Publications about books for children and young adults
Having illustrated more than thirty books, Paul O. Zelinsky is a master of just about every artistic medium. He won the Caldecott Medal in 1998 for Rapunzel, a dark story illustrated with lush, realistic oil paintings. But most recently, he collaborated with Kelly Bingham on the side-splittingly funny Z Is for Moose, in which the [...]
To tell the complex story of her great-uncle, bookseller Lewis Michaux, 2010 Coretta Scott King Author Award–winner (for Bad News for Outlaws: The Remarkable Life of Bass Reeves, Deputy U.S. Marshal) Vaunda Micheaux Nelson employs an amalgamation of historical research, family stories, and her own imagination. No Crystal Stair: A Documentary Novel of the Life and [...]
While working on my interview with Molly Leach about her jacket and interior design for the 50th anniversary edition of A Wrinkle in Time, I was reminded of all the terms that have alternate meanings outside the world of print design and production. Here’s a vocabulary quiz, but see how many you can answer without [...]
About a month ago I began an email conversation with Molly Leach about her new cover and interior book design for Macmillan’s 50th anniversary edition of Madeleine L’Engle’s A Wrinkle In Time. Have you seen it? The dust jacket is an updated homage to Ellen Raskin’s original, redrawing the circles and the small silhouettes of [...]
After winning the 2011 Caldecott Medal for A Sick Day for Amos McGee, written by her husband, Philip, Erin E. Stead returns with a second picture book, this one about waiting and planning and hope. And Then It’s Spring (5–8 years) grows out of a long friendship; see below. 1. What about Julie Fogliano’s (glorious) [...]
An old friend of mine from Chicago and the director of films including The Fugitive and A Perfect Murder, Andy Davis made a movie hit from Louis Sachar’s popular and dauntingly honored Holes. Here we talk about how that came about. ROGER SUTTON: What was it like to make a movie that was based on [...]
Dan Yaccarino has an aficionado’s old-fashioned regard for picture-book artistry and a techno-geek’s new-fangled fascination with screen-based storytelling. He has illustrated more than thirty children’s books and is the creator of the Nick Jr. television series Oswald and the Emmy Award–winning Willa’s Wild Life, which currently airs on NBC and Qubo. Having recently played an [...]
Rick Bowers’s previous book, Spies of Mississippi: The True Story of the Spy Network That Tried to Destroy the Civil Rights Movement was a finalist for the YALSA Award for Excellence in Nonfiction for Young Adults. The journalist and historian’s latest offering is another compellingly told and meticulously researched account of events surrounding the civil [...]
Roger Sutton: Your new book, Heart and Soul: The Story of America and African Americans, weaves together historical facts—about slavery, the Emancipation Proclamation, real people like Rosa Parks and Dr. King—with the stories of the relatives of your fictional narrator. It must have been quite complicated to do. What was your entry point? Kadir Nelson: [...]
For a writer so notoriously prolific (closing in on three hundred titles, according to Wikipedia) Jane Yolen is notable for maintaining a high standard of writing across many genres, including poetry, picture book texts, and fiction of both the realistic and fantastic kinds. Her latest novel, Snow in Summer, is a fresh blend of historical [...]
