This Biographer and Her Living Subject
I wonder how often a picture book biographer has been friends with her subject for several decades and then worked closely with that person to get her manuscript just right.
Vicki Palmquist
Gardening and Community
To encourage planting seeds to save the environment, to brighten spirits, and to instill a sense of connection and possibility, I like to read the following books that focus on gardening and community. Read and grow!
Ramadan and Eid al-Fitr
Ramadan begins this year on March 22nd, and culminates with Eid al-Fitr on either April 20th or 21st. Here are books you can read with your children if you are observing Ramadan or if you are honoring Ramadan with your friends and family.
Pamela S. Turner
I had several goals from the onset. The first was to make human evolution understandable. I have always been interested in the topic but found it very confusing
Finding Family: The Duckling Raised by Loons
The Loon Project, based in Minnesota and Wisconsin, discovered a loon family caring for a mallard duckling. Finding Family relates that story ...
Welcoming Spring with Froggy Books and Wild Experiences
This much-anticipated froggy season and this week's World Frog Day mark a time of increased appreciation for our amphibian neighbors. It's the perfect time to study frogs
This is the Planet Where I Live
Illustrating a book written by K.L. Going, This is the Planet Where I Live, Debra Frasier works with collage that exuberantly celebrates our connections to everything on this earth.
Two Books about Grief
Take these books to heart: two books that will help adults and children find paths into discussions about this part of life, Sitting Shiva and Walking Grandma Home.
Gandalf Lives!
I’m not certain, but I suspect stories have played significant roles in the lives of most librarians. We are story people, after all — their sacred keepers, and we delight in helping others discover their wonders.
Fabulous Food
There are so many terrific books about food! I could go on and on with selections and recommendations but these are a few of my favorites.
Library Girl
I eagerly waited for this book. I wasn’t prepared to fall in love, which I most definitely have.
Maizy Chen’s Last Chance
This book has everything going for it. You'll laugh, you'll cry, you'll wind up caring about the characters, and you'll want to eat at the Golden Palace in Last Chance, Minnesota.
Winter!
Now that snow has fallen in many places throughout the land, it's time to celebrate the frozen crystals in picture books, nonfiction, and early chapter books.
One Winter Up North
The Boundary Waters Canoe Area Wilderness in Minnesota, stretching for 150 miles along the Canadian border, is the setting for John Owens’ newest wordless picture book.
The Voice of My Heart
It works well to read poems here and there from The Voice of My Heart ... but I often find myself caught up in the expressions of love and longing, moving from one poem to the next, contemplating, learning, feeling.
Dance Party
Dance has many personalities and appeals to a myriad of people. Here are some exceptional books for very young readers through teens (and adults, too).
Garvey in the Dark
With her usual positive and hopeful storytelling, Nikki Grimes reminds us that lives changed during the Covid pandemic, affecting many people in many different ways. Garvey's story will resonate deeply with readers of all ages.
Mushy Bottom Blueberry Crumble
A new recipe is always an adventure. I’ve recently experimented with low carbohydrate, low sugar recipes. Starting a new writing project is just as much an experiment. Each book requires a different look at research, and I build on what I’ve learned with other projects.
Superheroes and Lost Things
The titles of J.S. Puller's first two books intrigued me so much that I immediately checked them out of the library. Once I finished them, I asked her for an interview.
We Belong
I've seen many questions on social media, asking which books teachers will read aloud to their classroom during the first week of school. I don't teach in a classroom but I've thought about this question anyway.
Hero for the Hungry
So many young readers are activists already. How can they help becoming Hunger activists after reading this book?
The Genius Under the Table
Eugene Yelchin grew up in Stalinist Russia, the Cold War Soviet Union. We grow to love his parents, his grandmother, his brother Victor, but most especially Eugene. His memories are at once sad and humorous.
A Literary Bathroom
And then came the time to choose a theme for the bathroom. We got the family together so everyone could have their say. And people…I’m so proud! Our offspring suggested a literary-themed bathroom!
Samira Surfs
I don't think I've ever read a novel about surfing before Samira Surfs. I was fascinated by the setting, the sport, and the culture, different than my own.
Finding Junie Kim
The author unfolds the story in a way that young readers will find mesmerizing, imagining her characters in real life, turning the page again and again to learn what will happen next, both in mid-century Korea and in the United States today.
Good Luck Gold & more
This book will make you feel, many different feelings. It is filled with poetry and a short essay about the poem on the facing page. There are two or three questions at the bottom of each essay that encourage digging deeper ... into your own experience.
How Parks Connect Us
… and Why It Matters
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.
Girls Solve Everything
Reading this book, I jumped up and down with excitement. I kept turning the pages until I had read every one of the true stories. My brain revved into high speed as I learned about girls and women, problem solving and innovating.
Loyalty
Leave it to Avi to find a way to help me look at the Revolutionary War from a new perspective. Make that two. Young Noah is the son of a Loyalist and minister, pledged to the King. When local revolutionaries tar and feather his father, the family flees to Boston.
Needing work, Noah finds a job as a British spy and a server in a tavern, where he can easily overhear plans and report on them.
Peace Books
We're publishing a list of some of the more recent books about peace and conflict resolution, as annotated by Carol Spiegel, a long-time K-8 educator.
Odd Bods
One of my favorite nonfiction picture books so far this year is Odd Bods: the World’s Unusual Animals by Julie Murphy.
Here’s a brief description:
Long snouts, bright-red lips, pointy heads … the animal kingdom is full of critters with unique features. Learn about the incredible adaptations that help these animals – and their odd bods – survive and thrive all around the globe!
Curiouser and Curiouser with Karen Cushman
When we published our first issue of Bookology back in April of 2015, Karen Cushman was our first featured author. With the publication of her 10th book, War and Millie McGonigle, we knew it was time to check in, curious about the way Karen organizes and writes her novels.
Picture Book Parade
This season, if you visit Minneapolis’ Midtown Farmers Market, you’ll stroll by a harvest of picture books by Minnesota authors: Picture Book Parade—a new initiative by children’s authors Sarah Warren and Catherine Urdahl.
We Are the Future
We Are the Future: Poems with a Voice for Peace is impossible to read without being deeply moved by the open hearts and minds of refugee and immigrant youth in the Seattle area, guided by poets and teachers Merna Hecht and Carrie Stradley.
Notes from a Reluctant Researcher
I’ve never been a fan of research. I prefer to make stuff up, and even when my world-building demands facts, my first, lazy inclination is to fudge my way through. With this book, though, I had to knuckle down.
Crossings
Why do I love this expository literature book so much? Because it cleverly combines environmental science and engineering in a way that’s bound to engage a broad audience of young readers.
Robert Topp
We welcome Robert Topp, owner of The Hermitage Bookshop in Denver, Colorado, and reader-aloud extraordinaire, volunteering in the public schools for more than 28 years.
The Startup Squad
In which we interview Brian Weisfeld, one of the authors of The Startup Squad series, featuring a reluctant team of four girls who start their own business. I found them to be charming … and I mean that in both senses of the word: being appealing and casting a spell.
No Way, They Were Gay?
Why do I love this book so much? Because Wind does a phenomenal job of weaving together excerpts from a diverse array of primary source materials to reassess the sexual and gender identities of a dozen famous and lesser-known figures from the past.
Doorways to the Wild and Wondrous
Today, writing about nature and outdoor play just feels as natural and right to me as breathing. All my happy memories of chasing frogs, climbing trees, and splashing in summer lakes easily inform the stories I write.
Ideas and Details
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.
The Apollo Missions
The fiftieth anniversary of the Apollo 11 moon landing in July 2019 inspired many new books along with some updates and reissues of existing titles. For those who haven’t had the chance to look at all the possibilities, let me introduce you to a few.
Kids in Business
Patience and perseverance are among the hardest things for children to learn. How can we make pressing on in the face of discouragement interesting to kids? By reading them amazing stories of creativity and resilience! Picture book biographies show the satisfying results of persevering over a lifetime. All ages will be inspired by the true tales shared in these ten picture books.
Catherine Urdahl
As a child, I was shy and scared — of other kids, dogs, almost anything outside my fence. My parents enrolled me in preschool, hoping I’d blossom. I refused to get out of the car. I had everything I needed at home, including a mom who loved reading to me. My first book memory is Three Bedtime Stories: The Three Little Kittens, The Three Little Pigs, The Three Bears, illustrated by Garth Williams.
Children’s Literacy Foundation
Imagine the joy of a child who never had the privilege of owning a book being able to choose new hardcover or paperback editions for free out of hundreds displayed in front of him. The Children’s Literacy Foundation doesn’t have to imagine. Staff have seen the excited smiles on these young faces for the past 23 years, and they hear the same question wherever they go.
Hedy Lamarr’s Double Life
One of my favorite STEM-themed picture book biographies is Hedy Lamarr’s Double Life: Hollywood Legend and Brilliant Inventor by Laurie Wallmark and Katy Wu.
Here’s a brief description:
To her adoring public, Hedy Lamarr was a glamorous movie star, widely considered the most beautiful woman in the world. But in private, she was a brilliant inventor.
During World War II, Hedy collaborated with another inventor to develop an innovative technology called frequency hopping.
The Soaring Imagination of Uri Shulevitz
In two of his picture books Uri Shulevitz introduces a child alone in a room, isolated, similar to our quarantined children today who are stuck at home, cut off from friends. But where is the iPad, television or computer screen? Look closely—there are none in the pictures.
Carole Boston Weatherford
Carole Boston Weatherford has been writing since she was in first grade. Her father taught printing and was able to publish those early stories. Weatherford has written dozens of picture books for young readers — and all readers. We cannot be exhaustive here, but we can introduce you to this wonderful writer.
Perseverance
Patience and perseverance are among the hardest things for children to learn. How can we make pressing on in the face of discouragement interesting to kids? By reading them amazing stories of creativity and resilience!
Library Love:
Children’s Author Shares Her Passion for Research
Author Tracy Nelson Maurer shares, "My heart leapt when I learned that I was old enough for my first library card—the key to that vast kingdom of words. I’ve treasured each library card since then."