If you traverse the interwebs on a regular basis then you may have spotted the catchy “Show Me the Awesome” posts that have been springing up hither and thither.  Thither and yon.  The initiative was started by Kelly Jensen, Sophie Brookover, and Liz Burns. Designer John LeMasney was, in turn, responsible for the kicky graphic [...]

Hidy-ho, faithful readers. A blogger might field any number of requests to host contests for new books on their blogs.  And generally speaking, you could be forgiven for almost always politely declining. “No”, you might say, “I just don’t run that sort of blog”.  It is the rare book that snaps me out of such [...]

So I’m in the office talking with my colleagues about A Girl Called Problem by Katie Quirk and how awesome it is. Then the topic shifts to books with African-American protagonists published in 2013 for kids between the ages of 9-12.  You know.  Middle grade fiction.  And in the midst of my lamenting how few [...]

A treat for you today. Yesterday I had the very great pleasure of sitting down with author Dr. Chitra Divakaruni, illustrator Susy Pilgrim Waters, and their editor Neal Porter.  You may be aware of the remarkable collaboration these clever folks have concocted.  The book is called Grandma’s Great Gourd and it’s a Bengali folktale of [...]

The road to publication is not a straight line.  It’s not even a single line.  Sometimes it feels to me that there are as many ways to publish a book as there are books to publish.  I started out as a children’s librarian. From there I started to blog.  Then from blogging came some books.  [...]

I was listening to one of my favorite podcasts, Pop Culture Happy Hour where employees of NPR dissect some aspect of pop culture in a smart and funny way each week.  The show works for me because as I age I become worse and worse at knowing what is out there and this show allows [...]

Folks, I’ll be stepping away from the desk/office/city/state for the next few days as I do a tiny little self-propelled book tour.  In fact, if you happen to live in Chicago or Grand Rapids, MI or Kalamazoo then you are in luck.  I’m nigh!  Here are the appearances for the next few days: April 25th [...]

Hi-ho, readers one and all! I am back in the States, apparently in one piece, and raring to go.  In the coming weeks I’ll be gearing up for a bunch of Giant Dance Party appearances, and I will subject you to the announcements quite soon, I’m afraid. A quick note or two about my recent [...]

Apparently I’m under the impression that it would be a good idea to write a potentially hot and toasty topic while I walk beneath the Spanish sun with limited access to the internet.  But this is something that’s been on my mind a lot recently, and it all came a head the other day as [...]

Contrary to appearances I am not accustomed to international travel.  I have no frequent flyer miles set up.  I wouldn’t know what to do with myself if someone asked me to convert a Euro.  Yet in spite of all this, I seem to be on a plane today bound for bright and sunny Spain.  Some [...]

Excluding the very rare exceptions here and there, it’s fairly safe to say that when picture books are adapted into big screen movie sensations they are inevitably packed to the gills full of unnecessary awfulness.  Consider the fate of The Cat in the Hat if you doubt me at all.  Now there are exceptions to [...]