Pre-Teen/Young Adult Friendly Fantasy Books and Series

A very good friend of mine asked for some fantasy suggestions for her 12 year old. I'm a believer of encouraging reading at a young age and was ecstatic to be asked.

This is a list (off the top of my head) of age friendly fantasy novels and series that I have read as a child or an adult. If you're a fantasy genre lover or have an older child that's looking for more than "Harry Potter" this list is for you. Feel free to add your age friendly favorites!

The Young Wizards Series by Diane Duane (http://www.youngwizards.com)

• ‘So You Want to Be a Wizard’
• ‘Deep Wizardry’
• ‘High Wizardry’
• ‘A Wizard Abroad’
• ‘The Wizard’s Dilemma’
• ‘A Wizard Alone’
• ‘Wizard’s Holiday’
• ‘Wizards at War’
• ‘A Wizard of Mars’

The Inheritance Cycle by Christopher Paolini (http://www.alagaesia.com)

• ‘Eragon’
• ‘Eldest’
• ‘Brisingr’
• ‘Inheritance’

The Enchanted Forest Chronicles by Patricia Wrede (pcwrede.com/EnchantedForest.html)

• ‘Dealing with Dragons’
• ‘Searching for Dragons’
• ‘Calling on Dragons’
• ‘Talking to Dragons’

The Dragonriders of Pern by Anne McCaffrey (preferred reading order of author)

• 'Dragonflight'
• 'Dragonquest'
• 'Dragonsong' (Harper Hall Trilogy)
• 'Dragonsinger' (Harper Hall Trilogy)
• 'Dragondrums' (Harper Hall Trilogy)
• 'The White Dragon'

The Oz Series by L Frank Baum

• ‘The Wonderful Wizard of Oz’
• ‘The Marvelous Land of Oz’
• ‘Ozma of Oz’
• ‘Dorothy and the Wizard in Oz’
• ‘The Road to Oz’
• ‘The Emerald City of Oz’
• ‘The Patchwork Girl of Oz’

Howl’s Castle Series by Diana Wynne Jones (http://www.barnesandnoble.com/c/diana-wynne-jones)

• ‘Howl’s Moving Castle’
• ‘Castle in the Air’
• ‘House of Many Ways’

I will certainly add more to this list as I fall upon other things I read or remember I've read. HAPPY READING!

Fafnir

I bought a dragon pattern back in 2003, cut out the pattern, and forgot about it. I pulled out the sewing machine for a menial task and found what I had cut out and started sewing. This is what I eventually gave birth to after three weeks of hard labor.

You can view the process of putting him together HERE.

I will be making an ACTUAL dragon next. Fafnir is technically not a dragon, but a wyvern. There are also some other pattern changes that I want to make. YAY for being productive!

JerryKelly.com v4.0 is Live

Apparently, my third version and Jerry Kelly Heating and Air Conditioning's fourth version of the Jerry Kelly Website went up on August 1, 2011. I have not been with the company since mid-March, but it is my design and coding. Being less than efficient at PHP, this site was taking me a while. I was learning as I developed the site and its complex (at the time) contact forms. I started it in August 2010 and was working on it up until the time I left. All that was left to do was to insert content into the remaining pages (about a fourth of the site) and insert some nice images into pages that needed a visual.

*face palm*

I should have never went out and taken a look. Fourteen unfinished pages. Yes, that is fewer than what I left the company to complete, but that is fourteen too many. Jerry Kelly HVAC, you are letting your customers down by not having that content there when they go out looking for it.

The Horrors of Paperwork

I just finished typing up my first proposal for a potential client and realized how much more paperwork I'm going to have to write up.

• Client Questionnaire
• Proposal
• Contract
• Copyright Release
• Am I forgetting anything?!

I'm a Web Designer, JIM! Not a lawyer!  How in the world is a designer suppose to know all this stuff? How do I know whether or not I have all my bases covered? I'm starting to think that choosing to do freelance work is a BIG HUGE HONKING mistake.

Three Months Later

Okay, I know blogging is important for proper SEO purposes. Unfortunately, I haven't had much in the way of design or development news, advice, or general gripe. I did start and finish C. Schultz Media after I finished my site, but I haven't started another project since.

I have been working on a lot of my wire and bead jewelry/sculpture and I really need to start thinking about an internet marketing strategy for that. Which means another site build for myself. Oi!

Anyway, some of my trees:


And, Some of my flowers:


Enjoy! If you see something you like, please consider purchasing!