A couple of years ago, “Hey There Delilah” by the Plain White T’s was being blasted all over the airwaves. My kids and I started singing along to the song every time we heard it, like many people, I’m sure. It was a really catchy tune. The more I heard the song,
Continue Reading Guest Post: Danielle Joseph on Indigo Blues »
Daniel and Dina Nayeri are the debut co-authors of the Another series (Candlewick, 2009-2010). From the promotional copy of Another Pan (2010):
An ancient Egyptian spell is turning the tony Marlowe School into a sinister underworld. Will all hell break loose?
A darkness continues to haunt the Marlowe School, and this time, someone is plotting payback.
Continue Reading New Voice: Daniel & Dina Nayeri on Another Pan & Another Faust »
By Nicole Rubel
Most people don’t have problems when asked, “What do you do?”
I do. I find the question complicated to answer. I work at many different projects. I don’t mean I have many interests. I have those, too, but for employment, I really do a lot of different things. Usually,
Continue Reading Guest Post: Nicole Rubel on What Do You Do? »
“Lemonade for Lemurs.”
That’s what my co-author, Karen Duncan, wanted to call our book. Although with her fabulous Australian accent, it sounded more like “LEY-mon-ayd foh LEE-mahs.”
Karen was my neighbor then, and we were sitting on the front stoop of my townhouse on the South Side of Chicago,
By C.J. Bott
Words are powerful. They are learned early, and they bruise forever. Who would have thought that combinations of 26 letters could cause so much pain, humiliation, and violence? But they do. Words hurt and when that preschooler learns that first powerful word—“stupid”–the pattern is established. Childhood words grow into permanent labels and into hate slurs.
Continue Reading Guest Post: C.J. Bott on Words — One Weapon We All Own »
Gayle Brandeis is the first-time children’s author of My Life With The Lincolns (Henry Holt, 2010)(author blog). From the promotional copy:
Mina Edelman believes that she and her family are the Lincolns reincarnated. Her main task for the next three months: to protect her father from assassination, her mother from insanity,
Continue Reading New Voice: Gayle Brandeis on My Life With The Lincolns »
Congratulations to author Audrey Vernick and illustrator Don Tate on the release of She Loved Baseball: The Effa Manley Story (Balzer & Bray, 2010)(interior illustrations). From the promotional copy:
Effa Manley always loved baseball. As a young woman, she would go to Yankee Stadium just to see Babe Ruth’s mighty swing.
By C.J. Omololu
I didn’t set out to write an “issue” book. As it involves a dead mother and a house filled to the ceiling with garbage, in hindsight that was probably a little naïve.
I wasn’t trying to put a face to an important worldwide problem. I didn’t want to become the point person for people who grew up in hoarded homes.
Continue Reading Guest Post: C.J. Omololu on Writing “Issue” Books »
Ryan Potter is the first-time author of Exit Strategy (Flux, 2010)(blog). From the promotional copy:
Looming above Zach Ramsey’s hometown of Blaine are the smokestacks of the truck-assembly plant, the greasy lifeblood of this Detroit suburb. Surrounded by drunks, broken marriages, and factory rats living in fear of the pink slip,
“What do you want from your dream?”
It was a good question. Technically, it was not the dream itself that was the subject of my husband’s question.
What came from that night’s dream was a story: Shadow Garden. It always had a name, but it hadn’t been a real place except to those I chose to visit it with me,
Continue Reading Guest Post: Cherie Foster Colburn on Our Shadow Garden »
