Bookology Magazine

Vicki Palmquist

Skinny Dip with Lester Laminack

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Lester Laminack
Lester Lam­i­nack is sought after as a speak­er in school dis­tricts all over the coun­try. A retired pro­fes­sor, active­ly involved in lit­er­a­cy on many lev­els, he’s thought­ful, artic­u­late, and has a sparkling sense of humor.  We’re pleased that this very busy author and speak­er took time to share his thoughts with Bookol­o­gy’s read­ers this month. What’s the weirdest place you’ve ever read a book? … more

Skinny Dip with Laura Purdie Salas

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Laura Purdie Salas
Lau­ra Pur­die Salas is a poet, a researcher, and a pop­u­lar vis­it­ing author in ele­men­tary and mid­dle schools. Sev­er­al of her books have turned heads and stirred up a buzz, includ­ing Water Can Be … and If You Were the Moon. She has pub­lished many books about writ­ing for chil­dren and fre­quent­ly speaks at con­fer­ences. We’re pleased that this very busy author is spend­ing some time with Bookol­o­gy this month.… more

In Memoriam: Wendy Watson

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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.
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In Her Own Words:
The Impact of Personal Accounts on Biography

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I admit it. I am a his­to­ry nerd. Like all biog­ra­phers, I am fas­ci­nat­ed by the past. I love learn­ing about the world of long ago: what peo­ple wore, what they ate, the jobs they had, the wars they fought.  And noth­ing thrills me more when I am research­ing than to dis­cov­er a first­hand account, a per­son­al writ­ing … a pri­ma­ry source. How do first­hand accounts help biog­ra­phers?… more

With My Hands

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Some­times, a book comes across my desk that sparkles like a gem, attract­ing my atten­tion, insist­ing that I stop what I’m doing and read it. This hap­pened when With My Hands: Poems about Mak­ing Things arrived last week. I thought I’d take a peek. Next thing you know, I was clos­ing the last page of the book, sigh­ing with con­tent­ment. And then I knew I had to read the book all over again.… more

Working with an Editor

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Jen Bryant
“What’s it like to work with an editor?”is a ques­tion I often get from teach­ers, stu­dents, and aspir­ing authors and it’s one that takes some time to ful­ly answer. In the best sit­u­a­tions, an editor’s rela­tion­ship to her author is like a coach’s rela­tion­ship to an ath­lete: know­ing her author’s per­son­al­i­ty, tal­ent, and poten­tial, she encour­ages her strengths, while tact­ful­ly push­ing her toward improv­ing on her weak­ness­es.… more

The Magic Misfits

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The Magic Misfits
I’m one of those peo­ple that often reads a celebri­ty-writ­ten book because I’d like to find one that defies the odds. How about you? Did you get over the won­der­ing at a cer­tain point? Or do you still give a new star-pow­ered book a try? Sad­ly, I don’t often find a celebri­ty book I can rec­om­mend. This time, though, I’m prac­ti­cal­ly shout­ing: Read this book!… more

The Secret Kingdom

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The Secret Kingdom
This book is irre­sistible. For all kinds of reasons. Remem­ber when you were a kid, or maybe you do this now, how you’d take what­ev­er was at hand and cre­ate a house, a camp, an entire set­ting for you to play in? Where you could act out your sto­ries? Did you do this with found items from nature? Or things your fam­i­ly was throw­ing away?… more

Capers and Cons

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Capers and Cons The Player King
When you (or your stu­dents) want a book that keeps you turn­ing the pages for your week­night and week­end read­ing, here are some sug­ges­tions for books with that nim­ble pac­ing and what-are-they-up-to plots. Many of them are just right for mid­dle grade or avid younger-than-that read­ers, with a cou­ple of teen titles added. (And, of course, all are suit­able for read­ing by adults.)
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Skinny Dip with Lisa Bullard

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Lisa Bullard. Photo by Katherine Warde
Lisa Bullard is a well-respect­ed writ­ing teacher in Min­neso­ta and beyond, hav­ing shared her wis­dom and her sense of humor about writ­ing with class­rooms full of adults and chil­dren (usu­al­ly not at the same time). She has two books on writ­ing, one for adults (Get Start­ed in Writ­ing for Chil­dren) and one for chil­dren (You Can Write a Sto­ry!… more

The Good Thing about Bad Words

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Karen Blumenthal
It’s mid-Jan­u­ary, I have this Non­fic­tionary dead­line, and all I can think about is Pres­i­dent Trump’s lat­est vulgarity. His recent word choice about cer­tain coun­tries jumped from my phone like an elec­tri­cal charge, lit­er­al­ly and phys­i­cal­ly jolt­ing me back­wards. For the rest of the day and beyond, my soul hurt and my spir­it sagged. But it was just a word.… more

Skinny Dip with Brenda Sederberg

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Brenda Sederberg
Brenda Sederberg is the current facilitator of the Chapter & Verse Book Club in Duluth, Minnesota. She's an enthusiastic reader and wonderfully avid about sharing the books she reads. A retired teacher, she continues to inspire learning wherever she goes.

A Science Rookie: Learning to Craft a Science Narrative When
You Know Next to Nothing about Science

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Susan Latta
Enter the fresh­man chem­istry tutor dressed in torn jeans and a flan­nel shirt. His job? To get me through entry lev­el chem­istry at Iowa State Uni­ver­si­ty. My first col­lege plan was to major in Hotel and Restau­rant Man­age­ment because my father owned a com­pa­ny that did busi­ness with these types of insti­tu­tions. So, what the heck, I didn’t know what else to study so I declared that my major way back in the fall of 1977.… more

Skinny Dip with DeDe Small

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DeDe Small
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

Skinny Dip with Kelly Starling Lyons

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Kelly Starling Lyons
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

Sigurd Olson Nature Writing Award Committee

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North Woods Girl
We’re in the midst of award sea­son, when best of the year lists and spec­u­la­tion about award win­ners pro­lif­er­ate on the social media plat­forms swirling around chil­dren’s and teen books. In Novem­ber, we attend­ed the award cer­e­mo­ny at the Sig­urd Olson Envi­ron­men­tal Insti­tute’s Chil­dren and Young Adult Lit­er­a­ture Con­fer­ence, which takes place at North­land Col­lege in Ash­land, Wis­con­sin (on the awe-inspir­ing south shore of Lake Supe­ri­or).… more

Skinny Dip with Sarah Aronson

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Sarah Aronson
Sarah Aron­son’s most recent books, The Worst Fairy God­moth­er Ever (The Wish List #1, Beach Lane Books) and Keep Calm and Sparkle On! (The Wish List #2) are at once light­heart­ed and seri­ous — sto­ries that are fun to read and encour­age work­ing for caus­es that mat­ter to the world. Sarah is wide­ly known in the chil­dren’s book writ­ing com­mu­ni­ty as an enthu­si­as­tic and effec­tive writ­ing instruc­tor.… more

The Kindness of Teachers

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David LaRochelle
I loved first grade. Fifty-one years lat­er, I still have vivid mem­o­ries of my teacher, Miss Fol­lett. She played the piano every day. She read to us from her giant book of poet­ry. She showed us pho­tos of her trips to exot­ic places, like Alas­ka and Hawaii. At Hal­loween we screamed in ter­ror and delight when she hob­bled into our class­room dressed as a witch.… more

Biography: How to Decide
What Goes into the Soup Pot (and What Doesn’t)

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Susan Latta
It is cold up here in the north coun­try, so late­ly my thoughts have turned to cre­at­ing a steam­ing pot of soup. For soup, you have to hit the high­lights; the chick­en, onions, a car­rot or two. If you toss in too many ingre­di­ents, noth­ing will stand out and the result will be a mud­dled mess. You must also have a spe­cial ingre­di­ent.… more

Skinny Dip with Mira Bartók

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Mira Bartók
Mira Bartók, author and illus­tra­tor, recent­ly ush­ered The Won­der­ling into the world and it is already on sev­er­al best of 2017 book lists. Con­grat­u­la­tions, Mira, and thanks for shar­ing your respons­es with our readers. When did you first start reading books? Age 4. All-time favorite book? The Arrival by Shaun Tan. Favorite breakfast or lunch as a kid?… more

Mighty Jack

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Mighty Jack and the Goblin King
We are thrust into the midst of the action, which nev­er stops until the epi­logue. This is how Ben Hatke tells a story. We don’t know what’s going on. There’s no set­up. Instead, we quick­ly learn that Jack is climb­ing some veg­e­ta­tive mat­ter to find the ogre who kid­napped his sis­ter Mad­dy and take her home. His friend, Lil­ly, no side­kick, is climb­ing along­side him.… more

Art and Words, Words and Art

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Amanda Panda
Thir­ty years ago, I bought a poster of “Jun­gle Tales” by J.J. Shan­non (1895) at the Met in New York City. I took it to my favorite framer, but when it was ready, I was hor­ri­fied to see they’d cut off Met­ro­pol­i­tan Muse­um of Art, The Children’s Book­shop at the bot­tom, fram­ing just the image.  No one thought the words were impor­tant.… more

A Picture and a Thousand Words

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Karen Blumenthal
As a reporter and edi­tor for decades, I often heard peo­ple accuse my col­leagues and me of “bias,” of hav­ing a par­tic­u­lar slant on a sto­ry — usu­al­ly a point of view that the accuser dis­put­ed. It was a com­mon charge, espe­cial­ly if the issue was controversial. But in truth, reporters are no dif­fer­ent than any­one else. Every­one comes to a sub­ject with some kind of bias. … more

Skinny Dip with Susan Yutzey

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Susan Yutzey
Susan Yutzey worked as an Ohio school librar­i­an for many years, serv­ing in local, state, and nation­al lead­er­ship posi­tions. Now retired, she con­tin­ues to be a tire­less advo­cate for school libraries and librarians. Who was your favorite teacher in grades K-7 and why? Ms. D’Angelo was my seventh grade teacher. I was a new student at Edith A.… more

Tiny House, Cozy Cabin

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Mary Casanova
A few months ago, my hus­band and I sold our home of 30 years and decid­ed to live full-time in our cozy cab­in in the woods. We left behind greater square footage, a quaint and some­times bustling vil­lage on the water­front, and a home with lots of fam­i­ly memories. But it was time for a change. Time for more simplicity.… more

Marion Dane Bauer

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Marion Dane Bauer
Mar­i­on Dane Bauer and her books are respect­ed and loved by chil­dren, par­ents, edu­ca­tors, librar­i­ans, edi­tors, and writ­ers. She began her career as a nov­el­ist, turn­ing to pic­ture books lat­er in her career. Cel­e­brat­ing the release of her newest pic­ture book, the charm­ing Win­ter Dance, we were curi­ous about how she writes these short books so we asked!… more

Skinny Dip with Anne Broyles

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Author Anne Broyles is a world trav­el­er, explor­er, and social jus­tice advo­cate who writes books about his­tor­i­cal jour­neys, fam­i­ly tra­di­tions, and the immi­grant experience.  Who was your favorite teacher in grades K-7 and why? My fifth grade teacher at Schumaker Elementary School, Mr. George Willems, encouraged me to think of myself as a writer through our weekly writing assignments.… more

Why Young Writers Need an Authentic Audience

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Melissa Stewart
For me, writ­ing non­fic­tion is a fun adven­ture. A game to play. A puz­zle to solve. A chal­lenge to overcome. But many stu­dents don’t feel the same way. Accord­ing to them, research is bor­ing. Mak­ing a writ­ing plan is a waste of time. And revi­sion is more than frus­trat­ing. It’s down­right painful. Why do young writ­ers have a point of view that’s so com­plete­ly dif­fer­ent from mine?… more

Melanie Heuiser Hill

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Melanie Heuiser Hill
Our Book­storm this month fea­tures Giant Pump­kin Suite, the first nov­el from Melanie Heuis­er Hill (Can­dlewick Press). Often called debut authors, a first-time author is intrigu­ing for a read­er. Is this some­one we’ll look for­ward to read­ing for many years to come? How will this author grow as they become more expe­ri­enced at craft­ing a sto­ry with char­ac­ter, action, and plot?… more

On Growing Older … Old

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Marion Dane Bauer
Why is “old­er” an accept­able word and “old” almost forbidden? To answer my own ques­tion, I sup­pose it’s because we’re all grow­ing old­er, even the four-year-old next door. But old … ah, old smacks of incom­pe­tence, of irrel­e­vance. Even worse, old smacks of that tru­ly obscene-to-our-soci­ety word … death. I am approach­ing my birth­day month. It won’t be a “big” divid­able-by-five birth­day, but still one that feels sig­nif­i­cant for the num­ber it stands close to.… more

Skinny Dip with Patti Lapp

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Patti Lapp
A ded­i­cat­ed edu­ca­tor in Penn­syl­va­nia, we invit­ed Pat­ti Lapp to answer our twen­ty Skin­ny Dip questions.  Who was your favorite teacher in grades K-7 and why? Mr. Jor­dan was my favorite teacher who taught 7th grade. He was fun­ny and straight­for­ward; all of us stu­dents respect­ed him, and he cer­tain­ly kept every­one in line. I attend­ed a Catholic school, and he was unique in that setting.… more

Bookstorm™: Giant Pumpkin Suite

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Giant Pumpkin Suite
Com­pe­ti­tion is a part of young peo­ple’s lives: art, sports, music, dance, sci­ence, cup-stack­ing … many chil­dren spend a good part of their day prac­tic­ing, learn­ing, and striv­ing to do their best. Giant Pump­kin Suite is about two types of com­pe­ti­tions, a Bach Cel­lo Suites Com­pe­ti­tion and a giant pump­kin grow­ing com­pe­ti­tion. Rose and Thomas Bruti­gan are twelve-year-old twins … but their per­son­al­i­ties and inter­ests are quite dif­fer­ent.… more

Getting Inside the Head of the Long Dead

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Pamela S. Turner
Don’t be alarmed by the ghoul­ish­ness of my title. Try­ing to res­ur­rect the life of some­one who turned to dust cen­turies ago is a chal­lenge, espe­cial­ly if the per­son left behind no per­son­al writ­ings such as let­ters or diaries. But it can be done. In prepa­ra­tion for writ­ing Samu­rai Ris­ing: The Epic Life of Minamo­to Yoshit­sune, I read all the aca­d­e­m­ic and pri­ma­ry sources I could find about late-twelfth-cen­tu­ry Japan.… more

For The Beast in Us All

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Maurice the Unbeastly
The theme of being your­self is famil­iar. Many books, movies, and plays are devot­ed to this idea. When it’s done well, we all sit up a lit­tle straighter, laugh more con­fi­dent­ly, and dream about all the things we’d like to do to be true to who we are. Chil­dren need to hear this mes­sage often so anoth­er book, one that tells the sto­ry in a dif­fer­ent way, is welcome.… more

Skinny Dip with Stephanie Calmenson

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Stephanie Calmenson
Author of the beloved Din­ner at the Pan­da Palace, Stephanie Cal­men­son has shared her love of lit­er­a­ture with ear­ly child­hood and ele­men­tary read­ers by chan­nel­ing her enthu­si­asm for their expe­ri­ences into her books.  Who was your favorite teacher in grades K-7 and why? I loved my kinder­garten teacher, Ms. Cogan, who taught with warmth and joy.… more

Windward into Revision

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Author Candice Ransom
In August 2016, I trav­eled to Vinal­haven Island off the coast of Maine to par­tic­i­pate in a week-long fes­ti­val hon­or­ing for­mer res­i­dent Mar­garet Wise Brown. I gave a talk one evening, and, most fun of all, led a work­shop in which atten­dees penned poet­ry and even a pic­ture book in Margaret’s lyri­cal style. Back home again, I wrote about my island expe­ri­ence and my per­son­al con­nec­tion to Mar­garet in a Knock Knock essay pub­lished last August, “Bor­rowed Mag­ic.”… more

Qualifying Credibility

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I long for the good ol’ days when every­one agreed that facts were true and fic­tion was make-believe and made-up facts were lies. Sev­er­al years ago, the dis­sem­i­nat­ing of cur­rent events entered the truthi­ness zone — only to emerge in today’s sur­re­al “alter­nate facts” par­al­lel universe. It is under­stand­ably dif­fi­cult for many peo­ple — and espe­cial­ly young peo­ple — to know how to dis­cern fac­tu­al infor­ma­tion from that which is mere­ly pur­port­ing to be true.… more

Skinny Dip with Margarita Engle

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Margarita Engle
Our cur­rent Young Peo­ple’s Poet Lau­re­ate, Mar­gari­ta Engle has writ­ten about the land, the life, and the heroes of Cuba, along with verse nov­els, pic­ture books, and biogra­phies of heroes the world over.  What is your favorite daydream? I love to dream of instant trav­el, like the “beam me up” gad­get in old Star Trek episodes. There are so many places I want to see, and so many peo­ple I want to vis­it more often, espe­cial­ly rel­a­tives in Los Ange­les, San Fran­cis­co, Mia­mi, and Cuba.… more

No Pigs in Space?

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Rufus Blasts Off!
Some of my read­ers know that the very first sto­ry I wrote (in sec­ond grade) was Pigs in Space. I still have it. I still won­der what­ev­er prompt­ed me to write it. This was before the Mup­pets launched their pigs into space. And it was def­i­nite­ly before Kim T. Griswell and Valeri Gor­bachev launched their pig into space in Rufus Blasts Off!… more

Always the Weather

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(orig­i­nal­ly writ­ten in Octo­ber 2016) Accord­ing to the real estate estab­lish­ment in Steam­boat Springs, Col­orado, there are, on aver­age, 242 days of sun­shine. That is, they claim more shin­ing sun than in Phoenix, Las Vegas, San Diego, and Los Angeles. That’s the way it is today: An absolute­ly clear blue sky, with not one cloud. The for­est in which we live (Routt Nation­al For­est) at 8,800 feet high is a kalei­do­scope of green, yel­low, orange and reds.… more

Unearthing the Good Stuff

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Susan Latta
Five Steps to a Suc­cess­ful Non­fic­tion Interview I love flow­ers but no one would ever call my thumb green. Each spring how­ev­er, I drag the pots to the front step, fill them with soil, plant red gera­ni­ums sur­round­ed by marigolds, and water when nature for­gets. And when the school bus­es rum­ble down the street, I am delight­ed to emp­ty the pots for anoth­er season.… more

Proof

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Journeys
If you ever doubt that kids are affect­ed by books, read any one of these let­ters. They will touch your heart deeply. You’ll remem­ber each two- or three-page mis­sive and the ardent con­nec­tion to the book. If you haven’t already done so, you’ll more than like­ly be moved to read (or re-read!) the book that prompt­ed the child to write a let­ter to the book’s author.… more

Skinny Dip with Geoff Herbach

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Geoff Herbach
Cre­ative with many endeav­ors, includ­ing writ­ing, teach­ing col­lege stu­dents, the­ater, and being a dad, Geoff Herbach is stretch­ing his wings from YA fic­tion to pic­ture books! Who was your favorite teacher in grades K-7 and why? I loved Mrs. Fatzinger in 5th grade. She read books out loud to us every day right after lunch and it was fan­tas­tic.… more

A Working Writer’s Life, Part 2

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Author Candice Ransom
[con­tin­ued from Part 1] After sev­er­al months, I real­ized New York didn’t rec­og­nize I was the Next Big Thing. I’d actu­al­ly have to write my sec­ond book and sell it. Tim­ing was on my side. It was the ear­ly 80s, when paper­backs filled mall book­store racks. Series books with new titles each month, priced for kids, were the Next Big Thing.… more

Three Tips for Writing Teachers

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Melissa Stewart
Teach­ers often feel frus­trat­ed when the revi­sions stu­dents make to their writ­ing aren’t improve­ments. And so they ask me how to help the chil­dren make their man­u­scripts better. I wish I had an easy answer for these teach­ers and for their stu­dents, but here’s the truth: Revi­sion is messy. It’s fraught with detours. Even expe­ri­enced writ­ers strug­gle with the process, and some­times our efforts are com­plete and utter fail­ures.… more

Imaginary Selves

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Each of us knows well the per­son we imag­ine our­selves to be. I’m guess­ing that this imag­i­nary per­son has changed shape and iden­ti­ty through­out your life. As a child, do you remem­ber your secret iden­ti­ty? Mine was a fear­less super­hero ver­sion of myself, because fear­less I was not. If Richard Tor­rey had known that, he sure­ly would have drawn me a cape and mys­ti­cal arm­bands and a tiny crown with his tal­ent­ed, per­cep­tive vision and his oil-based pencils. … more

Skinny Dip with Joyce Sidman

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Joyce Sidman
From the first time, many years ago, that I heard Joyce Sid­man read aloud from her poet­ry, when Eure­ka! Poems about Inven­tors was about to be released, I knew this woman car­ried mag­ic in her soul. Work­ing mag­ic with words, writ­ing about sci­ence and our very human emo­tions … Joyce has become a favorite author for many readers. Who was your favorite teacher in grades K-7 and why?… more

A Working Writer’s Life, Part 1

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Author Candice Ransom
One Sun­day morn­ing in May, 1970, I sat on the mus­tard-col­ored sofa in our liv­ing room with the Spring Children’s Books issue of the Wash­ing­ton Post Book World. I stud­ied the reviews as some­one who intend­ed to have her book reviewed in that pub­li­ca­tion, prefer­ably the Spring 1971 issue. The back page fea­tured an ad for Lothrop, Lee, and Shepard’s new list.… more

Skinny Dip with Lee Bennett Hopkins

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Lee Bennett Hopkins
You can­not be a part of the chil­dren’s lit­er­a­ture com­mu­ni­ty with­out know­ing his name. Lee Ben­nett Hop­kins has been writ­ing for chil­dren and adults since 1968. His Books Are by Peo­ple (1969) had a pro­found effect on me. With his antholo­gies, he has kept our eyes focused on poet­ry, know­ing how much chil­dren love the images and emo­tions evoked by well-cho­sen words.… more