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 …
Here on Picture Book Builders we love to chat about how beautiful books are created. It’s my opinion that one of the under recognized contributors of the ‘team’ is the art director. I have been fortunate enough to work with Senior Art Director/Creative Director, Christine Kettner on three books. She …
Versatility is one of the characteristics I admire in other writers. It’s awesome when someone can do totally different genres or styles or voices equally well. If you appreciate this too, you’ll want to meet Dashka Slater. I first was introduced to Dashka’s picture books like DANGEROUSLY EVER AFTER, ESCARGOT …
Johnny Mathis crooning The Christmas Song My mom’s Russian Tea Cake cookies The lumpy Santa’s face pillow that’s been propped atop my parents’ sofa every December as far back as I can remember. Those things are guaranteed to put me into a mellow Christmas mood. This year, I’m excited to add …
I visited Nerd Camp Michigan this summer — a gathering of teachers, librarians, writers and artists — where I had the great good fortune to see an advance copy of a book by Carter Higgins and Lucy Ruth Cummins called THIS IS NOT A VALENTINE. The book doesn’t release until …
Today’s post is a two-parter. Part 1: If you haven’t yet seen the loveliness that is Deborah Freedman’s newest book, This house, once (Atheneum), I hope you’ll find it. The pencil, pastel, watercolor illustrations are soft and dreamy and so cozy I wanted to live inside each spread. The publisher’s …
If you love picture books, you’ve probably read one or two from Amy Krouse Rosenthal. She’s written a ton — well — more than 20. And her books are universally lovely. Often funny. Always moving. Deceptively simple. Amy has been in the news twice recently. First, when an essay she wrote …
The second in a four-part series interviewing editors that run their own imprints. Anne Schwartz is an editor extraordinaire! In her distinguished 35-year career, she has worked for many top publishers. Anne was publisher of Apple Soup Books at Random House, spent a decade at Simon & Schuster, where she started …
A few years ago, I read that late author George Stanley sometimes made lists of random characters and situations, then cut them into strips, picked two, and played around with how he might match them up for a story. Why not? I thought. So I made a long list of …
Love is a wonderful thing. And if you’re lucky, it lasts for always. Of course, always is a relative term. When Isaac and Monica — characters in John Green’s THE FAULT IN OUR STARS — text each other “Always,” they have no idea how short that time period will be. …