Bookology Magazine

Vicki Palmquist

Marion Dane Bauer

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Marion Dane Bauer
In this inter­view with Mar­i­on Dane Bauer, we’re ask­ing about her nov­el-in-verse, Lit­tle Cat’s Luck, our Book­storm™ this month, writ­ten for sec­ond, third, and fourth graders as a read-aloud or indi­vid­ual read­ing books. It’s a good com­pan­ion to her ear­li­er nov­el-in-verse, Lit­tle Dog, Lost.  When the idea for this story came to you, was it a seed or a full-grown set of characters and a storyline?… more

Fashion Studio

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Fashion Studio
Oh. my good­ness. When I opened up this box, I was imme­di­ate­ly trans­port­ed to my grand­par­ents’ back yard, on the blue blan­ket under the elm tree, when a gag­gle of friends brought their Bar­bi­es and Kens togeth­er and we sewed clothes out of fab­ric scraps and held fash­ion shows. Those days are some of my best mem­o­ries of childhood.… more

Bookstorm™: Little Cat’s Luck

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Little Cat's Luck
  Many peo­ple love cats. You might be one of them. Many chil­dren con­sid­er their cat or their dog to be one of the fam­i­ly. Mar­i­on Dane Bauer under­stands that. She wrote Lit­tle Cat’s Luck, the sto­ry of Patch­es, a cat, and Gus, the mean­est dog in town, out of her deep affin­i­ty for both cats and dogs.… more

Skinny Dip with Caroline Starr Rose

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Caroline Starr Rose
Which celebrity, living or not, do you wish would invite you to a coffee shop? Author L.M. Montgomery, of Anne of Green Gables fame. I’ve read all of her books several times over, including the journals she kept from fourteen until the time of her death. In fact, I’ve committed to revisiting Maud’s journals every ten years.… more

Books about Chocolate

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Chocolate
Feb­ru­ary is Nation­al Choco­late Month, so how could we let it pass by with­out an homage to choco­late … in books? Far less cost­ly on the den­tal bill! “In 2009, more than 58 mil­lion pounds of choco­late were pur­chased and (like­ly) con­sumed in the days sur­round­ing Feb­ru­ary 14th — that’s about $345 mil­lion worth. (Kiri Tan­nen­baum, “8 Facts About Choco­late,” Del­ish) Were you a part of the nation­al sta­tis­tic?
… more

Perspective

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Pippi Longstocking
At Bookol­o­gy, we believe the adage about “the right book for the right read­er.” Those are not nec­es­sar­i­ly the books that we see in adver­tise­ments, in the blog­gers’ buzz, or on award lists. Only by lis­ten­ing to each oth­er, and espe­cial­ly to kids, talk about books do we find those gems our hearts were look­ing for but didn’t know existed.… more

Theater: “The Story of Crow Boy”

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Crow Boy
Take heed and take heart, those of you who are makers of books for the young. Your stories matter, these works of first Art you create for children through text and through pictures. Write and draw truth and joy and friendship and power and overcoming and the exquisite natural world and human experience.

Middle Kingdom: Denver, Colorado

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Jolene Gutiérrez
The books that most delight mid­dle school and junior high read­ers often strad­dle a “Mid­dle King­dom” rang­ing from upper mid­dle grade to YA. Each month, Bookol­o­gy colum­nist Lisa Bullard will vis­it the Mid­dle King­dom by view­ing it through the eyes of a teacher or librar­i­an. Bookol­o­gy is delight­ed to cel­e­brate the work of these edu­ca­tors who have built vital book encamp­ments in the tran­si­tion­al ter­ri­to­ry of ear­ly adolescence.… more

Skinny Dip with Steve Palmquist

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Steven Palmquist
Favorite holiday tradition? Well, that usually involves food—we try to have Chinese food on Christmas Eve. Our family has had a lot of changes lately, so we’ve been trying to create new traditions. Were you a teacher’s pet or teacher’s challenge? Both! At times I was a model student and other times I was the class clown.… more

Gennifer Choldenko

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Gennifer Choldenko
Bookol­o­gy is proud to fea­ture Gen­nifer Chold­enko’s Chas­ing Secrets as its Book­storm™ this month, shar­ing themes, ideas, and com­ple­men­tary book rec­om­men­da­tions for your class­room, lit­er­a­ture cir­cle, or book group discussions. Were you a curious child? How did this manifest itself? I was an eccentric child. I was curious to the extent that I could find out new facts to feed my imaginary world.… more

Boys and Girls of Bookland

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Boys and Girls of Bookland
This is how book col­lect­ing goes. You see some­thing that piques your curios­i­ty. You won­der: “Why did this book get pub­lished?” “Who would have bought this book?” “On whose shelves did this book rest and why did they let it go?” “Was it a gift, nev­er opened, or was it cher­ished and read over and over again?” Some­times you’re curi­ous about the text or the illus­tra­tions or the bind­ing or the publisher.… more

Libraries in the USA are at Mission Critical

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Books in a Box
“There is not such a cra­dle of democ­ra­cy upon the earth as the Free Pub­lic Library, this repub­lic of let­ters, where nei­ther rank, office, nor wealth receives the slight­est con­sid­er­a­tion.” —Andrew Carnegie Libraries in the USA are at mis­sion crit­i­cal. Those who went before us worked hard to estab­lish free pub­lic libraries so we could have access to what we need to know.… more

Lisa Bullard: My Not-So-Overnight Success

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Lisa Bullard
Ear­ly on, when peo­ple would ask my kid self what I want­ed to be when I grew up, I’d answer “Shoe Sales­per­son.” But then I dis­cov­ered that feet some­times smell, and I moved on to a dif­fer­ent dream: Book Writer. I could invent a great sto­ry and tell you that I craft­ed a long-term plan to real­ize my dream. But instead, this is a tale of false starts and mis­di­rect­ed wan­der­ings.… more

Skinny Dip with Michael Hall

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Michael Hall
What is your proudest career moment? Several months before the publication of my book, Red: A Crayon’s Story, The Wall Street Journal published an editorial bemoaning the “gender industrial complex,” “cultural warriors,” and books—including mine—“that seek to engage the sympathies of young readers … and nudge the needle of culture.” I had written something good enough to provoke the wrath of the WJS editorial page.… more

Bookstorm™: Chasing Secrets

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Chasing Secrets
  Don’t you love a good mys­tery? Set it in an exot­ic but famil­iar city like San Fran­cis­co at the turn of the 20th cen­tu­ry. Cre­ate a main char­ac­ter who’s a smart and adven­tur­ous young girl with inter­ests frowned upon dur­ing that time: sci­ence, math­e­mat­ics, and pur­su­ing a col­lege edu­ca­tion. Pro­vide a fam­i­ly and friends who are immense­ly inter­est­ing because they’re so vivid that you’d like to know each one of them.… more

Books about Chickens

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The Perfect Nest
Whether a chick­en makes you cluck, BAWK! or cheep-cheep-cheep, books about chick­ens make us laugh. We may not have been intro­duced to a chick­en in real life but, trust me, some peo­ple keep them as egg-lay­ing won­ders and oth­er peo­ple keep them as pets. These fowl have been around in many col­ors, types, and breeds in most coun­tries in the world … and quite recent­ly they have become the sub­ject of many books.
… more

Telling a Story the Hard Way

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Space Dumplins
by Vic­ki Palmquist I’ve just fin­ished read­ing the graph­ic nov­el Space Dumplins by Craig Thomp­son, with col­or by Dave Stew­art (Graphix, 2015). I am over­whelmed by the work that went into this book. First off, it’s an engross­ing, turn-the-page sto­ry with an appeal­ing cast of char­ac­ters. As read­ers, we care about what will hap­pen. That’s a good start.… more

Skinny Dip with Karen Blumenthal

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Karen Blumenthal
Favorite holiday tradition? Food! I love to bake and holidays are the best excuse for baking! Peach cobbler for the Fourth of July, apple cake for the Jewish holidays, dozens and dozens of cookies for friends and family in December, and this killer candy that we call matzo toffee at Passover. I make a ton of it for friends and even send some to special editors.… more

Middle Kingdom: Anchorage, Alaska

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Nicole Roohi
The books that most delight mid­dle school and junior high read­ers often strad­dle a “Mid­dle King­dom” rang­ing from upper mid­dle grade to YA. Each month, Bookol­o­gy colum­nist Lisa Bullard will vis­it the Mid­dle King­dom by view­ing it through the eyes of a teacher or librar­i­an. Bookol­o­gy is delight­ed to cel­e­brate the work of these edu­ca­tors who have built vital book encamp­ments in the tran­si­tion­al ter­ri­to­ry of ear­ly adolescence.… more

Lynne Jonell: Accessing Childhood Emotion

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Lynne Jonell
They say that, if you’re a doc­tor, it’s not some­thing you want to admit to at an event where you’re going to have to make small talk with a lot of strangers. Because invari­ably peo­ple will want your opin­ion on their rash, or the fun­ny flut­ter in their chest, or the odd bump on their knee. I wouldn’t know, not being a doc­tor, but I under­stand feel­ing cau­tious about admit­ting what I do for a liv­ing.… more

John Burningham

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John Burningham
You prob­a­bly know John Burn­ing­ham best for Mr. Gumpy’s Out­ing but illus­tra­tors, book cre­ators, are so much more than what we see between the cov­ers of their books. Their lives are often illus­trat­ed. They record things on paper visu­al­ly. They put what they’ve observed into draw­ers and port­fo­lios and note­books so they have that once-seen image to call upon for their work.… more

Stephanie Roth Sisson

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Stephanie Roth Sisson
The first Princess Posey book was published in 2010. How long before that were you asked to illustrate the book? And were the plans to have it be a single book at that time or were there already intentions to publish more than one book about Posey? Susan Kochan and Cecilia Yung at Penguin contacted me in November of 2008 about the Princess Posey series.… more

Rolling the Storytelling Blocks

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Reading Ahead bubble
by Vic­ki Palmquist Look­ing for hours of fun with a book the whole fam­i­ly can enjoy … or one per­son can eas­i­ly study to learn to write or tell a sto­ry … bet­ter? Then you’ll want to give this a try: How to Tell a Sto­ry, writ­ten by Daniel Nay­eri, illus­trat­ed by Bri­an Won, and pub­lished by Work­man Pub­lish­ing in 2015. This book comes in a box.… more

Stephanie Greene

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Stephanie Greene
Is the “impossible game” something you ran across or is it something you invented? I read about it on a blog or the Internet, I can’t remember. I try to keep abreast of what six-year-olds are doing by talking to my nieces, who have little girls, or friends who do, or the children on the street where we live – anywhere I can find information.… more

Skinny Dip with Eileen Beha

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Eileen Beha
What TV show can’t you turn off? I watch very little TV; I will almost always choose to read a good book instead. However, I do admit that I’ve not missed a single episode of Mad Men since the series premiered in 2007 or Downton Abbey, which will end after its sixth season this winter. Lately, I’ve gotten into this strange habit of watching old episodes of Murder, She Wrote on Netflix.… more

Bookstorm™: Princess Posey

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Princess Posey and the Crazy, Lazy Vacation
  There have been many papers writ­ten about why chil­dren, teens, and adults like to read books that are pub­lished as part of a series. From The Bobb­sey Twins to Nan­cy Drew to the Box­car Chil­dren to Ency­lo­pe­dia Brown to Goose­bumps to The Babysit­ters Club to Red­wall to War­riors (draw­ing in a long breath) … okay, you get the idea.… more

Looking inside

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Reading Ahead bubble
by Vic­ki Palmquist For sev­er­al years, I have been dip­ping into a book that I keep beside my desk. It’s called Today I Will: a Year of Quotes, Notes, and Promis­es to Myself (Knopf, 2009). Two acknowl­edged mas­ters of children’s lit­er­a­ture, Eileen Spinel­li and Jer­ry Spinel­li, wrote it. They are par­ents and grand­par­ents and one can feel their love and con­cern for future gen­er­a­tions in this book.… more

Books about Trees

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A Tree is Nice
With hats off to our friends at the tree-fes­tooned Iowa Arbore­tum, Min­neso­ta Land­scape Arbore­tum, Chica­go Botan­ic Gar­dens, and Oma­ha’s Lau­ritzen Gar­dens, this list is ded­i­cat­ed to arborists every­where, pro­fes­sion­al and ama­teur … you take care of an essen­tial part of our ecosys­tem. Thank you. Here’s a list of books for younger and old­er chil­dren, fic­tion and non­fic­tion.
… more

Bookstorm™: Firekeeper’s Son

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Firekeeper's Son
This month, we are pleased to fea­ture Fire­keep­er’s Son, writ­ten by Lin­da Sue Park and illus­trat­ed by Julie Down­ing. Set in Korea in the 19th cen­tu­ry, it’s a book about an his­toric sys­tem of sig­nal fires that served as nation­al secu­ri­ty … and one fam­i­ly who is respon­si­ble for light­ing a bon­fire each and every night.  The young boy at the cen­ter of the book dreams of see­ing sol­diers, but it’s his father’s job to advise the king that all is clear.… more

“Don’t get took! Read a book!”

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Reading Ahead bubble
by Vic­ki Palmquist I go crazy when I hear that Vaun­da Michaux Nel­son has anoth­er book com­ing out. I’m a fan. For my own read­ing life, No Crys­tal Stair: a doc­u­men­tary nov­el of the life and work of Lewis Michaux, Harlem book­seller, is one of my top ten books in the last ten years. I found every aspect of that book sat­is­fy­ing.… more

Changing Science Fiction Forever

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All-Story Magazine
by Vic­ki Palmquist In its Octo­ber 1912 issue, All-Sto­ry Mag­a­zine pub­lished a short sto­ry by Edgar Rice Bur­roughs called “Tarzan of the Apes.” Do you remem­ber the plot? John Clay­ton is born to par­ents who are marooned on the west coast of Africa. His par­ents, Lord and Lady Greystoke, die on his first birth­day. John is adopt­ed by Kala, an ape, who moth­ers him as one of her own.… more

Changing Science Fiction Forever

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All-Story Magazine
by Vic­ki Palmquist In its Octo­ber 1912 issue, All-Sto­ry Mag­a­zine pub­lished a short sto­ry by Edgar Rice Bur­roughs called “Tarzan of the Apes.” Do you remem­ber the plot? John Clay­ton is born to par­ents who are marooned on the west coast of Africa. His par­ents, Lord and Lady Greystoke, die on his first birth­day. John is adopt­ed by Kala, an ape, who moth­ers him as one of her own.… more

Books about Boxes

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What to Do with a Box
Box­es have many sto­ries to share, sto­ries to inspire, and sto­ries to help us learn and be cre­ative. Here are a few of the sto­ries that box­es have to tell. You might well expect to find books about cre­ative play and card­board box­es, but there are books for a range of young read­ers here and box­es comes in many shapes and colors.
… more

Collecting your observations

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Welcome to New Zealand
by Vic­ki Palmquist I nev­er kept a jour­nal. Why? It nev­er occurred to me. It wasn’t with­in my realm of famil­iar­i­ty. I start­ed writ­ing many sto­ries on note­book paper and stuffed them into fold­ers. But how sat­is­fy­ing to have a jour­nal, specif­i­cal­ly an obser­va­tion jour­nal to keep track of what you see, hear, and think. As a child, I was a hunter-gath­er­er. Were you?… more

Bookstorm™: Untamed: The Wild Life of Jane Goodall

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Untamed: the Wild Life of Jane Goodall
This month, we are pleased to fea­ture Untamed: The Wild Life of Jane Goodall, writ­ten by Ani­ta Sil­vey, with pho­tographs and book designed by the incred­i­ble team at Nation­al Geo­graph­ic. This book is not only fas­ci­nat­ing to read, it’s a beau­ti­ful read­ing expe­ri­ence as well. It’s not often that a book offers us a glimpse into the child­hood of a woman who has fol­lowed a brave, and car­ing, career path, but also fol­lows her through more than 50 years in that cho­sen pro­fes­sion, describ­ing her work, dis­cov­er­ies, and her pas­sion for the mam­mals with whom she works.… more

Is It a Classic?

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Reading Ahead bubble
by Vic­ki Palmquist When I was in my twen­ties, I worked at an archi­tec­ture firm. Sev­er­al of the archi­tects were fas­ci­nat­ed by my deep con­nec­tion to children’s books. One day, one of them asked me, “Which books, being pub­lished now, will become clas­sics?” That ques­tion has stuck with me, hold­ing up a sign­post every now and then. How does one pre­dict a classic?… more

Museum Feast

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Historium
His­to­ri­um
curat­ed by Richard Wilkin­son and Jo Nel­son
Big Pic­ture Press, 2015 by Vic­ki Palmquist In a large, folio-sized book, the cura­tors of His­to­ri­um present a print­ed-page trip through a muse­um, grouped by cul­tures and described in detail so you can under­stand what you are see­ing with­out being rushed along by the crowd. Much like those rentable muse­um audio tapes or the plac­ards on the wall, it’s an enhanced expe­ri­ence of the arti­facts.… more

Laughter and Grief

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Reading Ahead bubble
by Vic­ki Palmquist There are books we remem­ber all of our lives, even if we can’t remem­ber the details. Some­times we can’t even remem­ber the sto­ry, but we remem­ber the char­ac­ters and how they made us feel. We recall being trans­port­ed into the pages of the book, see­ing what the char­ac­ters see, hear­ing what they hear, and under­stand­ing the time and spaces and breath­ing in and out of the char­ac­ters.… more

Bookstorm™: Bulldozer’s Big Day

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It’s Bulldozer’s big day — his birth­day! But around the con­struc­tion site, it seems like every­one is too busy to remem­ber. Bull­doz­er wheels around ask­ing his truck friends if they know what day it is, but they each only say it’s a work day. They go on scoop­ing, sift­ing, stir­ring, fill­ing, and lift­ing, and lit­tle Bull­doz­er grows more and more glum.… more

Orange Omelet

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orange slices
Gen­nifer Chold­enko’s Chas­ing Secrets takes place in the late 1800s — this recipe is one that might have been served at a lun­cheon. From the Boston Cook­ing School Cook­book: Orange Omelet Ingre­di­ents:
3 eggs
Few grains salt
1 tea­spoon lemon juice
2 1⁄2 table­spoons orange juice
1⁄2 table­spoon but­ter (for pan)
2 oranges
2 table­spoons pow­dered sugar Sep­a­rate yolks from whites.… more

Beyond the Page

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Quentin Blake: Beyond the Page
  by Vic­ki Palmquist I’ve been savor­ing Quentin Blake: Beyond the Page (Tate Pub­lish­ing, 2012), a book that is replete with pho­tos, illus­tra­tive art, and all the many ways Mr. Blake’s art has adorned many aspects of life “beyond the page.” In his own voice, we hear of the places illus­tra­tion has tak­en him. With some­thing near a state of won­der, Mr.… more

Interview: Rita Williams-Garcia

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Inter­view by Vic­ki Palmquist When you wrote One Crazy Summer, did you already know you had a longer story to tell? And if you didn’t know then, when did you know? I was so focused on telling the one story of children’s involvement in the Black Panther Movement. As I dug into my characters’ backstories and projected their actions into the future, I knew I had another book to write.… more

The Classics, Galdone-Style

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Folk Tale Classics Treasury Galdone
by Vic­ki Palmquist Are you look­ing for a show­er or baby gift that will be appre­ci­at­ed for a long time? A good birth­day present for a young child? The Folk Tale Clas­sics Trea­sury, inter­pret­ed and illus­trat­ed by Paul Gal­done (HMH Books for Young Read­ers, 2013), is a good place for par­ents to start with retellings of west­ern Euro­pean folk tales.… more

Fashion Forward and Backward

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Reading Ahead bubble
by Vic­ki Palmquist (A) If your kids are plugged in to Project Run­way or
(B) if you come from a tra­di­tion of sewing clothes in your fam­i­ly or
© if you’ve ever been asked about where jeans come from …  this is the right book for your 5- to 8‑year-old. Where Did My Clothes Come From? by Chris But­ter­worth, with illus­tra­tions by Lucia Gag­giot­ti (Can­dlewick Press, 2015) is a nifty book with words and draw­ings that com­bine to give sat­is­fy­ing answers.… more

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