I loathe the widespread critical overuse of the word luminous. But what other adjective can you use for the illustrations of Peter Sís? Lyrical? Ethereal? Clichés too! Also true! Grr. And another cliché: “A singular talent.” But three Caldecott Honors (for 1997’s Starry Messenger, 1999’s Tibet Through the Red Box, and...

Let’s say, for some reason, you wanted to read the worst Hanukkah picture book ever written. Why would you wish to do this? Well, such a book could serve as a fine blueprint for how not to write a lousy Hanukkah book and/or how not to choose a lousy Hanukkah...

Lois Lowry’s Number the Stars was published by Houghton Mifflin in 1989. It won the Newbery Medal in 1990 and celebrates its thirtieth anniversary in 2019.    Thirty years after its publication, Number the Stars by Lois Lowry remains one of the best literary introductions to the Holocaust for children....