I found two picture books that I really like. And the funny thing is, they are both wordless and both use a limited color palette. First up is SPOT, THE CAT, by Henry Cole. This book has utterly delightful, very detailed, black and white line illustrations with all the charm and …
Hello again, it’s Barb Rosenstock. PBB asked me to return to fill-in for Pat Zietlow Miller for a few months. I decided to develop a series of posts on picture book editors by interviewing the style-makers and award-winners—the folks who run their own imprints. I hope you learn as much …
Ahhh, October. My favorite month, wrapped in the cozy blankie of my favorite season. Crisp air, blue skies, fire-shaded leaves, harvest, apple pies. Lots to love. One new thing I love is – surprise – a picture book, one I discovered in a Wisconsin bookstore while between presentations this past …
I am a huge Oliver Jeffers fan, so when a trusted employee at my indie book store brought me a new book by him and told me that everybody at the store loved it, I said, “I’m not even going to read it first, I’m buying it!” And I did. …
Been to the movies lately? Then maybe, like me, you’ve seen the trailer for Loving, a soon-to-be-released film about Mildred and Richard Loving, the Virginia couple jailed for their interracial marriage in 1958. The preview shows several disturbing scenes and menacing encounters, including a chilling middle-of-the-night arrest. Watching the trailer prompted …
When I was little, my grandparents had a version of RUMPELSTILTSKIN that I adored. The story was strange, scary, and had these awesome ink drawings. At the time, I didn’t understand the concept that books were made by individual artists, so I never paid attention to who might have made them. They …
Last spring I got a sneak peek of a book that bowled me over, Candy Fleming and Eric Rohmann’s Giant Squid. It’s unlike anything I’ve seen before. Take a look at this opening page. That glimpse of tentacles waving in a vast full spread of undersea darkness? Gives me the shivers. The …
In 2015, illustrator Goro Fujita and I were responsible for an alien invasion. Your Alien begins when a little alien crash-lands on a boy’s front yard. The two have a great day together, but, when nighttime arrives, the boy notices something is wrong with his alien. At last, the boy …
I picked up “The Blue Whale” by Jenni Desmond because I was curious to read the story behind this beautiful and intriguing cover. And the book does begin as a story with “Once upon a time, a child took a book from a shelf and started to read.” This …
Big news! My new picture book, THE MUSIC IN GEORGE’S HEAD: GEORGE GERSHWIN CREATES RHAPSODY IN BLUE, releases from Calkins Creek today. George Gershwin’s birthday is also this month (Sept. 26), so I’m glad you stopped by to celebrate this incredible composer/pianist. You can also find out where the idea for this story came from, …