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. …
As I’ve no doubt mentioned before, I love historical fiction based on a family story. And Michelle Barker’s A Year of Borrowed Men (Pajama Press), with luminous art by Renné Benoit, had me from the first page. Why? The voice. Told as though we’re hearing it straight from Gerda, Michelle’s …
Liz Wong’s debut picture book, QUACKERS, is 100% charm. It is sweet and funny and very satisfying. I’ve written before about how much I like stories of friendship and this one ranks right up there. It is the tale of Quackers, a cat that lives at a duck pond with a …
The summer before my freshman year of high school, I decided I wanted to be a sportswriter. I devoured the sports section of my local newspaper, The Oshkosh Northwestern, and the sports section of The Milwaukee Sentinel. I also read Sports Illustrated magazine and books by Frank Deford, the sportswriting king …
Maybe it’s because my own kids had glow-in-the-dark space stickers (that, honestly, I think impressed me more than them). Maybe it’s because I like penguins. (Who doesn’t?) Wait. I think the real reason I’m loving Ella and Penguin Stick Together, by debut author Megan Maynor (with darling illustrations by Rosaline …