One thing aspiring picture book writers often are advised to do is take a favorite, modern-day picture book and type out the text. Why? Because doing so shows writers how spare and essential words in a picture book really are. Once they see how the text looks on a page, …
Julia Sarcone-Roach’s new book, The Bear Ate Your Sandwich, is a delight. Why? First of all, the narrator is relating a little-bit-wacky story that readers/listeners will almost-but-not-quite doubt. It’s just crazy enough that it COULD be true, after all. A bear COULD have accidentally made his way to town and, …
Today I‘m looking at two books concerning teachers and the sometimes (often?) superficial disconnect between teachers and students. But they are a lot more fun than that opening sentence. As a kid, seeing a teacher outside of school is always weird. I remember as a fifth-grader, at an outdoor mall with my …
We see a lot of picture books, don’t we? Sometimes it’s a little mind-boggling. So many books! What should I read next? And then a book leaps off the shelf, grabs you by the collar, and says, “Read ME!” Which is exactly how I discovered Zachariah OHora a few years ago …
“Always make the audience suffer as much as possible.” –Alfred Hitchcock Can you remember a book from your childhood in which the main character suffered so much that it, in turn, made you wriggle in your seat with agony? For me, this book was HENRY’S AWFUL MISTAKE, by Robert Quackenbush. …
For this Picture Book Builders post, I thought it would be fun to take a look at how picture books are actually “built,” or printed and bound. I’ve wondered about this process for years (and have been asked about it many times during school visits) so I was excited when I …
Hey, buckaroos! June 16 is the release date for Ginny Louise and the School Showdown (Disney*Hyperion). *throws marshmallows* (<–Psst. You’ll have to read the book to find out why.) I am honored and thrilled to have a book with THE Lynn Munsinger. The Skinny… The Truman Elementary Troublemakers are a bad …
You Nest Here with Me is a beautiful, lyrical picture book by the mother daughter team of Jane Yolen and Heidi E.Y. Stemple. Illustrated (perfectly) by Melissa Sweet. It’s a book about birds. What? You say that’s not enough? Okay then— It rhymes. It rhymes brilliantly. The back flap copy …
A few posts ago, Kevan Atteberry mentioned that cats didn’t — how did he put it? — gun his scooter. But, yet, he found himself really liking Ballet Cat: The Totally Secret Secret. Cats do gun my scooter. A lot. Check out Exhibit A (Ollie) and Exhibit B (Sunny) to the …
As a reader, the story-within-a-story format has always appealed to me. As a writer, I know this format is difficult to pull off. Because I’m working on one of my own, I pulled three from my bookshelves to take a closer look. How did their authors handle voice, pacing, tension …