Publications about books for children and young adults
I just read Rage by Jackie Morse Kessler (HMH, April), a follow-up to October’s Hunger. In each book, a troubled girl on the brink of killing herself (intentionally or through miscalculated self-injury) is offered a second chance by Death: take on the role of a Horseman of the Apocalypse. Anorexic, over-exercising Lisa becomes the avatar [...]
Ahoy, mates! In conjunction with today’s opening of the film Pirates of the Caribbean: On Stranger Tides, Disney Book Group just published a Pirates of the Caribbean novel titled The Price of Freedom. Written by A.C. Crispin, this 600-plus page yarn provides a back story for everyone’s favorite pirate: Captain Jack Sparrow. Twenty-five-year-old Jack has [...]
It’s prom season! Sure, most of us have outgrown prom frenzy, but a little reminiscing never hurt anyone (except for Roger, who never went). Author Aimee Ferris does just that, and encourages others to do the same, over at her blog Will Work for Prom Dress—a tie-in to her book with the same title (Egmont), [...]
We both gave Laurel Croza and I Know Here an award. In response to winning the Boston Globe–Horn Book Picture Book Award, Laurel said, That’s me, flash-frozen in disbelief—“whaaaaat!?!”—since I heard I Know Here won a 2010 Boston Globe–Horn Book Award. Way, way, way beyond my daydreaming orbit, the news too surreal, too out-of-this-world abstract [...]
Today J. Patrick Lewis was named the national Children’s Poet Laureate by the Poetry Foundation. He’s the third to hold the two-year post, following Jack Prelutsky and Mary Ann Hoberman. In his article “On Originality in Children’s Poetry” in the May 2005 Magazine, Lewis referenced T.S. Eliot’s observation that “Immature poets imitate; mature poets steal; [...]
Beauty and makeup how-to books are abundant and ever-popular—makeup artist turned beauty mogul Kevyn Aucoin’s New York Times bestseller Making Faces (Little, Brown, 1997) and his later Face Forward (Little, Brown, 2000) set the bar high. Erika Stalder (with celebrity stylists Christopher Fulton and Cameron Cohen) smartly cashes in on the genre for a young [...]
As you may recall, I’ve got a bit of a crush on author Neil Gaiman. Today I’ve been obsessively listening to “Nighty Night” by 8in8, the self-described “world’s least super supergroup” (comprised of lyricist Gaiman with musicians Amanda Palmer, Ben Folds, and Damian Kulash). The album was written, recorded, released for download, and performed live—all [...]
> What You Wish For, a collection of short stories exploring the topic of wishes, will be published this September by Putnam and The Book Wish Foundation. Book Wish will be contributing their share of the proceeds and all donations to UN Refugee Agency, UNHCR to help fund libraries in Darfur. The deadline to donate [...]
Chronicle has just published His Shoes Were Far Too Tight, a collection of Edward Lear’s poems, selected and introduced by author/NPR commentator Daniel Pinkwater. The collection is illustrated by Calef Brown, a fabulous children’s poet himself. With the book we received a CD of the euphonious Pinkwater narrating five of the poems. My favorite is [...]
While perusing Cliques by Toney Allman, part of Lucent Books’ long-running Hot Topics series for middle-schoolers, I noticed this poor girl, presumably being teased about her hair. “Why is it always the redhead?” thought I. From Anne Shirley (and doesn’t it look like this little lady’s ready to break her slate over somebody’s head?), to [...]
