Bookology Magazine

June 2015

How Tom Beat Captain Najork and His Hired Sportsmen 

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by Melanie Heuis­er Hill I have writ­ten before about the need for longer pic­ture books in addi­tion to the short­er ones mak­ing up the cur­rent trend in pic­ture book pub­lish­ing. I want to stay on the record as say­ing there’s plen­ty of rea­son to keep pub­lish­ing pic­ture books that are longer than 300 – 500 words. I’m an advo­cate for 3000 – 5000 words — a sto­ry with details!… more

Skinny Dip with Jen Bryant

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What animal are you most like? Probably a cat. I’m very independent, I love to sit in a puddle of warm sun, I spend a lot of my free time watching birds, and I’m very attached to my home. (I would have said a dog, but I’m not that obedient!)  Which book of yours was the most difficult to write or illustrate?… more

Middle Kingdom: Shakopee, Minnesota

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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

Virginia Euwer Wolff: Considering Flaubert

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by Vir­ginia Euw­er Wolff For years I’ve tak­en prim­i­tive com­fort in Gus­tave Flaubert’s mid-nine­teenth cen­tu­ry remark in a let­ter to a friend: “Last week I spent five days writ­ing one page.” And Gar­ri­son Keil­lor’s Writer’s Almanac remind­ed us (Dec. 12, 2014) that Flaubert often put in a com­ma one day and took it out the next. Yes, sure, fine, yeah, we all do that, and we can tell the key­board, or the cat, who­ev­er keeps us com­pa­ny, that in these inser­tions and dele­tions we’re hon­or­ing Flaubert and the noble tra­di­tion.… more

I Would Like to Thank…

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The annu­al meet­ing of the Amer­i­can Library Asso­ci­a­tion begins this week. The win­ners of the var­i­ous book awards are no doubt eye­ing the fes­tiv­i­ties with some trep­i­da­tion because they will be pre­sent­ing speech­es. This has been going on since the first New­bery Award was pre­sent­ed in 1922. Tra­di­tion­al­ly called “Accep­tance Papers,” the speech­es are the bul­l’s-eye of events that have over the years mor­phed from nice lit­tle white-glove lun­cheons into galas.… more

I Would Like to Thank…

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The annu­al meet­ing of the Amer­i­can Library Asso­ci­a­tion begins this week. The win­ners of the var­i­ous book awards are no doubt eye­ing the fes­tiv­i­ties with some trep­i­da­tion because they will be pre­sent­ing speech­es. This has been going on since the first New­bery Award was pre­sent­ed in 1922. Tra­di­tion­al­ly called “Accep­tance Papers,” the speech­es are the bul­l’s-eye of events that have over the years mor­phed from nice lit­tle white-glove lun­cheons into galas.… more

Changing Course

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by Lisa Bullard My fam­i­ly didn’t camp when I was a kid. So a few years ago, when a friend asked if I want­ed to go on a camp­ing trip to Arkansas, I said, “Sure. I’ve always want­ed to try camp­ing. It will be fun.” I assumed there would be lots of yum­my toast­ed-marsh­mal­low moments. You know what they say about mak­ing assump­tions, right?… more

Skinny Dip with Virginia Euwer Wolff

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What’s your favorite holiday tradition? I have so many favorites. One of them is the hanging of the Christmas stockings. My aunt made felt and appliqué stockings for my two tiny children in the 1960s. Thirty years later, my daughter made felt and appliqué stockings for her husband, their two children, and me. She designed the appliqué motifs to reflect each family member.… more

The Betsy Books

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by Melanie Heuis­er Hill My daugh­ter and I are fin­ish­ing what we call “The Bet­sy Books” — the won­der­ful series of books by Maud Hart Lovelace that fol­lows Bet­sy Ray and her friends as they grow up in Deep Val­ley, Minnesota. When I first read the Bet­sy Series, I start­ed with Bet­sy and the Great World and Betsy’s Wed­ding and did not dis­cov­er the ear­li­er books until we moved to Min­neso­ta, where they were all gath­ered togeth­er on a shelf in the library.… more

Skinny Dip with Maryann Weidt

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What’s your favorite holiday tradition? I love getting together with my children—all grown-ups now—at Christmas. My daughter-in-law majored in ‘entertaining’ and she always has ‘Poppers’ and we always play games. One year she taped a question on the bottom of each plate. Questions like these: What is the best Christmas present you ever received—and we each had a chance to answer the question.… more

Going Wild

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By Phyl­lis Root and Jack­ie Brig­gs Martin Who doesn’t go a lit­tle wild when spring final­ly arrives? And even though we set out to choose pairs of books to write about, this month we couldn’t resist a hat trick of three books. At the heart of each is not only wild­ness but also how those around us react when our wild natures leak out.… more

Ready for the World with Powerful Literacy Practices

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by Mau­r­na Rome I believe whole-heart­ed­ly in the impor­tance of read­ing aloud dai­ly to my stu­dents. On days I fail to meet this goal, I go home feel­ing like I’ve let the kids down. I recall the fren­zy of Valentine’s Day with the excite­ment of school-wide bin­go, spe­cial class projects and more than enough can­dy — but no time spent read­ing aloud.… more

Mary Casanova: Three Questions

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A year of school vis­its has just con­clud­ed, but I can’t unpack quite yet. I’ll soon head out on a book tour to sup­port the release of my lat­est titles. The ques­tions I get when I meet read­ers depend on the book — whether it’s a new release I’m pro­mot­ing or an old­er book a class has read and discussed. Because I will be on tour sup­port­ing the release of my Grace books for Amer­i­can Girl, I can safe­ly pre­dict the three most com­mon­ly asked questions: How did you get start­ed writ­ing for Amer­i­can Girl?… more

Pulled Over

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by Lisa Bullard My brother’s wed­ding rehearsal is in three hours, but my cousins and I take a jaunt from Hous­ton to Galve­ston any­way. Then a cop car pulls us over. One cop stands behind our car, gun drawn; anoth­er leans men­ac­ing­ly into the win­dow and grills us. Even­tu­al­ly, he admits that our car and the three of us match the descrip­tions of the per­pe­tra­tors of a just-com­mit­ted, seri­ous crime.… more

Skinny Dip with Phyllis Root

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What keeps you up at night? My cat Catalina keeps me up at night, meowing and wandering back and forth over me, looking for our other cat Spike, who died last fall and with whom she’d been together since kittenhood. What is your proudest career moment? I have two, and they happened close together. When Big Momma Makes the World had its launch in London, the London planetarium was filled with children, and someone narrated the text while Helen Oxenbury’s amazing art was projected onto the planetarium ceiling.… more

A Few Favorite Fossils

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by The Bookologist Here at the mag­a­zine we’ve been look­ing at a lot of pale­on­tol­ogy late­ly, and we thought we’d share a few of the down­right gor­geous or just plain cool fos­sils that sneaked onto our com­put­ers as we pre­pared this mon­th’s issue. After all, who’s not a pushover for a pret­ty rock?   Pho­to Cred­its
Ichthyosaur and Trilo­bite: Nat­ur­al His­to­ry Muse­um of Great Britain
Argen­tin­ian “Ter­ror Bird”: M.… more

Authors Emeritus: Arna Bontemps

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Born on Octo­ber 13, 1902 in Louisiana, Arna Bon­temps grew up and was edu­cat­ed in Cal­i­for­nia. Upon grad­u­at­ing from col­lege he accept­ed a teach­ing posi­tion in New York City, where he became friends with sev­er­al oth­er writ­ers and edu­ca­tors, includ­ing Langston Hughes. Bon­temps would become, along with Hugh­es, one of the influ­en­tial artists of the Harlem Renais­sance who would expand the pres­ence of African Amer­i­can writ­ers in children’s lit­er­a­ture.… more

Bookstorm: Scaly Spotted …

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Scaly Spotted Feathered Frilled
In this Bookstorm™: Scaly Spotted
Feathered Frilled:
how do we know what dinosaurs really looked like? writ­ten by Cather­ine Thimmesh
HMH Books for Young Read­ers, 2013 No human being has ever seen a tricer­atops or veloci­rap­tor or even the mighty Tyran­nosaurus rex. They left behind only their impres­sive bones. So how can sci­en­tists know what col­or dinosaurs were? Or if their flesh was scaly or feath­ered?… more

Outer Space Ambassador

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Ambassador
by Vic­ki Palmquist Every once in a while I come across a book that wakes up that breath­less, eager, sense-of-won­der-at-every­thing-new feel­ing I had about read­ing as a child. I admit it, after 3,000 or so books the plots and char­ac­ters and res­o­lu­tions can feel sim­i­lar to some­thing I’ve read before. Well, I joy­ful­ly read a book that hit all the right notes and trans­port­ed me back to a bed­time read­ing expe­ri­ence where I couldn’t turn off the light, fell asleep, and then woke up in the morn­ing to fin­ish the book before my feet hit the floor.… more

Notable Feathers in Children’s Literature

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Dinosaurs had feath­ers? Well, some did. And guess what, some chil­dren’s books do too! Here’s a time­line of some notable feath­ers in chil­dren’s literature.          … more

Scaly Spotted Feathered Frilled Companion Booktalks

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How the Dinosaur Got to the Musuem
To get you start­ed on the Book­storm™ books … Age of Rep­tiles and Age of Rep­tiles: the Hunt, Richard Del­ga­do, Dark Horse Books, 2011. Ages 12 and up. Word­less sto­ry­telling through beau­ti­ful (some­times gory) art What hap­pens when you steal the T‑rex eggs? What hap­pens when an Allosaurus takes revenge on the Cer­atosaurs that killed his mother? The author-artist has worked on movies such as Men in Black, The Incred­i­bles, WALL‑E Cap­tain Rap­tor series, writ­ten by Kevin O’Mal­ley, illus­trat­ed by Patrick O’Brien, Walk­er Books, 2005.… more

Authors Emeritus: Syd Hoff

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His illus­tra­tions best char­ac­ter­ized as sim­plis­tic and humor­ous, Syd Hoff has held a warm place in children’s hearts through more than 200 books. Born on Sep­tem­ber 4th, Syd Hoff grew up in New York City. He went to the Nation­al Acad­e­my of Design as a fine arts stu­dent, but his teach­ers didn’t appre­ci­ate the humor that per­vad­ed his work.… more

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