Bookology Magazine

author

Reading through Troubled Times

by
Nature's Ambassador
I pulled off the shelf a one-hundred-year-old edition of The Burgess Animal Book for Children by Thornton W. Burgess and took it to bed. The rolled edges of the worn binding felt reassuring in my hands, the thick rag pages soft and gently foxed. Why turn to an ancient children’s book?

Curiouser and Curiouser with Karen Cushman

by
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.

Curiouser and Curiouser with Mike Wohnoutka

by
Mike Wohnoutka
I’ve known Mike Wohnout­ka for many years, from his first SCBWI meet­ing when he intro­duced him­self and showed sam­ples from his port­fo­lio. His adorable char­ac­ter in Cow­boy Sam and Those Con­found­ed Secrets (Kit­ty Grif­fin, Kathy Combs), an ear­ly book, cap­tured my atten­tion. Here was an illus­tra­tor who infused humor into the visu­al sto­ry. Han­nukah Bear (Eric A.… more

Tracy Sue Walker

by
Tracy Sue Walker
This month we wel­come Tra­cy Sue Walk­er, author, pub­lic librar­i­an, and pro­fes­sion­al storyteller. She’s recent­ly been reveal­ing “the truth about” a series of mys­ti­cal crea­tures, so far includ­ing drag­ons, Big­foot, and uni­corns, for Scholas­tic Book Clubs. Tra­cy describes her­self this way, “A booklover, day­dream­er, and goof­ball, I’m pret­ty qui­et unless I’m telling a sto­ry, then I’m pret­ty loud.”
… more

Helen Oxenbury: A Life in Illustration

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When Mar­sha Qua­ley began this col­umn six years ago, she had us all on the look­out for books about children’s lit­er­a­ture. What would add to our under­stand­ing of this very par­tic­u­lar com­mu­ni­ty of edu­ca­tors, stu­dents, col­lec­tor, and cre­ators? This book about Helen Oxen­bury by Leonard Mar­cus is a gem, filled with the wis­dom of a revered author-illus­tra­tor as well as her illus­tra­tions and deli­cious pho­tos that help our understanding.… more

Candice Ransom

by
Candice Ransom
One green thing I wish every­one would do:  Give up plas­tic bags. It’s hard, I know, to remem­ber to car­ry a bag into a store. I wish we could give up oth­er forms of plas­tic, like the blis­ter packs encas­ing every­thing from Bar­bie dolls to Bic pens. Back in the days of five and ten stores, it was so nice to sim­ply pick an item out of a bin or off a shelf, pay for it, and not wres­tle with tin snips to get it open.
… more

Jane Langton Gave Me Geese

by
Candice Ransom
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

Caren Stelson

by
Caren Stelson
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

Curiouser and Curiouser with John Owens

by
One Summer Up North
Once in a while a debut book comes across my desk and I’m too curi­ous to put it into a to-be-read pile. I glance at the cov­er through­out the day until I can’t resist open­ing the book. What is it about? Am I going to like it? Then I keep turn­ing the pages, mar­veling over the illus­tra­tions … and there are no words!… more

Big Green Textbook

by
Candice Ransom
My first inkling there was a thing called children’s lit­er­a­ture came at a yard sale. I picked up a thick green text­book, Children’s Lit­er­a­ture in the Ele­men­tary School, by Char­lotte S. Huck. I mar­veled at the idea that peo­ple dis­cussed and stud­ied the books I loved and planned to write, that children’s books were lit­er­a­ture, like Moby Dick.… more

Curiouser and Curiouser with Kao Kalia Yang

by
The Shared Room
When A Map into the World found its way to my desk last year, I had to remind myself to breathe. This gem of a book cap­tures feel­ings of love and friend­ship in a way that cross­es gen­er­a­tions and speaks to each of our hearts. What else had she writ­ten, I won­dered? Her mem­oir for grownups, The Late­home­com­er: a Hmong Fam­i­ly Mem­oir, caused quite a stir when it was pub­lished in 2009.… more

Jen Bryant

by
Jen Bryant
Author and poet Jen Bryant is known for her pic­ture book biogra­phies of artists, poets, word­mon­gers, com­posers, and play­wrights. Her verse and prose nov­els are well-researched, often focused on an his­toric event like the Scopes tri­al or the Lind­bergh kid­nap­ping tri­al or Cap­tain Kid­d’s buried trea­sure in New Jer­sey. Always focused on her next book, we’re thank­ful Jen took time from her sched­ule to answer our Skin­ny Dip questions. … more

Catherine Friend

by
Catherine Friend
We wel­come author Cather­ine Friend to our Skin­ny Dip col­umn this month. You may know her for her pic­ture books The Per­fect Nest and My Head is Full of Col­ors, or her chap­ter book Barn Boot Blues. You may have thought about becom­ing a farmer after read­ing Hit by a Farm, Sheep­ish, and The Com­pas­sion­ate Car­ni­vore.… more

Susan Fletcher

by
Susan Fletcher
Sto­ry­teller adept Susan Fletcher’s mind has giv­en us The Drag­on Chron­i­cles, Alpha­bet of Dreams, the star­tling Fal­con in the Glass, and most recent­ly Jour­ney of the Pale Bear. As you’ll read below, she has trav­eled to amaz­ing loca­tions and had envi­able expe­ri­ences as she researched her nov­els. Susan taught at the Ver­mont Col­lege of Fine Arts’ Mas­ter of Fine Arts in Writ­ing for Chil­dren and Young Adults pro­gram but now she lives full-time in Texas.… more

Skinny Dip with Brian P. Cleary

by
Brian P. Cleary
We're pleased to welcome author and poet Brian P. Cleary for a Skinny Dip this month. His books have made kids guffaw and chortle, all while learning parts of grammar or math! Impossible, you say? Not for Brian, whose brain just works this way.

Skinny Dip with Kenneth Kraegel

by
Kenneth Kraegel
We’re pleased to wel­come author and illus­tra­tor Ken­neth Kraegel for a Skin­ny Dip this month. His newest book, Wild Hon­ey from the Moon, is due to be pub­lished on Novem­ber 5, 2019. School Library Con­nec­tion said, “The rich and lus­cious illus­tra­tions are what make this book so spe­cial; read­ers will want to exam­ine every detail on every page.… more

Skinny Dip with Sarah Sullivan

by
Sarah Sullivan
Bookol­o­gy is delight­ed to wel­come author Sarah Sul­li­van for an Octo­ber Skin­ny Dip. Look for Sarah’s A Day for Skat­ing, illus­trat­ed by Made­line Valen­tine (Can­dlewick Press, avail­able Novem­ber 5th), a love­ly book to read out loud before you go skat­ing or to explain what skat­ing is. Sarah’s pic­ture book Pass­ing the Music Down is a much-praised sto­ry about old-time fid­dlers inspired by the lives of renowned fid­dlers Melvin Wine and Jake Krack.… more

Skinny Dip with Carla McClafferty

by
Carla Killough McClafferty
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

Curiouser and Curiouser with Melissa Stewart

by
Melissa Stewart
This month we’re fea­tur­ing Melis­sa Stew­art, author of sci­ence books for young read­ers and a seem­ing­ly tire­less advo­cate for read­ing non­fic­tion books, par­tic­u­lar­ly expos­i­to­ry non­fic­tion (“5 Kinds of Non­fic­tion”). Melis­sa has writ­ten more than 180 books in her career, the first of which was pub­lished in 1998 and the most recent of which is Pipsqueaks, Slow­pokes, and Stinkers: Cel­e­brat­ing Ani­mal Under­dogs (illus­trat­ed by Stephanie Laberis, pub­lished by Peachtree Pub­lish­ers).… more

Skinny Dip with C.M. Surrisi

by
C.M. Surrisi
Have you read the Quin­nie Boyd mid­dle-grade mys­ter­ies? The May­pop Kid­nap­ping, Vam­pires on the Run, and A Side of Sab­o­tage? I dis­cov­ered them this spring and I stayed up sev­er­al nights to read them. The author of those books, C.M. Sur­risi, is just as inter­est­ing as you’d think the writer who dreamed up Quin­nie, her friends, and her vil­lage in Maine would be.… more

Summoning Spring

by
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

Skinny Dip with Kathleen Baxter

by
Kath­leen Bax­ter, a librar­i­an for more than 30 years, a nation­al­ly-known book­talk­er, a co-author of the won­der­ful Gotcha! resource books, is best known as the woman who has worked tire­less­ly to keep Maud Hart Lovelace’s books in print, there­by intro­duc­ing new gen­er­a­tions of read­ers to the Bet­sy-Tacy books and the oth­er cher­ished nov­els set in Deep Val­ley. Her most recent book, My Bet­sy-Tacy Mir­a­cle: a Lit­er­ary Pil­grim­age to Deep Val­ley, shares the charm­ing, true sto­ry of Kath­leen’s meet­ing and cor­re­spon­dence with the author Maud Hart Lovelace. … more

Dearie Darling Cuddle Hug: A Tribute to Wendy Watson

by
When our chil­dren were young we both spent many hours with them pour­ing over Wendy Wat­son’s illus­tra­tions for her sis­ter Clyde’s rhymes in Father Fox’s Pen­nyrhymes and delight­ing in the sounds and the silli­ness of the rhymes them­selves. We felt as though we had lost a per­son­al friend when Wendy Wat­son died, even though we had nev­er met her.… more

Skinny Dip with Jerdine Nolen

by
Jerdine Nolen
Jer­dine Nolen is the ver­sa­tile author of pic­ture books, chap­ter books, and nov­els, includ­ing her most recent books, the Brad­ford Street Bud­dies series and Cal­i­co Girl. We enjoy hav­ing the oppor­tu­ni­ty to learn more about this writer and educator. What’s the weirdest place you’ve ever read a book?  The weirdest place I have ever read a book is in a closet.… more

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

by
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

Working with an Editor

by
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 Kindness of Teachers

by
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

Art and Words, Words and Art

by
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

Tiny House, Cozy Cabin

by
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

Skinny Dip with Anne Broyles

by
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

On Growing Older … Old

by
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

Richard Jackson

by
We are hon­ored to inter­view the high­ly respect­ed Richard Jack­son, who is on to his next career as a writer. His most recent­ly pub­lished book is all ears, all eyes, a lush and irre­sistible read-aloud book, illus­trat­ed by Kather­ine Tillit­son (Simon & Schus­ter). We thought we’d take the oppor­tu­ni­ty to talk with him about the pro­gres­sion from his edi­to­r­i­al career to his writ­ing career and the four books he has written.… more

Skinny Dip with Janet Taylor Lisle

by
Janet Taylor Lisle
For this inter­view, we chat with Janet Tay­lor Lisle, New­bery Hon­or-win­ning author of After­noon of the Elves, the Scott O’Dell Award-win­ning The Art of Keep­ing Cool, and the thriller Black Duck, along with many oth­er read­er favorites. Which celebrity, living or not, do you wish would invite you to a coffee shop? I’m quite sure Emily Dickinson, shy and secretive as she was, would never invite me to a coffee shop, but perhaps I could slip a note under her door in Amherst, Massachusetts and beg for a visit.… more

My Work-Study Internship

by
The first col­lege I attend­ed was Anti­och Col­lege in Yel­low Springs, Ohio. It had a work-study cur­ricu­lum in which half your year was spent work­ing off-cam­pus on some job relat­ing to your pro­fes­sion­al aspi­ra­tions. At that time, being inter­est­ed in the the­atre, I was offered and took a job at a Cleve­land tele­vi­sion sta­tion. A few days before the job began it was can­celed.… more

Skinny Dip with Pamela S. Turner

by
Pamela S. Turner
For this inter­view, we vis­it with Pamela S. Turn­er, chil­dren’s book author with two new books out in 2016, Samu­rai Ris­ing: The Epic Life of Minamo­to Yoshit­sune and Crow Smarts: Inside the Brain of the World’s Bright­est Bird: Which celebrity, living or not, do you wish would invite you to a coffee shop?
 Sir Richard Francis Burton, the Victorian anthropologist, translator, linguist, and African explorer.… more

Marsha Wilson Chall and Jill Davis

by
The Secret Life of Figgy Mustardo
I recent­ly had the hon­or of inter­view­ing Mar­sha Wil­son Chall, the author of the new pic­ture book, The Secret Life of Fig­gy Mus­tar­do, and her edi­tor, Jill Davis. Mar­sha Wil­son Chall grew up an only child in Min­neso­ta, where her father told her the best sto­ries. The author of many pic­ture books, includ­ing Up North at the Cab­in, One Pup’s Up, and Pick a Pup, Mar­sha teach­es writ­ing at Ham­line Uni­ver­si­ty’s MFAC pro­gram in St.… more

Skinny Dip with Mélina Mangal

by
Mélina Mangal
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

Eileen Ryan Ewen

by
Miss Colfax's Light
Miss Colfax's Light is a perfect example of the text and illustrations enhancing each other to make a picture book biography that is more than the sum of its parts. With our interview, we hope to help you look more deeply at Eileen Ryan Ewen's illustrations.

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