See the Author / See the Illustrator

See the Ghost: Three Stories about Things You Cannot See
Once in a while, a duo creates several books together and they get to know one another. We're curious about how that works. Meet David LaRochelle, author, and Mike Wohnoutka, illustrator, of six books together (so far).

Welcoming Spring with Froggy Books and Wild Experiences

Frogness
This much-anticipated froggy season and this week's World Frog Day mark a time of increased appreciation for our amphibian neighbors. It's the perfect time to study frogs

Love is Powerful

Love is Powerful
This book will lift you up in its arms and make you believe that “Love is Powerful”! It’s the right choice to help us under­stand what a group of peo­ple can accom­plish if they are unit­ed in their pur­pose and mov­ing toward treat­ing all peo­ple with love and kindness. Writ­ten by Heather Dean Brew­er from Michi­gan and illus­trat­ed by LeUyen Pham from Cal­i­for­nia, both of whom marched in the 2017 Women’s March­es, this book is inspired by Mari, a real lit­tle girl who trav­eled with her moth­er from Harlem to Mid­town New York to march with large crowds of peo­ple who were protest­ing inhu­mane actions and poli­cies of a pres­i­dent who reviled many people.
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The Very First & Last Page

Last week I zoom-vis­it­ed a kinder­garten class to read my own pic­ture book. The class was ter­rif­ic and at the end we had a time for Q & A. They are work­ing on the dif­fer­ence between ask­ing a ques­tion and “shar­ing.” It’s an impor­tant and dif­fi­cult skill. One lit­tle girl, who might’ve been a stringer for the New York Times, or per­haps an after-school pros­e­cu­tor, so mature and earnest in her ques­tion­ing was she, asked to see “the very first page of the book.”… more

Planetarium

Planetarium
My fas­ci­na­tion with out­er space is well-doc­u­ment­ed. I had star charts on my child­hood bed­room walls. But this book would have enthralled me … in fact, it still does. The illus­tra­tions by engraver and print­mak­er Chris Wormell are detailed in a way that aids under­stand­ing. Scale is a tough con­cept for our com­pre­hen­sion but this book tack­les that with info­graph­ics that give a sense of how enor­mous our uni­verse is.
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Helen Oxenbury: A Life in Illustration

When Mar­sha Qua­ley began this col­umn six years ago, she had us all on the look­out for books about children’s lit­er­a­ture. What would add to our under­stand­ing of this very par­tic­u­lar com­mu­ni­ty of edu­ca­tors, stu­dents, col­lec­tor, and cre­ators? This book about Helen Oxen­bury by Leonard Mar­cus is a gem, filled with the wis­dom of a revered author-illus­tra­tor as well as her illus­tra­tions and deli­cious pho­tos that help our understanding.… more

Catherine Urdahl and Her Reading Team
December 2020

cover image
Rais­ing Star Read­ers is delight­ed to intro­duce a new Read­ing Team, this one led by children’s book author Cather­ine Urdahl. Here, Cather­ine shares some heart­warm­ing read­ing moments, with enough book-love and remem­bered sum­mer sun­shine to take the chill out of the cold­est of Decem­ber winds:
Juni and Catherine I read to my daugh­ters from the time they were infants, and now I have the joy of read­ing to my two-year-old grand­daugh­ter Juni and my new grand­son Col­by.
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Wild Girl

Wild Girl
WOW!*!&! I want to car­ry a back­pack with me wher­ev­er I go, hand­ing out a copy of this book to every per­son I see. I loved every dare­dev­il, detailed, aston­ish­ing minute of read­ing this book. I believe you will, too. Mind, I grew up at a time where I heard two phras­es con­stant­ly: “Sit still” and “Ladies don’t rough­house.” Rough­house meant any kind of run­ning, climb­ing, jump­ing, or play­ing in the dirt.… more

Skinny Dip with Kenneth Kraegel

Kenneth Kraegel
We’re pleased to wel­come author and illus­tra­tor Ken­neth Kraegel for a Skin­ny Dip this month. His newest book, Wild Hon­ey from the Moon, is due to be pub­lished on Novem­ber 5, 2019. School Library Con­nec­tion said, “The rich and lus­cious illus­tra­tions are what make this book so spe­cial; read­ers will want to exam­ine every detail on every page.… more

Riding a Donkey Backwards

Riding a Donkey Backwards
The wise fool or the foolish wise man? As the authors explain, "Nasruddin is the wisest man in the village and also the biggest fool. ... If he doesn't make you laugh, he will certainly make you think—and perhaps think sideways instead of straight ahead." Mulla Nasruddin is an ancient Persian folk character, discussed in Sufi studies, familiar throughout India, Syria, Turkey, Iran, and the Middle East.

Deb Andries and Her Reading Teams
May 2019

Guess How Much I Love You
For this addi­tion to our Rais­ing Star Read­ers fea­ture, we’re delight­ed to once again be show­cas­ing Deb Andries, a Nation­al Lit­er­a­cy Con­sul­tant who lives in Wis­con­sin, and her grand­chil­dren: Fin­ley and Grayson, who live in Cum­ber­land, Wis­con­sin, and Emmer­syn, who lives in Sartell, Min­neso­ta. Gram­my and her Read­ing Teams recent­ly shared Guess How Much I Love You, writ­ten by Sam McBrat­ney and illus­trat­ed by Ani­ta Jer­am, while enjoy­ing mile­stone read-togeth­ers dur­ing their Mother’s Day celebrations.… more

Celebrating the Square Pegs

This month the two of us are actu­al­ly in the same place at the same time, and we’re hav­ing a con­ver­sa­tion about square pegs. We are all not just square pegs and round pegs. We are tri­an­gles, pen­tagons, hexa­gon, oval, rhom­boids, stars. There are shapes for every­one and places, too, where each of us fits best. But we all know what being a square peg means.… more

The BEARdecotts

Drawn Together
The ALA/ALSC recent­ly announced their Youth Media Awards, result­ing in much excitement. The teacher librar­i­ans at a Min­neso­ta pri­vate school with three cam­pus­es help their stu­dents look for excel­lence in children’s books by hold­ing their own award process each year. Called The BEARde­cotts, after their school mas­cot, the edu­ca­tors select books for a short list that they then share with their stu­dents over sev­er­al months, read­ing aloud, read­ing indi­vid­u­al­ly, mak­ing crit­i­cal analy­ses, and final­ly vot­ing on the most wor­thy books.
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Brenda Sederberg and Her Reading Team
February 2019

The Stuff of Stars
For this addi­tion to our new Rais­ing Star Read­ers fea­ture, we’re hon­ored to be show­cas­ing a brand-new Star Read­er: Baby Sylvie was only two days old when this pho­to was tak­en! She’s pic­tured with Gram (Bren­da Seder­berg), as the two of them share Debra Frasier’s clas­sic pic­ture book On the Day You Were Born at Sylvie’s home in Duluth, Min­neso­ta.… more

Bookstorm™: The Stuff of Stars

The Stuff of Stars
Before the uni­verse was formed, before time and space exist­ed, there was … noth­ing. But then … BANG! Stars caught fire and burned so long that they explod­ed, fling­ing star­dust every­where. And the ash of those stars turned into plan­ets. Into our Earth. And into us. In a poet­ic text, Mar­i­on Dane Bauer takes read­ers from the tril­lionth of a sec­ond when our uni­verse was born to the sin­gu­lar­i­ties that became each one of us, while vivid illus­tra­tions by Ekua Holmes cap­ture the void before the Big Bang and the ensu­ing life that burst across galax­ies.… more

Deb Andries and Her Reading Teams
January 2019

The Stuff of Stars
We’re delight­ed to fea­ture Bookol­o­gy fol­low­er Deb Andries and her grand­chil­dren to kick off our new Rais­ing Star Read­ers col­umn! The column’s goal is to show­case dif­fer­ent Read­ing Teams as they read togeth­er dur­ing mile­stone celebrations. Deb, a.k.a. “Gram­my,” was able to enjoy two mile­stone read-togeth­ers to kick off her Christ­mas sea­son. In the pho­to above, Gram­my shares The Polar Express, by Chris Van Alls­burg, with grand­sons Grayson (5) and Fin­ley (3) in Wis­con­sin.… more

Books Books Books

Books Books Books
Books Books Books 
Mick Man­ning and Bri­ta Granström
Can­dlewick Press, 2017 Book lovers appre­ci­ate the beau­ty, rar­i­ty, inven­tive design, and con­tent of all types of books. Those in the vast col­lec­tion of the British Library (more than 150 mil­lion lit­er­ary arti­facts on 15 floors and 400 miles of shelv­ing) will help to make book lovers of the chil­dren in your life.… more

A World of Cities

A World of Cities
A World of Cities
text by Lily Murray
illus­trat­ed by James Brown
Can­dlewick Stu­dio, 2018
ISBN 978−0−7636−9879−9
Those kids in your life, your school­room, your library who are Fact Hunters? They col­lect facts to savor, share with oth­ers, and build their knowl­edge of the world around them. This is a book for them. Not every child can trav­el to the major cities of the world, but this book will leave an impres­sion, a yearn­ing for exploration.… more

Literary Madeleine: Sing a Song of Seasons

I believe this book belongs in every class­room, every home, and in every child’s life. It is a won­drous book to read, to look at, to mem­o­rize, and to talk about with the chil­dren around you. It is a Lit­er­ary Madeleine, scrump­tious in every way. The full title is Sing a Song of Sea­sons: A Nature Poem for Each Day of the Year, edit­ed by Fiona Water and illus­trat­ed by Frann Pre­ston-Gan­non, it is a won­der.… more

imagine

There are times when I open a new book that my pulse quick­ens and times when I need to be con­vinced. Some­times I can sense myself slid­ing com­fort­ably into the sur­round­ings of a pic­ture book, feel­ing wel­comed, under­stand­ing every­thing about the book because it is so well craft­ed. That’s this book. First off, this is an auto­bi­og­ra­phy … so as a men­tor text it is ideal. … more

Eliza Wheeler

Eliza Wheeler
Eliza Wheel­er is the fas­ci­nat­ing illus­tra­tor of many books, includ­ing John Ronald’s Drag­ons: The Sto­ry of J.R.R. Tolkien, The Pome­gran­ate Witch, and Tell Me a Tat­too Sto­ry. You can read about her work on her Wheel­er Stu­dio blog. For this inter­view, we are focus­ing on a series she has illus­trat­ed for Can­dlewick Press, the Cody books by Tri­cia Springstubb.… more

The Secret Kingdom

The Secret Kingdom
This book is irre­sistible. For all kinds of reasons. Remem­ber when you were a kid, or maybe you do this now, how you’d take what­ev­er was at hand and cre­ate a house, a camp, an entire set­ting for you to play in? Where you could act out your sto­ries? Did you do this with found items from nature? Or things your fam­i­ly was throw­ing away?… more

Skinny Dip with Mira Bartók

Mira Bartók
Mira Bartók, author and illus­tra­tor, recent­ly ush­ered The Won­der­ling into the world and it is already on sev­er­al best of 2017 book lists. Con­grat­u­la­tions, Mira, and thanks for shar­ing your respons­es with our readers. When did you first start reading books? Age 4. All-time favorite book? The Arrival by Shaun Tan. Favorite breakfast or lunch as a kid?more

Melanie Heuiser Hill

Melanie Heuiser Hill
Our Book­storm this month fea­tures Giant Pump­kin Suite, the first nov­el from Melanie Heuis­er Hill (Can­dlewick Press). Often called debut authors, a first-time author is intrigu­ing for a read­er. Is this some­one we’ll look for­ward to read­ing for many years to come? How will this author grow as they become more expe­ri­enced at craft­ing a sto­ry with char­ac­ter, action, and plot?… more

Proof

Journeys
If you ever doubt that kids are affect­ed by books, read any one of these let­ters. They will touch your heart deeply. You’ll remem­ber each two- or three-page mis­sive and the ardent con­nec­tion to the book. If you haven’t already done so, you’ll more than like­ly be moved to read (or re-read!) the book that prompt­ed the child to write a let­ter to the book’s author.… more

Me, All Alone, Reading This Book

Me, All Alone, at the End of the World
Some­times, the illus­tra­tions are won­der­ful but the lan­guage is cap­ti­vat­ing. You know how you read a pic­ture book and you can’t decide which part to focus on? Should you look at the pic­ture first? Should you read the sto­ry because it’s the thread that’s pulling you through? Well, when you read “He was a long-leggedy man with a wide, wide hat and a beard in a cir­cle around his head.… more

Women Can Be Magicians, Too!

Anything But Ordinary Addie
In a sump­tu­ous pic­ture book biog­ra­phy, author Mara Rock­liff and illus­tra­tor Iacopo Bruno give us the life of Ade­laide Scarcez Her­rmann, a real per­son who lived from 1853 to 1932. Dur­ing her 79 years, she was an actress, a dancer, a vaude­vil­lian, and she was shot out of a can­non. As the title says, she was Any­thing but Ordi­nary Addie.… more

Roxane Orgill

Roxane Orgill
I’d like to know a thou­sand things about this book because you’ve opened so many doors for my imag­i­na­tion. I’ll restrict myself to only a few of those ques­tions, pri­mar­i­ly to help stu­dents who are drawn in by all the sto­ries with­in this pho­to­graph and the poems you’ve writ­ten about it. You have been a journalist and a music critic.… more

Francis Vallejo

Francis Vallejo
We are pleased to share with you our inter­view with Fran­cis Valle­jo, the illus­tra­tor of Jazz Day: the Mak­ing of a Famous Pho­to­graph, our Book­storm™ this month. This book is so rich with visu­al images that stir read­ers’ imag­i­na­tions. You’ll feel like you’re stand­ing on the street with the oth­er onlookers! The title page says that you used acrylics and pastels to create this art.more

The Jungle Book

The Jungle Book
The word exquis­ite once won the game for me while play­ing Pass­word. I have been fond of that word since that time and look for instances where it applies. That is sure­ly the illus­trat­ed edi­tion of The Jun­gle Book, writ­ten by Rud­yard Kipling all of those years ago, and new­ly illus­trat­ed by Nico­la Bay­ley. Can­dlewick pub­lished this edi­tion of the clas­sic sto­ries and their clas­sics are worth col­lect­ing, read­ing, and trea­sur­ing.… more

Fashion Studio

Fashion Studio
Oh. my good­ness. When I opened up this box, I was imme­di­ate­ly trans­port­ed to my grand­par­ents’ back yard, on the blue blan­ket under the elm tree, when a gag­gle of friends brought their Bar­bi­es and Kens togeth­er and we sewed clothes out of fab­ric scraps and held fash­ion shows. Those days are some of my best mem­o­ries of childhood.… more

Books about Chickens

The Perfect Nest
Whether a chick­en makes you cluck, BAWK! or cheep-cheep-cheep, books about chick­ens make us laugh. We may not have been intro­duced to a chick­en in real life but, trust me, some peo­ple keep them as egg-lay­ing won­ders and oth­er peo­ple keep them as pets. These fowl have been around in many col­ors, types, and breeds in most coun­tries in the world … and quite recent­ly they have become the sub­ject of many books.
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Collecting your observations

Welcome to New Zealand
by Vic­ki Palmquist I nev­er kept a jour­nal. Why? It nev­er occurred to me. It wasn’t with­in my realm of famil­iar­i­ty. I start­ed writ­ing many sto­ries on note­book paper and stuffed them into fold­ers. But how sat­is­fy­ing to have a jour­nal, specif­i­cal­ly an obser­va­tion jour­nal to keep track of what you see, hear, and think. As a child, I was a hunter-gath­er­er. Were you?… more

Museum Feast

Historium
His­to­ri­um
curat­ed by Richard Wilkin­son and Jo Nel­son
Big Pic­ture Press, 2015 by Vic­ki Palmquist In a large, folio-sized book, the cura­tors of His­to­ri­um present a print­ed-page trip through a muse­um, grouped by cul­tures and described in detail so you can under­stand what you are see­ing with­out being rushed along by the crowd. Much like those rentable muse­um audio tapes or the plac­ards on the wall, it’s an enhanced expe­ri­ence of the arti­facts.… more