Welcome PBB friends! I’m so thrilled to have Michelle Schaub here today! She has been someone I’ve looked up to for SO long as a fellow poet and rhyming picture book author. I *think we originally met in the Poet’s Garage, a critique forum we both belong to, but I’ve …
DANCING HANDS, The Story of Friendship in Filipino Sign Language written by Joanna Que and Charina Marquez, illustrated by Fran Alvarez, is the story of how two children become friends through Filipino sign language and simply the act of sharing, bonding, and learning how to communicate with each other. This …
Hello, picture book people! My next book debuts in one short week: This is the second in a series with Putnam about oddball animals with what might be called superpowers. Here’s the publisher’s description: Just wait till you hear what a parrotfish can do! You may know they live in …
The first picture book I pick up is rarely nonfiction, whether science, history, biography, nature, whatever. But when I DO pick up a nonfiction picture book, I am usually fascinated. Which kind of makes sense. In high school I avoided classes like history and science because I thought they were …
I’m extremely excited to welcome Karyn Friedman-Everham to Picture Book Builders to chat with me about her absolutely adorable and so-fun-to-read-aloud debut picture book, Otter Oughta Know, illustrated by Michael Robertson and published by Orchard Books/Scholastic. Welcome Karyn! KFE: Rebecca, it’s wonderful to be here to talk with you about Otter …
NOURA’S CRESCENT MOON by Zainab Khan and Nabila Adani is the warm and gentle story of a little girl who marks the end of Ramadan by searching for the new moon signifying Eid ul-Fitr festivities will begin. This moon sighting will be especially meaningful to Noura as this year is …
Hello, Picture Book Builders people. We are ALL such lucky ducks that Greg Pizzoli wrote and illustrated another delightful picture book. This latest book is Lucky Duck. I have been a fan of Greg’s for a long time. I did the math. That long time equals eleven years. How did …
Picture books are mostly meant for small people. So, perhaps, it’s not surprising that there are lots of picture books about small people and small things. I even have one of my own — NOT SO SMALL with Paola Escobar (HarperCollins, 2022). But, today, I want to share two new …
Stories Close to Home “Write what you know,” the advice goes. Instead, for years I wrote what I didn’t know. I’ve found most of my nonfiction topics by traveling (physically or through primary research) far away from my home. Searching for unusual stories (or unique takes on known stories,) I wound …
As soon as I heard the premise of Tricky Chopsticks by Sylvia Chen and Fanny Liem, I immediately added it to my school library wishlist. Following the story of Jenny Chow, who must come up with a solution for her chopstick troubles in order to succeed at the family Chopsticks …