Ellen Levine Henry’s Freedom Box: A True Story from the Underground Railroad; illus. by Kadir Nelson 40 pp. Scholastic 1/07 ISBN 978-0-439-77733-9 $16.99 g (Primary, Intermediate) Watch author Ellen Levine read from the 2008 Caldecott Honor book. In a true story that is both heartbreaking and joyful, Levine recounts the history of Henry “Box” Brown, [...]
Jean Craighead George
May 21, 2012 By 2 Comments
Author and naturalist Jean Craighead George, a pioneer in nature writing for children, died on May 15, 2012, in Mount Kisco, New York, at the age of ninety-two. She authored over one hundred fiction and nonfiction children’s books, including the classic wilderness adventure novels My Side of the Mountain (a 1960 Newbery Honor book) and [...]
Old friends
April 30, 2012 By 2 Comments
Had a wonderful day with great friend (and former boss) Betsy Hearne at the Eric Carle on Saturday. Together we led a little lunchtime discussion–I started it by asking Betsy what she found to be most different about children’s books from when she became a librarian in the late sixties and now. She had a [...]
Another Belle of Amherst
April 26, 2012 By Leave a Comment
This coming Saturday, I’ll be introducing my old friend Betsy Hearne at the Eric Carle Museum of Picture Book Art, where she will be delivering the Barbara Elleman Research Library Lecture. 25 bucks for lunch with Betsy and me at noon; the BERL lecture (hey Barbara–how’s it feel to be an acronym?) is at 2:00 [...]
Boots on the ground
April 23, 2012 By Leave a Comment
Barbara Bader’s “Cleveland and Pittsburgh Create a Profession” looks at a time when place really mattered and where you worked was far more allied to what you did than it is today. Certainly, you would learn from your distant colleagues via professional associations and journals, but change in librarianship happened building by building. Reading Bader’s [...]
The Other Half
April 18, 2012 By 2 Comments
by Diana Wynne Jones This is not about my own school. I prefer to forget that. This is about how a large part of the job description when you write for children is the remorseless visiting of schools. When I was young and strong, I was required to do this almost once a week. Half [...]
Can I believe the magic of your sighs?
April 12, 2012 By 3 Comments
Did you know it was Gerry Goffin, not Carole King, who wrote the lyrics to “Will You Love Me Tomorrow”? That’s just one of the fun facts I’ve picked up in listening to King’s new autobiography called, what else, A Natural Woman. Her stories about working for hit factory Aldon Music (not in the Brill [...]
Aren’t they great?
January 30, 2012 By 5 Comments
NOT the Caldecott choices, well, of course them but really: Lolly and Robin. I want to thank them for starting up Calling Caldecott and doing such a nice job of keeping it going and getting it noticed. (On the day of the announcement, the New York Times even linked over here.) And you too, readers: [...]
Letter to the Editor from Margaret Bush, January/February 2012
December 30, 2011 By Leave a Comment
September/October 2011 Horn Book Barbara Bader’s series of articles on the “second generation” of prominent librarians in the children’s services field (“Virginia Haviland,” January/February 2011; “Augusta Baker,” May/June 2011; “Mildred Batchelder,” September/October 2011) has been enjoyable to read. For the small number of us who worked with these librarians or knew them, Bader stirs up [...]
