We were saddened to hear about the death of Paula Fox. The author, a novelist of uncommon insight into the human condition, died March 1, 2017, in Brooklyn, New York. She was ninety-three. In addition to her adult novels, she wrote more than twenty books for young people, including One-Eyed Cat, a 1985 Newbery Honor […]
Nancy Willard (1936–2017)
March 5, 2017 by Leave a Comment
We were sad to hear about the death of Nancy Willard. Willard, whose 1981 book of poetry A Visit to William Blake’s Inn: Poems for Innocent and Experienced Travelers broke ground by winning both the Newbery Medal and a Caldecott Honor (for Alice and Martin Provensen) in the same year, died February 19, 2017, in […]
Fantasizing?
February 16, 2017 by Leave a Comment
Then join Children’s Books Boston on February 23rd as Our Martha leads a conversation with Kristin Cashore and Tui Sutherland about just what’s going on in those big books today. Maybe they will talk about The Naming. Info at this link. Save
Coretta Scott King booklist and links
February 8, 2017 by Leave a Comment
Maybe you’ve heard: Coretta Scott King is in the news. Last night, Massachusetts Senator Elizabeth Warren (#LetLizSpeak) was repuked (spelling error; we mean rebuked) for reading aloud a letter Mrs. King wrote in 1986 to the U.S. Judiciary Committee opposing Jefferson Beauregard Sessions’s nomination for a federal judgeship. “Mr. Sessions has used the awesome power […]
A word from Bertha
January 31, 2017 by Leave a Comment
“In times like these Resistance means remembering every day the widespread suffering of innocent men, women, and children near and far, and helping now. It means bearing in daily remembrance all those who have recently laid down their lives in hope. It means a new sense of world brotherhood—and the will to express it. In […]
Vote!
January 12, 2017 by 1 Comment
Calling Caldecott has opened its first ballot for voting so get over there and choose your top three. My first choice was Ashley Bryan’s Freedom over Over Me–I remember when Betsy Hearne took heat at BCCB for suggesting in an editorial that Brock Cole’s Celine was worthy of the Medal, and an SLJ editor chastised her […]
Judith Ortiz Cofer and Marilyn Sachs
January 5, 2017 by Leave a Comment
We were sad to hear about the deaths, just before the New Year, of Judith Ortiz Cofer (1952-2016) and Marilyn Sachs (1927-2016), two of children’s literature’s Great Ladies. Cofer’s 1995 linked short story collection An Island Like You: Stories of the Barrio was a touchstone work in children’s books: “A milestone in multicultural publishing for […]
Editorial: She’s With Us
January 3, 2017 by Leave a Comment
Dr. Carla D. Hayden, Librarian of Congress Library of Congress 101 Independence Avenue, SE Washington DC 20540 Dear Carla: You know, the last time I wrote to a librarian in DC, she never got back to me. But then Laura Bush and I did not go to library school together, and I certainly never worked […]
My date with Lisa Yee
December 9, 2016 by Leave a Comment
Lisa Yee and I for more than a decade had a friendship that was entirely virtual, but we met briefly for real last year at the Eric Carle gala. Now she’s moved to vaguely in our neck of the woods, and the other day we went to the MFA for lunch. We mostly talked about […]
Arrival spoilers
November 13, 2016 by 1 Comment
The question is, how can I talk about Arrival without giving anything away? Well, go and come back, if you’ll allow me to allude to Joan Abelove’s 1998 novel (which I would love to see read through a lens of today’s conversations about social identity). And while you’re gone, re-read Shaun Tan’s The Arrival as […]
