Last year the idea was simple if a bit odd. I called upon my artist readers out there to consider in all that ample free time they have (why, oh why, is there no sarcasm font?) taking a classic Dr. Seuss book and drawing some aspect of it in the style of another children’s illustrator. [...]
Think of it like Voltron. Or, better yet, don’t. If you are a clever daily blog reader and you have already seen the posts at Seven Impossible Things Before Breakfast, Nine Kinds of Pie, and 100 Scope Notes then what I’m about to tell you will come as no surprise. To wit: The Niblings is [...]
It was the shock of my lifetime to discover that kids really do dig nursery rhymes. To be a bit more specific about it, my kid in particular. Here she was, not even a year and a half old, and suddenly she could not get enough of those collections by Tomie dePaola and Arnold Lobel. [...]
Let’s set the scene for a moment. It’s the early 1980s. 3-2-1 Contact is giving young children an unceasing stream of Bloodhound Gang episodes. Men have not yet shaved the mustaches they acquired in the 1970s. Bicycles remain almost universally helmet-free. And in Kalamazoo, Michigan a little girl is given a very special present. Okay. [...]
I miss Peter Sieruta. Many of us get excited when the Newbery and Caldecott Awards are announced alongside the other ALA Youth Media Awards at the beginning of the year. But I say with certainty that there was no blogger out there half as excited as Peter Sieruta. At Collecting Children’s Books he poured his [...]
The jolly gift of the season, for me, is to have friends with oodles, sheer oodles, of talent just ah-flowing out of their gills (so to speak). Last year I posted about how some buddies and I got together to make Shrinky-Dink Christmas ornaments (which, in turn, led to Shrinky-Dink Caldecott jewelry later in the [...]
With the odd exception, it’s safe to say that when it comes to celebrity picture books most of us out here in libraryland are less than impressed. The announcement that the latest reality star or pop singer has a picture book coming out allows us to check out the illustrator’s talent far more often than [...]
Bork bork bork! Happy Thanksgiving, you kooky turkey lovers.
Rabbit & Robot: The Sleepover By Cece Bell Candlewick Press $14.99 ISBN: 978-0-7636-5475-7 Ages 5-8 On shelves now It would be simpler if kids read at exact levels at all times. Wouldn’t it be grand if you had a kid go strategically from easy books to early chapter books to older chapter books without so [...]
I had just the loveliest dinner the other night with some high-falutin’ folks in the children’s literary biz. Fine conversation and finer memories were tossed all about. Yet I credit the devil on my right shoulder for suggesting to me the relative wisdom of my bringing up a long-standing belief that had been percolating in [...]
Howdy, folks. As you may have heard a hurricane recently decided to take an extreme weather-sized bite out of the Big Apple. Because I live in a blessed bit of high ground in Harlem, my family and I are safe and sound with ample food, electricity, and internet. Many are not as lucky. I’ll resume [...]
For the final prediction edition of the 2013 Newbery/Caldecott Awards be sure to see my latest post here. A little late but still got it out before the end of October and the imminent arrival of Frankenstorm. I spent a goodly part of yesterday preparing for the hurricane by baking pumpkin chocolate chip cookies. Now [...]
I am serious as death when I state that if you see no other Children’s Literary Salon at NYPL, see this one: The Children’s Literary Salon is pleased to announce our next event this Saturday, October 27th at 2:00 p.m. Children’s Literary Salon Crockett Johnson and Ruth Krauss: How an Unlikely Couple Found Love, Dodged [...]
Because it’s never too early to start with the drooling. Knowing as I do that I should probably be working on my third Newbery/Caldecott prediction list, I’m temporary eschewing that bit of fun to mention some of the titles that I am both seeing and hoping to see in the coming 2013 season. There’s a [...]
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