Don’t get took! Read a book!”

Reading Ahead bubble
by Vic­ki Palmquist I go crazy when I hear that Vaun­da Michaux Nel­son has anoth­er book com­ing out. I’m a fan. For my own read­ing life, No Crys­tal Stair: a doc­u­men­tary nov­el of the life and work of Lewis Michaux, Harlem book­seller, is one of my top ten books in the last ten years. I found every aspect of that book sat­is­fy­ing.… more

We Didn’t Always Know the Way

How to Read a Story
by Vic­ki Palmquist A step-by-step, slight­ly tongue-in-cheek but most­ly sin­cere, guide to read­ing a book, How to Read a Sto­ry by Kate Mess­ner, illus­trat­ed by Mark Siegel (Chron­i­cle Books), will have you and your young read­ers feel­ing all warm and cozy and smart. With advice in Step 2 to Find a Read­ing Bud­dy, we are cau­tioned “And make sure you both like the book.”… more

Literary Madeleine: A History of Reading

by Mar­sha Qualey One of the great good for­tunes of my life is that I’ve man­aged to cre­ate a pro­fes­sion­al life that requires I read a lot. Read­ing is a pas­sion; the old bumper stick­er says it all: I’d rather be reading. But I also think read­ing is an inter­est­ing top­ic. How and why do we read? Who were the first read­ers?… more

Reading Ahead: Levitate Your Brother!

Big Magic for Little Hands
by Vic­ki Palmquist We recent­ly host­ed a Har­ry Pot­ter par­ty for adults for which every­one was asked to per­form a mag­ic trick. Some peo­ple fierce­ly addressed the chal­lenge. Some peo­ple pan­icked. Some peo­ple bought a trick off the inter­net. I turned to Joshua Jay’s Big Mag­ic for Lit­tle Hands (Work­man Pub­lish­ing Co). Cit­ing all the ben­e­fits of learn­ing to per­form mag­ic, the author reveals that he was­n’t a read­er until he need­ed to know about mag­ic.… more