write comments on our blog posts or YouTube page.

We look forward to discussing Kidlit with your children and students!