The Penderwicks
Red Reading Boots
I have a mixed history with The Penderwicks books by Jeanne Birdsall. The first book, The Penderwicks: A Summer Tale Of Four Sisters, Two Rabbits, and a Very Interesting Boy came out in 2005 when #1 Son was eight and Darling Daughter was three. It won the National Book Award that year and there was much flurry […]
Literary Madeleine: Sing a Song of Seasons
Literary Madeleines
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 […]
Lucille Clifton: All About Love
Two for the Show
Poet Lucille Clifton in a 1998 interview “Doing What You Will Do,” published in Sleeping with One Eye Open: Women Writers and the Art of Survival, said, “I think the oral tradition is the one which is most interesting to me and the voice in which I like to speak.” Asked about the most important aspect […]
Signs, Signs, Everywhere There’s Signs
Writing Road Trip
When I was a young teenager my family made a road trip from Minnesota to Texas to visit my father’s parents. The long trip south mostly featured one kind of civil war: the endless bickering of my two brothers and the male cousin who’d come along for the ride. For the trip back north, I […]
Tonight is the Night …
Big Green Pocketbook
… when dead leaves fly like witches on switches across the sky … In the center of our Wegman’s is all the stuff that is not food. Of course, I head there first. Browsing tea towels and sunflower coasters is my reward from having to shop in the too-big grocery store. Recently I found a […]
Death and Grief
Quirky Book Lists
Our Chapter & Verse Book Clubs read three books about death, written for children, in April of 2017. We’ve updated this list with newer books in October, 2018. Several of our librarian members stated that they receive many requests from patrons for books that help children understand death. Our members around the country put their […]
The Writer and the Refrigerator
Page Break
The refrigerator is a wonderful appliance … On the other hand …
School-Themed Books That Build Empathy
Articles
During one of our visits to our local library in late summer, several of the books on display caught my eye. School was the common thread, and my family found some good conversation starters among the titles. I’ll highlight three that have merit as texts that help build empathy and/or broaden children’s views about school […]
The Stuff of Stars
Red Reading Boots
I’ve been anxiously awaiting the book birth of The Stuff of Stars by Marion Dane Bauer, illustrated by Ekua Holmes. I heard the text a year ago and forgot to breathe while the author read it out loud. And then I heard who the illustrator was. Let’s just say, what a pairing! When I opened my […]
Eerdmans Books for Young Readers
Small Press Medley
Engaging. Diverse. Page-turners. Spiritual. Surprise! Gentle. Compassion. Old – over 100 years old! and Classic. Wm. B. Eerdmans Publishing Company has been, and still is, an independent, family-owned publisher since 1911. Their new imprint—Eerdmans Books for Young Readers—began in 1995 and has been producing over a dozen new children’s books each year. Each year many […]
Skinny Dip with Nicola Davies
Skinny Dip
We’re pleased to welcome author Nicola Davies to our Skinny Dip column. She writes such fine books about our natural world. Her most recent book, The Day War Came (Candlewick Press), relates the story of a refugee child who realizes that war follows her in the closed doors and turned backs. It is through the kindness of […]
That’s How I Roll
Writing Road Trip
As a kid I was the one who instigated a lot of the fun. It might be playing pirates in the tree house, or cops and robbers in my mom’s parked station wagon, or spies who wrote secret code in lemon juice (later revealing the message by holding it over the toaster). Often our make […]
Curiouser and Curiouser with Paul O. Zelinsky
Curiouser and Curiouser
Reading and admiring the books of Paul O. Zelinsky raises my curiosity. How does he work on the illustrations for his own books and those of other authors? What is he thinking about when he evolves his unforgettable characters? Of his newest book, All-of-a-Kind Family Hanukkah (written by Emily Jenkins), Mr. Zelinsky says, “Now that […]
Explorer Academy: The Nebula Secret
Reading Ahead
Explorer Academy: The Nebula Secret Trudi Truett illustrated by Scott Plumbe (with a blend of photos) National Geographic Partners, 2018 ISBN 978−1−4263−3159−6 Done with the Harry Potter series, maybe not quite ready for the Alex Rider series, what do you suggest? Explorer Academy. Emphatically. The book opens in Hawaii, where Cruz Coronado (not quite 13) […]
Story Time for All
Red Reading Boots
A couple of weeks ago, Darling Daughter and I made our way to the Farmers Market. I’ve been recovering from a bit of surgery, and truth be told, I wasn’t feeling great that morning, but needed to get out and about. We wandered the stalls, got our veggies, our goat cheese, our sunflowers…then some coffee […]
The Beauty of Imperfection
Teach It Forward
As I reflect on the start of my 27th year of teaching, I am struck by what an unusual first week of school it was. Room 212 was filled with a sense of calm that doesn’t usually accompany my first few days of a new school year. The fact that our school building was closed […]
Chasing Peace: Refugee Stories
Two for the Show
This summer, deeply troubling stories about migrants and refugees at the US-Mexican border have come to us in newspaper stories, recordings, photographs, and videos. In choosing to separate children from their parents, our government has shown a disturbing lack of empathy for people fleeing violence and turmoil in their home countries. It is our hope […]
Skinny Dip with Kara LaReau
Skinny Dip
We’re pleased to connect you with author (and editor) Kara LaReau, whose two book series, The Infamous Ratsos and The Unintentional Adventures of the Bland Sisters, are tickling readers’ funnybones and stirring their sense of adventure. She was an editor for ten years, editing some of our most-loved books such as Because of Winn-Dixie and […]