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Raising Star ReadersTeach It ForwardBig Green PocketbookPage BreakTwo for the ShowRaising Star ReadersPadma VenkatramanPerfect PairsPairing Fiction and NonfictionPage Break Glory Be!Puppet Mania Zach StierCuriouser and Curiouser with Lee Bennett HopkinsPadma VenkatramanBooks Books Books

Knit One, Purl Two

Two for the Show

Too Many Mittens

Phyl­lis: Two sticks and some string. That’s the most basic def­i­n­i­tion of knit­ting. The sticks might be met­al or wood. The string might be yarn or flax. But in the hands of a knit­ter, even an unskilled one such as I, they become mag­ic. In the chilly months, we bun­dle up in cozy sweaters, snug mit­tens, […]


In the Driver’s Seat

Writ­ing Road Trip

Lisa Bullard. Photo by Katherine Warde

To be able to learn how to get some­where, I have to dri­ve the route myself. Rid­ing shot­gun doesn’t work if I’m try­ing to mem­o­rize the route; some­how the feel­ing of the nec­es­sary twists and turns has to seep up through the steer­ing wheel and into the pores of my hands for me to be […]


Connecting Kids to Nonfiction:
Personal Experience Matters

Non­fic­tionary

Aimee Bissonette

Per­son­al pref­er­ences and expe­ri­ences guide our life choic­es. They impact what we wear, eat, do, even the peo­ple we spend time with. It should come as no sur­prise, then, that per­son­al pref­er­ences also affect what we read— maybe even whether we read. Stud­ies show that young read­ers who feel a per­son­al con­nec­tion to what they […]


Brenda Sederberg and Her Reading Team
February 2019

Rais­ing Star Read­ers

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 […]


Bim, Bam, Bop … and Oona, an Interview

Red Read­ing Boots

Bim Bam Bop ... and Oona

Poor Oona—she’s always the last duck to the pond…. But then her frog friend Roy reminds her: you’re good with giz­mos… And so Oona the duck goes to work in the barn on her giz­mos, pour­ing her cre­ative and deter­mined self into get­ting to the pond before the faster ducks. Along the way, she learns there […]


Bridging the Gap Between My Writing and Reading Selves:
an Author’s Experience of Recording an Audiobook

Knock Knock

Padma Venkatraman

“The woman who read Climb­ing the Stairs aloud did a great job,” my friend said. She was telling me, with delight, how her chil­dren and their friends—two girls and two boys—listened with rapt atten­tion to the audio book ver­sion of my debut nov­el, refus­ing to get out of the car when the trip end­ed but […]


Perfect Pairs

Arti­cles

Perfect Pairs

Bookol­o­gy is delight­ed to fea­ture a sam­ple les­son from Per­fect Pairs: Using Fic­tion & Non­fic­tion Pic­ture Books to Teach Life Sci­ence, K-2 by children’s book author Melis­sa Stew­art and mas­ter edu­ca­tor Nan­cy Ches­ley (Sten­house Pub­lish­ers). When this book (and its com­pan­ion for grades 3–5) first came across our desk, we were blown away by its […]


Pairing Nonfiction and Fiction

Non­fic­tionary

Pamela S. Turner

Non­fic­tion and fic­tion are like peanut but­ter and choco­late. Each excel­lent on its own, but when combined…so sub­lime. INVITE A DISCUSSION My non­fic­tion account Samu­rai Ris­ing: The Epic Life of Minamo­to Yoshit­sune (2016, grade 6 and up) describes the dra­mat­ic rise and fall of a 12th-cen­­tu­ry samu­rai. One of the joys of research­ing the life […]


Glory Be!

Page Break

Lynne Jonell

Glo­ry be! I’ve sent off the revised book! I real­ly, real­ly like it. But will my edi­tor?


Bookstorm™: The Stuff of Stars

Book­storms

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 […]


Puppet Mania

The Lamp­post

sock puppet

Using Pup­pets to Enhance the Sto­ry­time Expe­ri­ence “Any­one who does any­thing to help a child in his life is a hero to me. ” ― Fred Rogers I recent­ly watched Won’t You Be My Neigh­bor, the new doc­u­men­tary on the life and career of Fred Rogers … Mis­ter Rogers. At the con­clu­sion of the doc­u­men­tary, […]


Deb Andries and Her Reading Teams
January 2019

Rais­ing Star Read­ers

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 […]


Curiouser and Curiouser with Lee Bennett Hopkins

Curi­ouser and Curi­ouser

Lee Bennett Hopkins

As I read each of Lee Ben­nett Hop­kins’ col­lec­tions of poet­ry, I find my curios­i­ty piqued: “How does he do this?” When I was a grad stu­dent, I came across Mr. Hop­kins’ book, Books Are by Peo­ple: inter­views with 104 authors and illus­tra­tors of books for young chil­dren. Those inter­views pro­voked my imag­i­na­tion and pro­pelled my […]


Skinny Dip with Padma Venkatraman

Skin­ny Dip

Padma Venkatraman

We’re pleased to wel­come author Pad­ma Venka­tra­man, whose every nov­el I have found delight­ful. Her per­spec­tives as a world cit­i­zen and an oceanog­ra­ph­er and a per­son who cares fer­vent­ly about children’s well-being give a pow­er­ful depth to her writ­ing. We asked Pad­ma to answer the Skin­ny Dip ques­tions that appealed to her: How many book­cas­es […]


Writer’s Retreat: Time

Page Break

Lynne Jonell

The best things about a writer’s retreat is … time.


Books Books Books

Read­ing Ahead

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 […]


Teaching Passion

Big Green Pock­et­book

Candice Ransom

When the direc­tor of Hollins University’s grad­u­ate pro­gram in children’s lit­er­a­ture asked me to teach a crit­i­cal class on the his­to­ry of children’s book illus­tra­tors, I said no. Even with an MFA in writ­ing for chil­dren from Ver­mont Col­lege, an MA in children’s lit­er­a­ture from Hollins, scores of pub­lished books, and years of teach­ing grad­u­ate-lev­­el […]


Serendipity

Teach It For­ward

I love the word “serendip­i­ty.” I also love when I actu­al­ly expe­ri­ence the feel­ing of serendip­i­ty. It shows up unex­pect­ed­ly in moments when I feel a sur­pris­ing con­nec­tion or hap­py coin­ci­dence between two seem­ing­ly sep­a­rate things. It makes me believe in the pow­er of the uni­verse and often leaves me ques­tion­ing whether these occur­rences are […]