A Fun Rabbit Habit

Not a Book about Bunnies
Rabbits hop all through children's books. And what's not to like about them? We hope you'll hop into the habit of rabbit books this spring.

Revisiting the Moon

Max and the Tag-Along 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

Candice Ransom
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

Weathering Weather

Come On, Rain!
Phyl­lis: Min­neso­ta has had a win­ter full of weath­er this year. We’ve just fin­ished the snowiest Feb­ru­ary on record, and now March is blow­ing down on us with the promised of wind and rain and (most like­ly) still more snow. An anony­mous British poet wrote of the weath­er, “We’ll weath­er the weath­er what­ev­er the weath­er.” We decid­ed to not only weath­er the weath­er but to cel­e­brate it with a few weath­ery pic­ture books.… more

Teaching Passion

Candice Ransom
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

Hush!
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

Maurna Rome
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

Author Candice Ransom
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”

Author Candice Ransom
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

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

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