She has nev­er for­got­ten that evening in which she saw her name writ­ten for the first time. The moment when she drew wob­bly let­ters slant­i­ng down the paper. Writ­ing her name made her real­ize she tru­ly existed.

Learn­ing about writ­ing for chil­dren is nev­er over. Like teach­ing, as you work at it, you will learn more. In fact, that aspect of con­stant learn­ing is one of the best things about the job.

What does it mean to be human? Not every mid­dle grade nov­el tack­les that ques­tion. The AI Inci­dent doesn’t shy away from exam­in­ing AI, robot­ics, learn­ing, and being human. It does so with laugh­ter, car­ing, and intrigue.

Pic­ture books can fos­ter a deep­er appre­ci­a­tion for the “Earth’s beat­ing heart,” our glob­al ocean. From ocean shores to the depths of the sea, these five Calde­cott award books trans­port read­ers to this extra­or­di­nary environment.

In the past six months, we’ve talked about the busi­ness of book pub­lish­ing and the basics of draft­ing sto­ry. Now it’s time for more infor­ma­tion on the all-impor­tant work of fix­ing that sto­ry, also known as revision.

Cel­e­brat­ing a ter­rif­ic book for young peo­ple that will get them excit­ed about grow­ing their own food. Hydro­pon­ics, yum­my blue­ber­ries … you’ll want to share this one.

There is a boy in my sto­ry­time who is learn­ing Eng­lish along­side at least one, if not more, lan­guages. He is a seri­ous two-year-old. He nev­er talks. He does not sing along. He is loathe to “par­tic­i­pate” in any way …

We’re always excit­ed when Nik­ki Grimes shares one of her new books with us. This one is espe­cial­ly love­ly, A Cup of Qui­et, which cel­e­brates the grand­par­ent and grand­child rela­tion­ship as well as all the sounds we hear when we’re qui­et and we pay attention.

This is a month for vehi­cles, imag­ined vehi­cles, that take us straight out of our chaot­ic and wor­ri­some now to “what if.”

Hel­lo again, Edu­ca­tors! For those of you who want to pub­lish a children’s book, it’s time to talk about sto­ry (oth­er­wise known as narrative).

Jean Craig­head George … To me, she led an amaz­ing­ly rich life. She gave me a book I tru­ly loved and set me on the path to learn about nature.

Our com­mu­ni­ties in action: sud­den­ly, many books that felt like dis­tant his­to­ry have become top­i­cal once again. Read­ing about the des­per­ate chal­lenges our fore­bears have faced, espe­cial­ly in well-researched nov­els and non­fic­tion, give us all hope that we can find a bridge to the bet­ter side.

Four Calde­cott Award books cel­e­brate the exhil­a­ra­tion of flight, with two jour­neys inspired by his­to­ry and two by imagination.

a book­list fea­tur­ing pic­ture books that relate sto­ries of peace through com­mu­ni­ty building

In this book­list, we rec­om­mend nov­els for ages 9 to adult that tell sto­ries of char­ac­ters who build a car­ing com­mu­ni­ty around them.