JoAnne Stewart Wetzel is the first-time novelist of Playing Juliet (Sky Pony, 2015). From the promotional copy:
Beth Sondquist, 12 1/2, secretly dreams of playing William Shakespeare’s Juliet.
When she learns the children’s theatre in her town is threatened with closure,
Continue Reading New Voice: JoAnne Stewart Wetzel on Playing Juliet »
Cyn & intern Gayleen Rabakukk
The Children’s Literature Community Responds to the 2016 Election by Travis Jonker from 100 Scope Notes at School Library Journal. Peek: “If you’re not up for a (mostly) Kumbaya sort of post (and I respect that), don’t read this post.” See also Children’s-YA Author Peni Griffin on The Morning After the Election.
By Ann Angel
Luis Alberto Urrea, author of The Hummingbird’s Daughter (Little, Brown, 2006), perceives drafting as something far more glamorous than me, and so I’m inspired by his words:
“Writing rules. Everything else sucks. Writing is a big sandbox and it’s full of Tonka Trucks and plastic Godzillas.”
Have you experienced that creative space?
Continue Reading Guest Post: Ann Angel on The Sandbox & The Suck Pond »
Katie Kennedy is the first-time author of Learning to Swear in America (Bloomsbury, 2016). From the promotional copy:
An asteroid is hurtling toward Earth. A big, bad one.
Maybe not kill-all-the-dinosaurs bad, but at least kill-everyone-in-California-and-wipe-out-Japan-with-a-tsunami bad. Yuri, a physicist prodigy from Russia,
Continue Reading New Voice: Katie Kennedy on Learning to Swear in America »
Happy Election Day! Go vote!
We welcome author Debbie Levy to talk about her new picture book biography.
From the promotional copy of I Dissent: Ruth Bader Ginsburg Makes Her Mark, illustrated by Elizabeth Baddeley (Simon & Schuster, 2016):
Ruth Bader Ginsburg has spent her lifetime disagreeing .
Continue Reading Author Interview: Debbie Levy on I Dissent: Ruth Bader Ginsburg Makes Her Mark »
Author Visit with Mary Atkinson
Recently, I received an email from Abby, a student at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. She was working on a research project about Lollipop Power, a small press established in Chapel Hill in 1970.
She wanted to know if I was the author of one of their books,
Continue Reading Guest Post: Mary Atkinson Asks “Am I A Radical?” »
John Herrington’s Mission to Space (Chickasaw Press): a recommendation by Debbie Reese from American Indians in Children’s Literature. Peek: “Herrington is an astronaut. He was on space shuttle Endeavor, in 2002. Mission to Space begins with his childhood, playing with rockets, and ends with Endeavor’s safe return to Earth.”
Tracy Edward Wymer on Soar (Aladdin, 2016). From the promotional copy:
Seventh grader Eddie is determined to honor his father’s legacy and win the school science fair in this fun and quirky debut novel.
Eddie learned everything there is to know about birding from his dad,
In storytelling, our number one job is to make readers care. We want to ensure that our fiction captivates them on many levels and that our characters seem like living, breathing people who continue to exist in readers’ minds long after the book closes.
So how do we do this?
Continue Reading Guest Post: Becca Puglisi on Setting as a Characterization Tool »
“Don’t be afraid of death; be afraid of an unlived life. You don’t have to live forever, you just have to live.”
‘Tuck Everlasting’ Author Natalie Babbitt, Of Hamden, Dies At Age 84 by the Associated Press from The Hartford Courant.
