>I have it on good authority that when Jan Brett was asked how she paints the incredibly intricate borders of her popular picture books she replied, “an inch an hour.” But you can ask her yourself by entering (and, duh, winning) her contest for a free school or library visit. Just be the school or [...]
>Too damned long
November 17, 2009 By 32 Comments
>I see that PW has followed up on Betsy Bird’s thoughts on the Amazon Vine program; their speculation that membership in Vine might be a perk for good customers is intriguing if not substantiated. What seems oddest to me is that this program–for which publishers and other producers pay for the privilege of having their [...]
>Not quite the Myracle it seems
November 2, 2009 By 8 Comments
>While Scholastic has gotten a lot of press these last couple of weeks about censoring its book club selections, this is not new; the company has been cleaning up its club editions ever since dirty words started appearing in children’s books. Six Boxes of Books has the best analysis of the controversy I’ve seen yet. [...]
>The science museum had lost its charm
October 23, 2009 By 5 Comments
>Happy to help!
August 30, 2009 By 4 Comments
>M.T. Anderson tipped me to this thoughtful NYT piece about the state of trade books in the classroom (wow, that phrase sounds as antiquated as whole language) and the fact that the Horn Book gets a shout out on the third page. We are of course always gratified when teachers find us helpful in their [...]
>I didn’t see this coming.
April 20, 2009 By 16 Comments
>Round 2 of the BoB has begun, with Tim Wynne Jones choosing Kingdom on the Waves over Trouble Begins at Eight. The judges do not have all appeared to get my memo: in this round it was supposed to be Kingdom v. Graveyard Book, Chains v. Tender Morsels, Frankie Landau-Banks v. Hunger Games and Graceling [...]
>Reading Fun with Goofus and Gallant
April 13, 2009 By 7 Comments
>Aargh?
April 11, 2009 By 18 Comments
>Do we think that the Somalian pirate drama is going to dampen the enthusiasm for “fun” pirates in children’s books? Or for–oh Lord, please–National Talk Like a Pirate Day? Elizabeth thinks not. We just talked and she opined that the pirate thing had already run its course anyway. But there was a sturdy tradition of [...]
>"Oh yes, the new Lowry. Haven’t quite got to it yet, but the woman’s a genius."
March 27, 2009 By 11 Comments
>Complete with pop-up nuns but no Nazis
February 4, 2009 By Leave a Comment
