The Soaring Imagination of Uri Shulevitz

How I Learned Geography
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.

Going Rogue

Explo­ration is real­ly the Essence of the Human Spirit.” —Frank Bor­man ’Tis the sea­son for fall themes such as pump­kins, leaves, and turkeys.  As I was plan­ning pro­grams for Octo­ber and Novem­ber, I decid­ed it was time to go rogue and think of new themes. I start­ed search­ing terms such as “fun­ny fall cel­e­bra­tions” and “unusu­al hol­i­days.” From Nation­al Mad Hat­ter Day to Nation­al Cake Dec­o­rat­ing Day, my search helped me devel­op new pro­gram oppor­tu­ni­ties for fam­i­lies to enjoy including: Nation­al Mad Hat­ter Day, Octo­ber 6, 2019 Jour­ney down the rab­bit hole and make Won­der­land come to life.… more

Back-to-School Favorites

Thunder Rose
This list was con­tributed by Deb Andries and Mau­r­na Rome, friends, edu­ca­tors, and colleagues! Favorites from Deb Andries: Alma and How She Got her Name by Jua­na Martinez-Neal Dream­ers by Yuyi Morales A Qui­et Place by Doug Wood and Dan Andreasen The Day You Begin by Jacque­line Wood­son and Rafael López Tru­man by Jean Rei­di and Lucy Ruth Cummins Drum Dream Girl by Mar­gari­ta Engle and Rafael López How to Read a Book by Kwame Alexan­der and Melis­sa Sweet Why by Lau­ra Vac­caro Seeger Each Kind­ness by Jacque­line Wood­son and E.B. Lewis… more

Tonight is the Night …

Candice Ransom
… when dead leaves fly like witch­es on switch­es across the sky …  In the cen­ter of our Wegman’s is all the stuff that is not food. Of course, I head there first. Brows­ing tea tow­els and sun­flower coast­ers is my reward from hav­ing to shop in the too-big gro­cery store.  Recent­ly I found a plate among the Hal­loween décor.… more

The Need for Secret Places

Candice Ransom
In the fifth grade, my best friend and I dis­cov­ered a tan­gle of hon­ey­suck­le in the scrub­by woods bor­der­ing our school play­ground. It would make the per­fect recess refuge. All we had to do was pull the hon­ey­suck­le from inside the cir­cle of saplings it was twined around, leav­ing a cur­tain of vines. The next day, we sprint­ed into the thick­et and began rip­ping out vines.… more

Some Illustrator!

Candice Ransom
In my next life, I’m com­ing back either as a cat liv­ing in our house (think Canyon Ranch for cats), or Melis­sa Sweet. I’ve fol­lowed her career since she illus­trat­ed James Howe’s Pinky and Rex (1990). I love this book for its atyp­i­cal char­ac­ters (Pinky is a boy who loves pink and stuffed ani­mals, and Rex, his girl friend, is into dinosaurs), but also for Melissa’s fresh-faced char­ac­ters and bright watercolors.… more

Pumpkins into Coaches

Candice Ransom
In 1961, when I was nine, I fell under the spell of a crum­bling stone tow­er. It stood on the weed-choked prop­er­ty of the Port­ner Manor in Man­as­sas, Vir­ginia, cat­ty-cor­ner from my cousin’s house. As a devo­tee of Trix­ie Belden books, I craved mys­ter­ies the way oth­er kids longed for ponies. Here was a mys­tery with­in spit­ting distance! My cousin and I talked about the “Civ­il War look-out” tow­er until we final­ly had to climb it.… more

With My Hands

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

Skinny Dip with Aimée Bissonette

Aimee Bissonette
We’re thrilled to Skin­ny Dip with Aimée Bis­sonette, who is the author of two acclaimed pic­ture books so far, North Woods Girl (Min­neso­ta His­tor­i­cal Soci­ety Press) and Miss Col­fax’s Light (Sleep­ing Bear Press). Thanks to Aor tak­ing time away from writ­ing and work to answer Bookol­o­gy’s ques­tions! When did you first start reading books? My best friend, Lyn, taught me to read when I was 5 years old.… more

Bookstorm™: Princess Posey

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

Books about Boxes

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.
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