People, listen up. Are you ready for a little joyride? Good! I have the book for you: Let me toot Kate Dopirak and Mary Peterson’s horn and let you know what Kirkus, Publishers Weekly, and Booklist had to say about Twinkle, Twinkle, Little Car: “Bedroom garages outfitted with this little …
If you’ve been watching Olympic figure skating, you know that skaters get judged on technical merit and artistic interpretation. And, as they’re skating, colored squares appear in the corner of the screen to show how well they executed the program’s required elements. A green box means the side-by-side triple axels …
If you’re longtime followers here, you may recognize this little story, because I’ve probably talked about it before. But I can remember the lightbulb moment (more like lightning!), as a little kindergartener, sitting in my small green chair, when I suddenly comprehended that letters could be put together to form …
I’ve been thinking a lot lately about what makes certain picture books a pleasure to read aloud. Not to that one book-loving child (who will probably listen to anything), but to a much tougher audience—like, say, the preschoolers who show up at a library or bookstore reading, who may range …
Beautifully satisfying. That would be my best two word description for Yellow Kayak, by Nina Laden and illustrated by Melissa Castrillon. This book came across my instagram feed a while ago and it quickly became the subject for my next book hunt. I’m very happy to say that this book …
Today I’m thrilled to share A LADY HAS THE FLOOR, a gorgeous picture book biography by Kate Hannigan (illustrated by Alison Jay), which highlights the fascinating life and accomplishments of Belva Lockwood. A true groundbreaker of her time, Belva was a lawyer, activist, and presidential candidate (the first ever on the ballot!) …
In November, I was on a humorous picture book panel at NCTE with Josh Funk, Marc Nobleman, Erica Perl, Liz Garton Scanlon, and Audrey Vernick. Our moderator, Susannah Richards, gave us a list of questions to think about as we prepared for our session. Since I loved Susannah’s thought-provoking questions …
Mike Boldt and I have a new book entering the world TODAY. The flap copy sums it up beautifully… GOOD NEWS! Your mom’s hatching a baby! BAD NEWS! Babies take their sweet time. And when they finally do hatch? They don’t even know how to be a dinosaur. That’s where …
Writers write for lots of reasons. We love words. We love telling stories. We love living in our heads. We love sharing our thoughts. We love seeing what we’ve written out in the world. But no matter what else drives us, I think all of us, on some level, hope …