Bookology Magazine
Bring Me Some Apples and I'll Make You a Pie

Apples, Well-Being, and Family

September 13, 2016 2 Comments
Bring Me Some Apples and I’ll Make You a Pie: A Sto­ry about Edna Lewis is a mem­o­rable book about grow­ing food through­out the sea­sons and liv­ing off the land in Vir­ginia. Wild straw­ber­ry, purslane, dan­de­lions, sas­safras, hon­ey. As spring rides the breeze into sum­mer, this extend­ed fam­i­ly tends to their larder, tak­ing full advan­tage of the fruits, nuts, and veg­eta­bles grow­ing around them.… more
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How To Make An Apple Pie and See The World

How To Make An Apple Pie and See The World

June 30, 2016 2 Comments
A cou­ple of years ago, I decid­ed I want­ed to learn how to make a real­ly good pie. I asked around — bak­ers, cater­ers, cook­ing store own­ers etc. and the book The Pie and Pas­try Bible by Rose Levy Beran­baum came up con­sis­tent­ly. One per­son men­tioned How to Make An Apple Pie and See The World  by Mar­jorie Price­man.… more
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Thank You, Omu!

Food for Thought

January 14, 2024 1 Comment
Sean Sherman, “In an epiphany, I tasted how food weaves people together, connects families through generations, is a life force of identity and social structure.” These formidable themes are central to recent Caldecott Award books.
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Shirley Chisholm Dared

Celebrating Black Women in the U.S.

June 14, 2022 No Comments
We feel called this month to celebrate the many accomplishments of Black women in this country — some of whom are historical icons, too many of whom we have we have never heard of.
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A Park Connects Us

How Parks Connect Us
… and Why It Matters

April 22, 2022 1 Comment
Spring is in the air, and we’re pulled outdoors to wander in our favorite city parks. Ducks are dabbling; frogs are trilling; the apple trees are bursting into bloom. Everywhere, it seems, children frolic and neighbors wave. It’s been a long winter, but our cities are alive.
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What Do They Do With All That Poo?

Ideas and Details

April 21, 2021 5 Comments
When I was doing lots and lots of author vis­its, many schools were focus­ing pro­fes­sion­al devel­op­ment — and writ­ing instruc­tion — on Six Traits: Voice, Ideas, Pre­sen­ta­tion, Con­ven­tions, Orga­ni­za­tion, Word Choice, and Sen­tence Flu­en­cy. I liked to show ways that I, a pro­fes­sion­al writer, also dance and wres­tle with those traits. In par­tic­u­lar, I liked to focus on ideas and details.
… more
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Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs

Fairy Tales, Part 2

December 29, 2020 1 Comment
Trina Schart Hyman’s retelling of “Little Red Riding Hood” is a familiar one. This was Hyman’s favorite fairy tale, and as a child, she spent a whole year wearing the red cape her mother made for her. On the verso of the title page, Little Red is reading her own story featuring the cover of Hyman’s book, sucking her thumb, just as Hyman did in childhood.
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Candice Ransom

Magic Needs Humble Soap

December 3, 2020 No Comments
When I was ten, I wanted to be a detective-veterinarian-artist-writer-ballet dancer. Never mind I couldn’t stay up late, stand the sight of blood, or ever had a single dance lesson. Ten-year-olds view the world as limitless. When I was a teenager, my dreams shifted to more specific: a writer of children’s books and an animator for Walt Disney Studios.
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Together from Afar

November 24, 2020 No Comments
“Indi­vid­u­al­ly, we are one drop. Togeth­er, we are an ocean.” (Ryuno­suke Satoro)
Tis the sea­son to be… It is hard to some­times under­stand how dif­fi­cult the hol­i­day sea­son will be this year. Although this is dif­fi­cult, tech­nol­o­gy has made it pos­si­ble for us all to con­nect and par­tic­i­pate in hol­i­day fun. For my arti­cle this month, I’ve list­ed activ­i­ties that you can pro­vide for fam­i­lies to do togeth­er dur­ing the hol­i­day breaks.
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Candice Ransom

Jane Langton Gave Me Geese

November 4, 2020 13 Comments
In Wild­ness is the preser­va­tion of the World. ~ Hen­ry David Thore­au  It’s rare a children’s book changes you when you’re an adult. I don’t mean fleet­ing Har­ry Potter/Team Edward crossover fan­dom, but gen­uine change (as with Water­ship Down). I was near­ly 30 when Jane Lang­ton’s book The Fledg­ling was pub­lished in 1980. At that stage of my not-yet-fledged career, I read children’s books by the boxload and was thrilled to dis­cov­er a new one by my favorite writer.… more
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Radiant Child

Javaka Steptoe

October 29, 2020 No Comments
Though our focus this month is on Javaka Steptoe, we want to begin this column with another book by his father, John Steptoe, Daddy is a Monster…Sometimes. This book is narrated by two children, Bweela and Javaka, who begin, “We are Bweela and Javaka and we have a daddy. He’s a nice daddy and all, but he got somethin’ wrong with him… .”
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Caren Stelson

Caren Stelson

October 27, 2020 1 Comment
Caren Stel­son The book I wish every­one would read: I love Make Way for Duck­lings writ­ten and illus­trat­ed by Robert McCloskey, and I wish every par­ent and child would read this age­less pic­ture book togeth­er. Why do I love Make Way for Duck­lings? Let me start with the fact that my fam­i­ly is from Boston and Make Way for Duck­lings takes place in the city of Boston. In
… more
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If You Give a Mouse a Cookie

Ann Angel and Her Reading Team
May 2020

May 20, 2020 No Comments
In this Rais­ing Star Read­ers update, Ann Angel shares how read­ing aloud helps car­ry on her family’s her­itage of sto­ry­telling. Here’s how Ann describes it:  With Stay-at-Home a require­ment in most states, mine includ­ed, I only see some of my grand­kids via Skype and Zoom. But I have a daugh­ter and grand­son liv­ing with us. That means we’re bal­anc­ing work and Teddy’s school, so, of course, I get involved.… more
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Almost Time

May 14, 2020 No Comments
I’ve been wait­ing for Eliz­a­beth Stick­ney and Gary D. Schmidt’s Almost Time for quite awhile. Seems appro­pri­ate — it’s a book about wait­ing, after all. I read very ear­ly drafts of it years ago, so long ago that I can hard­ly recall details — only that it’s about the mak­ing of maple syrup. What I dis­cov­ered upon read­ing it in pub­lished form is that in addi­tion to being about the mak­ing of maple syrup, this book is also about the solace found in wait­ing and work­ing together.… more
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Home of the Brave

Anita Dualeh and Her Reading Team
April 2020

April 8, 2020 No Comments
In this addi­tion to Rais­ing Star Read­ers, we check in again on Ani­ta Dualeh and her Read­ing Team. Along with many of us, they’re using books as a dis­trac­tion and a con­so­la­tion while liv­ing with the mas­sive changes brought about by the threat of COVID-19. Here’s how Ani­ta describes this shared moment of history-in-the-making: In the past month, my kids haven’t had much for­mal school­ing.… more
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What’s in the Basket?

February 20, 2020 No Comments
“Invest­ing in ear­ly child­hood nutri­tion is a sure­fire strat­e­gy. The returns are incred­i­bly high.” —Anne Mulc­ahy I am the head of children’s ser­vices at Eric­son Pub­lic Library in Boone, Iowa. Accord­ing to Iowa Depart­ment of Edu­ca­tion, Boone has 1,901 stu­dents and 877 of those stu­dents are in a free or reduced lunch pro­gram (Kids Count, 2017).… more
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Charlotte's Web

Candice Ransom

November 19, 2019 No Comments
Books swept me away, one after the oth­er, this way and that; I made end­less vows accord­ing to their lights, for I believed them. (Annie Dil­lard,  An Amer­i­can Child­hood) It’s hard to say which came first: did I adopt traits of the main char­ac­ter in cer­tain books I read, or did I grav­i­tate towards those books because I already had those traits?… more
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The Very Hungry Caterpillar

November 14, 2019 No Comments
In my sto­ry­time bag this past month I’ve been car­ry­ing The Very Hun­gry Cater­pil­lar by Eric Car­le. I don’t always use it, but I like hav­ing it with me — I know it will always work. When I pull this book out of the bag, there are smiles, clap­ping some­times, and always a cho­rus of  “I have that book!” The Very Hun­gry Cater­pil­lar is fifty years old this year.… more
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Maurna Rome

Read-Alouds from Room 212

November 13, 2019 2 Comments
Inspi­ra­tion. Sat­is­fac­tion. Sad­ness. Tri­umph. Long­ing. All of these emo­tions might describe what read­ers feel when reach­ing the end of a great story. Room 212 just wrapped up anoth­er read-aloud and the over­whelm­ing con­sen­sus was that Out of My Mind by Sharon Drap­er gave us lots of mixed emo­tions to sort out and just as much to think about.… more
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Berenstain Bears and the Spooky Old Tree

Ann Angel and Her Reading Team
October 2019

October 24, 2019 No Comments
Rais­ing Star Read­ers is delight­ed to intro­duce a new Read­ing Team cen­tered around YA author and Wis­con­sin res­i­dent Ann Angel. Ann says: “One of my great­est plea­sures as a grand­par­ent is shar­ing a book with my grand­kids that was a favorite with my kids when they were grow­ing up. Anoth­er great plea­sure is see­ing my grown kids pull out a book they loved and read to it their chil­dren with the knowl­edge that they’re shar­ing a great love of sto­ry and reading.… more
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New Year at the Pier

Celebrating Rosh Hashanah

September 24, 2019 2 Comments
The Jew­ish High Hol­i­days begin with the fes­tiv­i­ties of the New Year on Rosh Hashanah and end ten days lat­er with the obser­vance of the Day of Atone­ment, Yom Kip­pur. It’s a time of reflec­tion and a renew­al of inten­tions to do bet­ter in the com­ing year. Here are a num­ber of books that will help chil­dren under­stand the tra­di­tions of the hol­i­day and expe­ri­ence the joy of the celebration.
… more
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Lisa Bullard. Photo by Katherine Warde

Watching for the Brown Truck

March 21, 2019 No Comments
A few years back, I had one fright­en­ing week. I had my head down, work­ing hard, when I heard a com­mo­tion out­side. I got up to look out my front win­dow and saw the SWAT team march­ing towards my house, car­ry­ing guns and wear­ing bul­let-proof vests. Once the sound of the news heli­copters alert­ed me to turn on the TV, I found out what was going on: there had been a work­place shoot­ing in my nor­mal­ly qui­et neigh­bor­hood, and at first law enforce­ment thought the gun­man might be on the loose.… more
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Come On, Rain!

Weathering Weather

March 12, 2019 No Comments
Phyl­lis: Min­neso­ta has had a win­ter full of weath­er this year. We’ve just fin­ished the snowiest Feb­ru­ary on record, and now March is blow­ing down on us with the promised of wind and rain and (most like­ly) still more snow. An anony­mous British poet wrote of the weath­er, “We’ll weath­er the weath­er what­ev­er the weath­er.” We decid­ed to not only weath­er the weath­er but to cel­e­brate it with a few weath­ery pic­ture books.… more
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Carla Killough McClafferty

Skinny Dip with Carla McClafferty

February 12, 2019 No Comments
We’re pleased to wel­come author Car­la Kil­lough McClaf­fer­ty to our Skin­ny Dip col­umn. She is known for her fine and care­ful­ly researched non­fic­tion books, such as The Many Faces of George Wash­ing­ton: Remak­ing a Pres­i­den­tial Icon; Some­thing Out of Noth­ing: Marie Curie and Radi­um; Fourth Down and Inch­es: Con­cus­sions and Foot­bal­l’s Make-or-Break Moment and her most recent Buried Lives: The Enslaved Peo­ple of George Wash­ing­ton’s Mount Ver­non.… more
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Pamela S. Turner

Pairing Nonfiction and Fiction

January 24, 2019 4 Comments
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 of this Japan­ese hero was learn­ing about the under­ly­ing polit­i­cal, social and eco­nom­ic cur­rents that result­ed in the 700-year-long rule of the samu­rai.… more
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Padma Venkatraman

Skinny Dip with Padma Venkatraman

January 9, 2019 No Comments
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 do you have in your house?… more
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Runaway Pumpkin

Gobble up a Good Time

November 21, 2018 No Comments
It is amaz­ing how quick­ly depart­ment stores move all of the Hal­loween items out and bring out Christ­mas lights, wrap­ping paper, reli­gious items, dif­fer­ent sized San­ta Claus­es and orna­ments. Oh, and who can for­get about the start of Christ­mas music at the begin­ning of Novem­ber? I love Christ­mas, but for the longest time, I’ve been con­fused about why depart­ment stores do not ded­i­cate space for Thanks­giv­ing.… more
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Pie and Gratitude

November 6, 2018 1 Comment
Novem­ber is a month of grat­i­tude — and, for us, a month to cel­e­brate Pie. We all have a favorite. Many of us have child­hood mem­o­ries of good times and pie. We all wait for the days when we can eat pie for break­fast. So we two thought this would be the per­fect month to look at pic­ture books about pie.… more
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Maurna Rome

Read-Alouds That Leave a Lasting Imprint

May 16, 2018 2 Comments
The gift of a favorite teacher read­ing aloud an unfor­get­table book is an expe­ri­ence like­ly to leave a last­ing imprint on a student’s heart. For me, it was Ramona the Pest, intro­duced by my sec­ond-grade teacher. I’ll always remem­ber Tam­my Burns, the girl in my class who had beau­ti­ful ringlets just like Ramona’s class­mate Susan. And just like Ramona, I was always tempt­ed to give those curls a good tug to see if they would go “boing.”… more
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Summoning Spring

April 26, 2018 No Comments
Jack­ie: Spring is a lit­tle late com­ing to the Mid­west this year. But we can remem­ber sun­ny days with vio­lets and tril­li­um bloom­ing and rainy days that turn the grass green (instead of the snow we con­tin­ue to get in mid-April). Rainy days make us think of ducks and we are going to beck­on reluc­tant spring with sto­ries of ducks.… more
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In Memoriam: Wendy Watson

February 25, 2018 2 Comments
Wendy Wat­son was a third gen­er­a­tion author and artist. Her grand­par­ents, Ernest W. Wat­son and Eva Auld Wat­son, were painters and pio­neer col­or block print­ers.  Ernest was also founder and edi­tor of the mag­a­zine Amer­i­can Artist, co-founder of Wat­son-Gup­till Pub­li­ca­tions, and co-founder of one of the first sum­mer art schools, the Berk­shire Sum­mer School of Art. Wendy’s father, Aldren A.
… more
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Kari Pearson

Laughing Matters

January 30, 2018 2 Comments
This month, Jacque­line Brig­gs Mar­tin and Phyl­lis Root, the usu­al hosts of this col­umn, have invit­ed Kari Pear­son to share her rec­om­men­da­tions for fun­ny pic­ture books. Let’s play a game! It’s called Funny/Not Fun­ny. It goes like this: Fun­ny: Eat­ing greasy bloaters with cab­bage-and-pota­to sog (see: How Tom Beat Cap­tain Najork and His Hired Sports­men) Not Fun­ny: Shov­el­ing gigan­tic snow­drifts out of my dri­ve­way into piles almost as tall as myself.… more
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DeDe Small

Skinny Dip with DeDe Small

January 2, 2018 No Comments
DeDe Small shares her enthu­si­asm about books, read­ing, and lit­er­a­cy with her stu­dents at Drake Uni­ver­si­ty in Des Moines, Iowa. We invit­ed DeDe to Skin­ny Dip with us, our first inter­view in the New Year. When did you first start reading books? I don’t actually remember learning to read but I do always remember having books. I even came up with my own cataloging system in the later elementary grades.… more
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Katy and the Big Snow

Let It Snow!

December 20, 2017 No Comments
Phyl­lis: The first real snow has fall­en overnight, and the qual­i­ty of light when I wake up is lumi­nous out­side the win­dow. Sol­stice approach­es, and we’ve turned our thoughts to books about win­ter and snow. So many to choose from! Here are a few. When my grown daugh­ter saw a copy of Katy and the Big Snow by Vir­ginia Lee Bur­ton on my book­shelf, she cried, “Oh!… more
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Kelly Starling Lyons

Skinny Dip with Kelly Starling Lyons

December 19, 2017 2 Comments
You may know Kel­ly Star­ling Lyons for One Mil­lion Men and Me or Tea Cakes for Tosh or Ellen’s Broom, mem­o­rable pic­ture books, but we’re cel­e­brat­ing her new chap­ter books star­ring Jada Jones! Thanks, Kel­ly, for tak­ing a Skin­ny Dip with us in December. Who was your favorite teacher in grades K-7 and why? That’s a tough question.… more
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Thanksgiving Tea

November 30, 2017 7 Comments
The week before Thanks­giv­ing I was part of a won­der­ful Thanks­giv­ing-themed Sto­ry­time. Excel­lent books were read: Otis Gives Thanks by Loren Long and Thank­ful by Eileen Spinel­li. We sang through There Was An Old Lady Who Swal­lowed A Turkey by Lucille Colan­dro, and Sim­ple Gifts by Chris Rasch­ka. All was going swim­ming­ly — beau­ti­ful chil­dren, rapt and smil­ing. They were very young, but you could tell they were read to reg­u­lar­ly.… more
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How to Make Apple Pie and See the World

Pie Season

November 23, 2017 3 Comments
Jack­ie: This is grat­i­tude sea­son and that is a good reminder. Many of us have plen­ty to be grate­ful for and we often for­get that while wait­ing for the next good things. It’s also Pie Sea­son. It is the one time of the year at my house when we have no holds barred on pie. Every­one gets to have a favorite at Thanks­giv­ing.… more
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Lisa Bullard

Pickle Voice

November 8, 2017 2 Comments
I think that what we mean when we talk about “writer’s voice” is a writer’s personality showing up on the page. It emerges through many diverse writing choices, ranging from word usage to tone to rhythm.
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Maurna Rome

Capitulate vs Conquer

July 13, 2017 No Comments
As I eager­ly gath­ered up my ideas and insights for a fol­low-up arti­cle about last month’s “Mys­tery Read­er” top­ic, I found myself try­ing to nego­ti­ate two seem­ing­ly incom­pat­i­ble schools of thought regard­ing effec­tive lit­er­a­cy teach­ing and learn­ing. I am a huge pro­po­nent of stu­dent choice and voice (instead of teacher- or cur­ricu­lum-dic­tat­ed text selec­tions), teacher exper­tise (instead of reliance on script­ed pro­grams), and fos­ter­ing a life­long love and moti­va­tion for read­ing (instead of seek­ing the holy grail of high test scores).… more
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All the World's a Stage

Theater Geeks!

May 19, 2017 No Comments
If your chil­dren (or you) are cap­ti­vat­ed by tal­ent shows on TV, or dreams of act­ing on the stage, or the next the­ater pro­duc­tion at school, there are a cho­rus line of books just wait­ing to audi­tion for your next favorite. Here’s a mix­ture of clas­sic and new sto­ries, rang­ing in inter­est from grades 3 through 7.   All the World’s a Stage
writ­ten by Gretchen Woelfle, illus by Thomas Cox
Hol­i­day House, 2011 Twelve-year-old Kit Buck­les has come to Lon­don to make his for­tune.
… more
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Potato Latkes

Potato Latkes

December 22, 2016 No Comments
One of the traditional foods served at Hannukah celebrations, this recipe for Potato Latkes will have your nose twitching and your mouth watering! Happy Hannukah!
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Thanks a Million

Thanksgiving is a Good Time for a Book

November 21, 2016 No Comments
As food is being prepared and family gathers, as food is being digested and some people are napping, as sports and shopping beckon, perhaps it's a good time to take out a stack of Thanksgiving books to read aloud as a family.
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Making Friends with Billy Wong

Third Grader Reading at a Sixth Grade Level

November 1, 2016 5 Comments
Respond­ing to a par­ent request for books that would inter­est her third-grad­er-read­ing-at-a-sixth-grade-lev­el, we crowd-sourced a list. Big thanks to Sara Alcott, Lin­da Baie, Les­ley Man­dros Bell, Karen Cramer, Caren Creech, Melin­da Fant, Ellen Klar­re­ich, Vick­ie LoP­ic­co­lo, Ellen McEvoy, Lau­ra Moe, Tunie Mun­son-Ben­son, Vic­ki Palmquist, Car­rie Shay, Faythe Dyrud Thureen, Cindy Walk­er, and Sharon J. Wilson. Unlike our usu­al anno­tat­ed book­lists, we are pre­sent­ing this one in alpha­bet­i­cal order by book title due to the length of the list.
… more
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vinegar pie marthastewart.com marcus nilsson

Vinegar Pie

October 20, 2016 2 Comments
In honor of our Bookstorm, Presenting Buffalo Bill: the Man Who Invented the Wild West, we discovered that on the wagon trail, when fresh apples weren't available, apple cider vinegar made a tasty pie.
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Maurna Rome

Windows, Mirrors, Sliding Glass Doors, and Maps

September 13, 2016 No Comments
“There seems lit­tle chance of devel­op­ing the humil­i­ty so urgent­ly need­ed for world coöper­a­tion, instead of world con­flict, as long as our chil­dren are brought up on gen­tle dos­es of racism through their books.” —Nan­cy Larrick “When chil­dren can­not find them­selves reflect­ed in the books they read, or when the images they see are dis­tort­ed, neg­a­tive or laugh­able, they learn a pow­er­ful les­son about how they are deval­ued in the soci­ety of which they are a part.” —… more
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A Few Tall Tales from the Land of Rampaging Zucchini

August 31, 2016 1 Comment
Jack­ie:  Phyl­lis, the zuc­chi­ni seeds you gave me have grown into a plant that knocked on our back door this morn­ing. I gave it cof­fee and it retreat­ed to the yard, head­ing toward the alley. When I was a kid one of my favorite sto­ries was the tall tale of Paul Bun­yan. I laughed at the exag­ger­a­tion, the total wack­i­ness of an ox so large his foot­prints made the Great Lakes.… more
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Mélina Mangal

Skinny Dip with Mélina Mangal

July 20, 2016 1 Comment
For this inter­view, we vis­it with Méli­na Man­gal, chil­dren’s book author and librarian: What’s your favorite late-night snack? My favorite ANYTIME snack is white cheddar popcorn.   Most cherished childhood memory?   Roaming through the north woods, climbing trees with my sister and brothers.  I loved being outdoors so much.    Illustrator’s work you most admire?… more
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Old

July 12, 2016 4 Comments
“That’s your Great-Grandfather Who Lost His Arm in the Battle of the Wilderness.” That was his name. In a big gold gilt-framed photo: a distinguished-looking, white-haired, mustached gentleman high above the upright piano in my grandmother’s music room.
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