Recently I had a chance to see an upcoming jacket for a 2018 middle grade novel. Check it out: If the name “Varian Johnson” is ringing a bell, it may be because of this cover a couple years ago: His 2018 book, The Parker Inheritance, is billed as having distinct similarities to The Westing Game […]
Sometimes people turn to children’s literature in an attempt to ignore the goings on in the world today. But books for kids don’t exist in bubbles. A person could spend their entire life examining the many ways in which the world of adults seeps into books for kids. Why is this? Sometimes it’s unconscious. Sometimes […]
New episode, new episode, new episode, alert, alert! It’s been a little while but we’ve a new episode up and running. I’m so pleased to say that my podcast Fuse 8 n’ Kate which I do with my sister went in a distinctly Sendakian direction. We delve deep into the oddities of the book, some […]
On Monday I gave two talks at the 2017 NerdCamp conference held in Parma, MI. This would be the second time I spoke at the conference and my talks probably couldn’t have been more diametrically opposed. The first was one of those slam dunk panels you hope for. I had the chance of moderating a […]
Orphan Island Laurel Snyder Walden Pond Press (an imprint of Harper Collins) $16.99 ISBN: 978-0-06-244343-4 Ages 9-12 On shelves now *spoiler alert on the whole darn review, basically* I spend more time than I’d like thinking about what makes a person and how that person is an entirely new creation at different stages of life. […]
When I moved to Evanston, Illinois I had a whole new landscape of authors and illustrators to explore. It is often said that more authors and illustrators of children’s books live in NYC (specifically Brooklyn) than anywhere else in the country. I have little doubt that this is probably true, but take a gander at […]
I just love the Evanston Public Library crew. Our librarians are uniquely talented souls. For example, each year they produce a new stop animation summer reading video. This year they got a bit ambitious and upped their game to a stop animation Rube Goldberg summer reading video. In other news, I thought this next video […]
Accident! By Andrea Tsurumi Houghton Mifflin Harcourt $17.99 ISBN: 978-0-544-94480-0 Ages 4-7 On shelves October 3rd There is no accident so small that a forward thinking six-year-old can’t turn it into World War III. You see, there are certain things they won’t tell you when you prepare to become a parent. They’ll conveniently fail to […]
It’s not as though board books have ever really gotten their due. Doomed to withstand the incessant chompers of teeny tiny gums, half the time they are mistaken for chew toys and the other half as portable germ factories. Here’s a test. Walk into your local library. Look long and hard at the board book […]
In case you’re confused, there is actually no direct connection between today’s post and Independence Day. I just felt somewhat bad about appropriating the holiday without acknowledging its existence and so here we are. Happy 4th! And now, some random adult books with tangential connections to books for kids. The Velveteen Daughter by Laurel Davis […]
One of the many things I liked about working for New York Public Library was the institution’s longstanding dedication to diversity in children’s literature. NYPL from 1913 to about seven years ago produced a regularly updated booklist that was originally called The Negro Experience in Children’s Books and later The Black Experience in Children’s Books. […]
Silent Days, Silent Dreams By Allen Say Arthur A. Levine Books (an imprint of Scholastic) $21.99 ISBN: 978-0-545-92761-1 Ages 8-12 On shelves October 31st I love what makes biographers tick. I lack that ability and it’s so interesting me the way in which a person selects not just their subject but the aspects in their […]
You know, FUNNY GIRL wasn’t the only anthology out this year. I seem to recall quite a few of them gracing our bookstore and library shelves in 2017. One of them struck me as particularly keen too. Called Our Story Begins it contains actual books created by famous children’s book authors and illustrators when THEY […]
It began so simply. One year I discovered that it was possible to make your own temporary tattoos. For fun I made some Newbery winners and placed a band of them on one arm right before the Newbery Caldecott Wilder banquet. When the next year rolled around I did two arms, one for the Caldecotts […]
In honor of Pride Month, Kate and I decided to celebrate with a practical consideration of the most famous same-sex parent book of all time (sorry, Tango). But here’s the thing – I remembered disliking the original art intensely when I was younger. Does the book actually belong in the children’s literature canon? Is it […]
Recent Comments