Bookology Magazine

Marsha Qualey

Cloth and the Picture Book:
Storytelling with Textile Techniques

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Spiike Ugliest Dog in the Universe
Author and illus­tra­tor Debra Frasi­er was invit­ed to lec­ture on this top­ic to the West­ern North Car­oli­na Tex­tile Study Group, and the pub­lic, in mid-Novem­ber 2017. This is the bib­li­og­ra­phy that accom­pa­nies Debra’s pre­sen­ta­tion, with book selec­tions by Debra Frasi­er and Vic­ki Palmquist. If you would like to invite Debra to give this pre­sen­ta­tion to your group, please con­tact her.… more

Pigs Galore

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Gracie LaRoo on the Big Screen
This past Sep­tem­ber, after years of writ­ing and teach­ing the writ­ing of real­is­tic YA fic­tion, I was pleased to launch into the world a set of four ear­ly chap­ter books. Not sur­pris­ing­ly, the chal­lenge of telling a sto­ry in 1000 words instead of 60,000 was huge. It was not the only challenge. Instead of focus­ing on a teen girl in tur­moil, I was now writ­ing about a talk­ing pig.… more

In Memoriam

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2015 saw the pass­ing of sev­er­al authors and illus­tra­tors of Eng­lish-lan­guage chil­dren’s books. We share this in their hon­or and to say “thank-you” once again.… more

At the Dying of the Year

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by Vir­ginia Euw­er Wolff Now win­ter downs the dying of the year, And night is all a set­tle­ment of snow…  —Richard Wilbur, “Year’s End”   We all have our cir­cles of par­tic­u­lar­ly mourned lost ones. As our hemi­sphere dark­ens down in this ele­giac sea­son of the win­ter equinox, and death has been so relent­less­ly in the air dur­ing 2015, I wave my own lit­tle flags of grat­i­tude to some of my men­tors and acci­den­tal teachers.… more

Two for the Show: Winter Stories

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by Jacque­line Brig­gs Mar­tin and Phyl­lis Root Jack­ie: Ah win­ter. Sea­son of hol­i­days and snow. Such a rich­ness of stories. Phyl­lis: I have a shelf full of favorite Christ­mas books. What most of them have in com­mon is sto­ry, not just about Christ­mas itself but also about fam­i­lies cel­e­brat­ing their con­nec­tion to each oth­er.  They meet my own test for a good Christ­mas sto­ry — take away Christ­mas from the set­ting and the sto­ry still has a strong heart­beat about love, fam­i­ly, com­mu­ni­ty, and car­ing for each other. … more

Skinny Dip with Roxanne Orgill

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What keeps you up at night? Thoughts of my two children: their school issues, health problems, things they said or didn’t say. What calms me and gets me to sleep, perhaps oddly, is to think about the book I’m writing at the moment. I can think about parts of it I like, what I’ll write next, and even problems whose solutions are right then, anyway, out of my grasp, and drift off, content.… more

Mary Casanova: Cultivating Quiet

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by Mary Casanova Eudo­ra Wel­ty wrote in One-Writer’s Begin­nings: “Long before I wrote sto­ries, I lis­tened for stories.” The more I write, the more I find that writ­ing is about lis­ten­ing to sto­ries that need to be told. Lis­ten­ing at a deeply intu­itive lev­el, how­ev­er, demands shut­ting out a fre­net­ic world in favor of a qui­eter life — one that sup­ports and nur­tures cre­ativ­i­ty — and writing.… more

Interview with Julie Downing: Illustrating The Firekeeper’s Son

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inter­view by Vic­ki Palmquist and Mar­sha Qualey The illustrations in The Firekeeper's Son are all double-page spreads. How did that design decision affect your choices and work? I decided on the format because the landscape is an important part of the story. The original dummy I made had fewer pages so I split many spreads into smaller images.… more

Skinny Dip with Loretta Ellsworth

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Skinny Dipping
What keeps you up at night?  Usually my son Andrew – he’s blind and sometimes gets day and night mixed up. What is your proudest career moment? Finishing a novel, meaning writing and revising until I’m satisfied with it – no matter what happens with the manuscript, I know I’ve accomplished an amazing goal. Describe your favorite pair of pajamas ever When I was young I had a pair of footie pajamas that I loved and wore out.… more

Skinny Dip with Candace Fleming

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What’s the first book you remember reading? The first book I remember reading on my own is E.B. White’s Stuart Little.  I was seven years old and it was the Saturday before Christmas – the day of St. John Lutheran’s annual holiday party. I loved that party! The potluck. The carols. The visit from Santa Claus (really Pastor Frankenfeld in a red suit). … more

Interview with Linda Sue Park: Writing The Firekeeper’s Son

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How do you begin the research for a story set long ago? I go to the library. I live in New York state, which has a wonderful interlibrary loan system. My local library can get me books from anywhere in the state. Many of my sources have come from the East Asian collections of university libraries.… more

The Power of Fiction to Help Kids Grow

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by Eliz­a­beth Fixmer The years I spent in pri­vate prac­tice as a psy­chother­a­pist spe­cial­iz­ing in work with chil­dren pro­pelled me to become a children’s writer. My use of books as a ther­a­py adjunct evolved over time, as did my respect and even­tu­al awe for the pow­er of fic­tion as a change agent. My young clients intro­duced me to mid­dle-grade and young-adult nov­els.… more

Skinny Dip with Catherine Urdahl

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Skinny Dipping
What’s your proudest career moment? I had just started doing author visits and was at a small school that serves a high-risk population of students from preschool through eighth grade. I started with the little ones, and it went well. I had this. Then a group of TALL sixth through eighth graders sauntered in. They slumped in their seats and looked away.… more

Beautiful Books: an interview with designer Marty Ittner

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Untamed: the Wild Life of Jane Goodall
For young writ­ers who aspire to write infor­ma­tion books of their own, or read­ers who will enjoy the expe­ri­ence of read­ing more, we’d like to help them under­stand how a book design­er works. Mar­ty Ittner designed Untamed: the Wild Life of Jane Goodall and gra­cious­ly agreed to answer bookol­o­gist Vic­ki Palmquist’s questions. When you start the process of designing a book, what provides your inspiration?… more

Skinny Dip with Anne Ursu

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Skinny Dipping
What keeps you up at night? My cats biting my feet. Describe  your favorite pair of pajamas ever A student got me sushi pajamas. What could be better? In what Olympic sport would you like to win a gold medal? Figure Skating. However, this is very unlikely. What’s the first book you remember reading? There’s a Monster at the End of this Book What TV show can’t you turn off?… more

Marion Dane Bauer: Animals in Stories, Animals in the World

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by Mar­i­on Dane Bauer Who doesn’t love a pup­py? Well, admit­ted­ly there are some folks who don’t, espe­cial­ly con­sid­er­ing how dif­fi­cult both ends of such crea­tures are to keep under con­trol. So let’s rephrase the ques­tion: Who doesn’t love a pup­py in a children’s sto­ry? Or even a frog or a toad, for that matter? Some­thing hap­pens to a sto­ry when it is pop­u­lat­ed by ani­mals, some­thing easy to feel but dif­fi­cult to define.… more

Skinny Dip with Maurna Rome

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Skinny Dipping
What keeps you up at night? My mad dash attempts to finish a video, write an article, apply for a grant, or get to the last page of a terrific book often keep me up at night.  What is your proudest career moment? My proudest career moment changes each year as I discover the unique talents of a new bunch of students.… more

Interview with Anita Silvey: Writing about Dr. Jane Goodall

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For young writ­ers who aspire to write infor­ma­tion books of their own, we’d like to help them under­stand how a writer works.   When do you remember becoming aware of Dr. Jane Goodall? I worked at Houghton Mifflin when many of her books were being published and knew her editor well. The first time I heard her give one of her brilliant lectures, I became a total convert.     … more

Chair of Honor for Vera B. Williams

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by Jacque­line Brig­gs Mar­tin and Phyl­lis Root Jacque­line Brig­gs Mar­tin: Some writ­ers teach us craft. Some writ­ers inspire us. Vera B. Williams does both. As part of cel­e­brat­ing her won­der­ful life and career we want to take anoth­er look at her love­ly sto­ries and her busy life. One of the many remark­able things about her books is that they “erupt” (as she said) from the activ­i­ties of her life.… more

Skinny Dip with Rick Chrustowski

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Skinny Dipping
What animal are you most like? Sometimes I am a Zen-like praying mantis, sitting and watching the world. And other times I am hopped up like a hummingbird zipping around trying to get a bunch of things done at once or, if I am at a party, trying to meet everyone in the room. Which book of yours was the most difficult to write or illustrate?… more

Jen Bryant: The Writing Apprenticeship

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by Jen Bryant Sev­er­al months ago, I was asked to be on a pan­el for a new-writ­ers work­shop. Dur­ing the ques­tion and answer peri­od, one woman com­ment­ed: “I keep hear­ing that writ­ing is a craft that requires time and prac­tice to mas­ter. I get that … but as some­one who’s eager to be an appren­tice but has nei­ther the time nor mon­ey to enroll in an MFA pro­gram, how — exact­ly — do I go about find­ing some­one who’s qual­i­fied, will­ing, and avail­able to men­tor me?”… more

Untamed Companion Booktalks

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Magic Gourd
To get you start­ed on the Book­storm™ Books … 
   The Chim­panzees I Love: Sav­ing Their World and Ours Jane Goodall
Scholas­tic Press, 2001 Uses sto­ries of indi­vid­ual chim­panzees to share infor­ma­tion about chim­panzee behav­ior and their envi­ron­ment as well as the author’s own biography Heav­i­ly illus­trat­ed with engag­ing photos Wealth of infor­ma­tion pre­sent­ed in nar­ra­tive, side­bar com­men­tary, pic­ture cap­tions, quo­ta­tions, and back matter
  The Ele­phant Scientist Caitlin O’Connell and Don­na M.
… more

Skinny Dip with Steve Mudd

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Skinny Dipping
What’s your favorite holiday tradition? A Christmas tree! Were you a teacher’s pet or teacher’s challenge? Sadly, pet. What’s the first book report you ever wrote? The first one I can remember that made an impression on me was an oral report on Shane (with which the teacher, one of my favorites, was not overly impressed).… more

Interview: Candace Fleming

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Bulldozer’s Big Day is a perfect read-aloud, with wonderful sound and action opportunities on most pages. Did those moments affect your decision about what verbs to use? How lovely you think it’s a perfect read aloud. I worked hard at the story’s readability. Not only did I strive for a pace and cadence, but I wanted the story to sound as active as the plot’s setting with lots of bumping and clanging and vrooming.… more

Skinny Dip with Emilie Buchwald

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What keeps you up at night?  All that I didn’t accomplish during the day. All that I hope to accomplish the next day. In what Olympic sport would you like to win a gold medal? The marathon. The long distance performance inspires me.  I’ve driven a marathon course of 26.2 miles and can’t imagine being able to run it.… more

USBBY Reflections

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by Nan­cy Bo Flood  Books can help read­ers heal. Sto­ries can cre­ate com­pas­sion. Every one needs to find “their sto­ry” in books. The Unit­ed States Board on Books for Young Peo­ple (USBBY) is part of The Inter­na­tion­al Board on Books for Young Peo­ple (IBBY), a world-wide orga­ni­za­tion that works to build bridges of under­stand­ing through chil­dren’s and young adult books.… more

Liza Ketchum: Serendipity

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Serendip­i­ty is one of my favorite words. I love its dance­like sound and the way it trips off the tongue. Accord­ing to my dic­tio­nary, serendip­i­ty means “the fac­ul­ty of mak­ing for­tu­nate dis­cov­er­ies by accident.” I find the ety­mol­o­gy of words fas­ci­nat­ing. Even as a child, I liked to study the maps that show the rela­tion­ship and ori­gins of Indo-Euro­pean lan­guages.… more

Skinny Dip with Diana Star Helmer

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What animal are you most like? My answer to this question could unwind like an endless ball of yarn! But I shall try to be brief. For as long as I can remem­ber, I have loved cats. Look­ing back at my life, I can see how I am cat-like. I watch; I always have. When I first went to school, I was an “elec­tive mute” for some time, just watch­ing and fig­ur­ing things out.… more

Two for the Show: What Scares You?

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Note to read­ers: we are try­ing a new for­mat this month. We want to make our blog more con­ver­sa­tion­al. Let us know what you think. Phyl­lis Root:
What scares you? How do you deal with that fear? And why do so many of us like to scare our­selves sil­ly, as long as we know that every­thing will be all right in the end?… more

Skinny Dip with Amy Baum

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What keeps you up at night? The Disney version of The Legend of Sleepy Hollow. I had to sleep in my sister’s room for 6 months after that terrifying cartoon. What’s the first book you remember reading? Little Bear by Else Holmelund Minarik. I loved Little Bear and his very functional family. Also, I thought it was simply magical that all of the letters spelled out a story.… more

Avi: Bags of Cement

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For rea­sons both bor­ing and com­plex, I cur­rent­ly find myself under oblig­a­tion to deliv­er four nov­els before the next twelve months are out. Two are writ­ten, but under­go­ing revi­sions. A third has start­ed. The fourth has noth­ing on paper; only in my mind. Is it an acci­dent that my shoul­ders have been aching, as if I had been car­ry­ing bags of cement up a ladder? … more

Skinny Dip with Nancy Bo Flood

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What keeps you up at night? Popcorn in the brain. Ideas are popping and images are streaming through my brain. I know that if I don’t get up (ugh, really, 3 am?) and write them down, I won’t have a clue in the morning what they were. All those brilliant ideas, gone! I like to read a chapter from my current work just before I go to bed.… more

Authors Emeritus: Virginia Lee Burton

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Vir­ginia Lee Bur­ton was born on August 30, 1909 in New­ton Cen­tre, Mass­a­chu­setts. She stud­ied art at the Cal­i­for­nia School of Fine Arts and the Boston Muse­um School. One of her ear­li­est jobs was as a “sketch­er” for the arts sec­tion of the Boston Transcript. She mar­ried George Demetrios, a sculp­tor and her teacher at the Muse­um School, in 1931.… more

Interview: Eric Rohmann

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Bull­doz­er’s Big Day
writ­ten by Can­dace Flem­ing
illus­trat­ed by Eric Rohmann
Atheneum, 2015 inter­view by Vic­ki Palmquist What’s the illustration tool you turn to more than any other? Graphite pencil. Simple, efficient, erasable, feels good in the hand, makes a lovely line with infinite possibilities for line variation. Did I mention that it’s erasable? Always forgiving!… more

Authors Emeritus: Lynd Ward

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Born in Chica­go on June 26, 1905, Lynd Ward, the son of a Methodist min­is­ter, grew up mov­ing around and liv­ing close to new immi­grants. Ward was a sick­ly baby and the fam­i­ly moved to north­ern Cana­da for sev­er­al months hop­ing his health would improve. Upon the family’s return, Ward, now a health­i­er child, nev­er lost his bond with the wilder­ness.… more

Slideshow: Block Print Illustration

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Eric Rohmann’s won­der­ful illus­tra­tions for Bulldozer’s Big Day were made using block prints, also called relief prints.  This tech­nique has long been used to illus­trate children’s books, espe­cial­ly ear­ly ABC books such as the The Lad­der to Learn­ing by Miss Lovechild, pub­lished in 1852 by the New York firm R.H. Pease. The Bookol­o­gist has put togeth­er a slide show of some of our more recent print-illus­trat­ed books.… more

Skinny Dip with Melanie Heuiser Hill

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What’s the first book you remember reading? Ramona the Pest. My elementary school was visited by RIF (Reading is Fundamental) twice a year—the best days of the year. You had to be in second grade to peruse the tables of novels that were set up in the entry-way to our school. It was enormously exciting—so many to choose from!… more

Melissa Stewart: A Different View

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Recent­ly, I spent sev­er­al weeks strug­gling with a work in progress. Day after day, the words just wouldn’t flow. Over the years, I’ve learned that there’s no way to force a stub­born man­u­script. I just have to focus on some­thing else until my mind some­how sorts things out. Some­times I begin work on a dif­fer­ent book, but in this case, I decid­ed to tack­le a long-neglect­ed task — orga­niz­ing my dig­i­tal photos.… more

Interview: Ann Bausum

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With Courage and Cloth: Win­ning the Fight for a Woman’s Right to Vote
Ann Bausum
Nation­al Geo­graph­ic, 2004 inter­view by Vic­ki Palmquist You state that you weren’t taught women’s history in school. (Neither was I. I remember reading and re-reading the few biographies in the library about Molly Pitcher, Clara Barton, and Florence Nightingale.) When you went looking for information for With Courage and Cloth, how did you start?… more

Skinny Dip with Candice Ransom

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Do you like to gift wrap presents? Yes! I’ll buy the gift wrap before I buy the present! Years ago when I was a teenager, Hallmark started carrying their products in Dart Drug. I lathered over the Hallmark section, spending my allowance on Peanuts cards and gift tags and wrapping paper, yarn and fancy bows. My sister once said that I always spent more on the wrapping than the actual gift.… more

Skinny Dip with Vicki Palmquist

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What do you wish you could tell your 10-year-old self? A good many things, but most emphatically I would tell myself to not listen to the comments about being too smart or showing off by using big words or being too curious. I have always enjoyed learning about new things and sharing what I’ve learned. I love discussing ideas and unknown-to-me corners of the world and people who have accomplished great things and shown great imagination.… more

Debra Frasier: A Series of Mistakes

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Fif­teen years ago my ten year old daugh­ter came home with a story. “Mom, “ she said, “today I fig­ured out that “mis­cel­la­neous” is NOT a person.” I burst out laugh­ing. “So who did you think it was?” I asked. “I thought she was that woman on the green spaghet­ti box…” I saved her gift-of-a-mis­take in my lit­tle jour­nal and end­ed up unwrap­ping it in a lone­ly hotel room in south­ern Wis­con­sin after a par­tic­u­lar­ly mis­er­able book sign­ing of three peo­ple.… more

Skinny Dip with Augusta Scattergood

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What is your proudest career moment? My proudest career moment? Being invited to the American Library Association’s mid-winter conference to introduce my new book. As a career librarian turned middle-grade novelist, it doesn’t get much better than that. I was also hon­ored to have my first nov­el, Glo­ry Be, which takes place dur­ing Free­dom Sum­mer, cho­sen by sev­er­al groups high­light­ing the fifti­eth anniver­sary of that event.… more

Two for the Show

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by Jacque­line Brig­gs Mar­tin and Phyl­lis Root We want to start by say­ing that we are lov­ing the chance to look at for­got­ten books or won­der­ful clas­sics from the past that this blog has giv­en us. And this time, when we were think­ing of what we might look at, John Step­toe came to mind— maybe because we were con­sid­er­ing pos­si­bil­i­ties in August and he died in August of 1989.… more

Skinny Dip with Anita Silvey

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What keeps you up at night? Usually one of my beautiful Bernese Mountain Dogs. My girl developed a love affair with the local raccoon and woke me every time he came near the premises. What’s the bravest thing you’ve ever done? Left a nine to five job with benefits to become a full-time writer. What’s the first book you remember reading?… more

Authors Emeritus: Tom Feelings and Virginia Hamilton

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Authors Emer­i­tus, a com­pi­la­tion of short biogra­phies of deceased children’s lit­er­a­ture cre­ators, is a Bookol­o­gy Children’s Lit­er­a­ture resource.  When a Book­storm™ includes books by authors and illus­tra­tors in the index we like to high­light those biogra­phies. This month: Tom Feel­ings (The Mid­dle Pas­sage) and Vir­ginia Hamil­ton (Many Thou­sand Gone).   Tom Feel­ings, born on May 19, 1933, was a native of Brook­lyn, NY.… more

Chasing Freedom Companion Booktalks

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To get you start­ed on the Book­storm™ Books …
  Alec’s Primer Mil­dred Pitts Wal­ter
illus­trat­ed by Lar­ry John­son
Ver­mont Folk­life Cen­ter, 2005 Based on the true sto­ry of Alec Turn­er (1845−1923), who learned to read as a boy with the help of his own­er’s daughter Sup­ple­ment the sto­ry with sto­ries and songs from tape-record­ed inter­views with Daisy Turn­er, Alec’s daughter A Carter G.
… more

Nikki Grimes: Researching and Writing Chasing Freedom

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Chasing Freedom
Inter­view by Vic­ki Palmquist Chas­ing Free­dom
writ­ten by Nik­ki Grimes
illus­trat­ed by Michelle Wood
Orchard Books, 2014 Did you know more about one of your two characters when you conceived of the book?  Yes. I knew a fair amount about Harriet Tubman. Hers was one of the few stories about African Americans brought out every year during what, in my youth, was called Negro History Month.… more

Quirky Book Lists: Classroom Pets

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Think­ing about adding a class­room pet? Read and think again!
   8 Class Pets + 1 Squir­rel [÷] 1 Dog = Chaos
writ­ten by Vivian Vande Velde
illus­trat­ed by Steve Bjork­man
Hol­i­day House, 2012 Squir­rel likes liv­ing near a school play­ground. He’s not so sure about going inside, though, espe­cial­ly when he’s chased there by a dog and all the class­room pets get involved.
… more

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