My Journey with Margaret Wise Brown
How long does it take to write and have a nonfiction picture book published? A few years? Five? How about nineteen?
Margaret Wise Brown
Revisiting the Moon
A full moon on December 29 ended the year 2020. New year, new moon, and we are thinking once again about moon books – we’ve looked at some of these before, but good books, like the moon, keep coming back.
Brenda Sederberg and Her Reading Team
September 2019
Bookology readers first met Brenda Sederberg’s Reading Team partner Sylvie when she was only two days old. At that time the two were sharing one of their very first read-alouds. Now Gram and Sylvie have had the chance to share a whole wonderful year of reading together!
To celebrate Sylvie’s first birthday, Brenda is highlighting the three books that have become Sylvie’s favorites over that special year.… more
Enchanted Points of Entry
My first glimpse of Margaret Wise Brown’s house on Vinalhaven Island, Maine, was from a boat. It topped a granite slope, clapboard siding painted the same gray-blue as the sparkling Hurricane Sound. I was so excited I nearly fell overboard. We’d just passed the Little Island that Margaret had made famous in her Caldecott-winning book and I’d spotted a seal dozing on the rocks.… more
Teaching Passion
When the director of Hollins University’s graduate program in children’s literature asked me to teach a critical class on the history of children’s book illustrators, I said no. Even with an MFA in writing for children from Vermont College, an MA in children’s literature from Hollins, scores of published books, and years of teaching graduate-level creative classes, I still felt like a fraud.… more
My Little Love-One, What Shall I Sing:
Looking at Lullabies
Phyllis: Winter in the north is made of longer and longer nights. What better time to think about lullabies, those songs we sing to our babies to help them sleep? Research has shown how similar lullabies are all around the world in the sounds and rhythms they use to soothe babies. So we thought we’d take a trip with some of those lullaby books, and a few more besides.… more
The Gift of Books:
Terrific Titles for the Classroom Library
As teachers across the country take to the streets to push for adequate compensation and work conditions, it’s a wonder we still have young people entering this noble profession. And yet, at college and university graduation ceremonies everywhere, new teachers will be receiving their credentials as they embark on what will likely be one of the most challenging and rewarding career choices possible.… more
Windward into Revision
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
“Borrowed Magic”
Thirteen years. The project I began in 2003 has had that many birthdays. It occupies two large crates in my office. It has dominated my life, involving travel, research, reading. It has spawned four versions, each dragging multiple drafts. Rejections span ten years.
Nobody, it seems, wants this book. “Kids won’t be interested.” The subject, Margaret Wise Brown, would find this funny. … more
Skinny Dip with Steve 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
Skinny Dip with Amy Baum
What keeps you up at night?
The Disney version of The Legend of Sleepy Hollow. I had to sleep in my sister’s room for 6 months after that terrifying cartoon.
What’s the first book you remember reading?
Little Bear by Else Holmelund Minarik. I loved Little Bear and his very functional family. Also, I thought it was simply magical that all of the letters spelled out a story.… more
