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Bryan Collier, Marla Frazee, John Green, John Stephens, and Catherynne M. Valente spoke about their latest works, their love of libraries, and the importance of literacy in their lives during the first Children’s Librarians’ Dinner on June 4 at a New York City midtown hotel.
The tale of a little girl who loves to knit, a story about a Harlem book seller, and a book about the life and work of artist Chuck Close are winners of the 2012 Boston Globe-Horn Book Awards.
An ardent library fan, Bradbury said he wrote Fahrenheit 451 (Ballantine, 1953) on a typewriter in the basement of UCLA’s Powell Library and that his original intention in writing the book was to show his great love for books and libraries. The dystopian novel, about a future society in which books are outlawed, ranked number 69 on the American Library Association’s Top 100 Banned/Challenged Books: 2000-2009.
Tao Nyeu was unhappy in her job as a web and graphic designer for an advertising firm. Then, as she was browsing in a bookstore in the picture-book section, she realized what she wanted to do. Nyeu put together a portfolio and applied to the School of Visual Arts’s MFA program, and was on her way to becoming a children’s book author and illustrator. Nyeu talks about her lucky break and her most recent book: Squid and Octopus (Dial, June, 2012). The story stars two quirky friends whose characters and personalities are revealed over four vignettes.
Middle school students are a “hormonally charged” bunch who are “full of complex contradictions” and just “want a voice,” say authors who participated in SLJ’s 2012 Day of Dialog on June 4 at New York’s Jacob Javits Convention Center.
The picture book isn’t dead—in fact, it might be entering a golden age, say some of the most talented and innovative children’s book creators during SLJ’s Day of Dialog.
Palacio and three other first-time children’s book authors spoke at the “Stellar Debuts: Celebrating new and noteworthy arrivals to the publishing scene” panel during SLJ’s Day of Dialog on June 4 at New York’s Jacob Javits Convention Center.
Our nation faces a huge reading gap—but most people are unwilling to talk about it because the bulk of illiterate kids are minority and poor, says Walter Dean Myers.
I’m on my way to visit Susan Cooper on an unseasonably warm day in mid-February. As my car cruises along, about 45 minutes south of Boston, low tide reveals miles of untouched marshland. I drive across a short causeway, creep down an unpaved lane, and suddenly I’m staring at the exquisite home that Cooper built a couple of years ago. My first thought is that I’ve stumbled upon the Grey House, the setting of Cooper’s first children’s book, Over Sea, Under Stone. With its soaring cathedral ceilings and wraparound windows that frame the wetlands, the space is filled with warmth and light even on a winter’s day. It seems like the perfect place for the 77-year-old writer to conjure up some more of her magic.
It was a surprisingly warm day in Dallas as John Corey Whaley stood at the American Library Association’s (ALA) January midwinter meeting still “in complete shock,” looking like a guy who’d just hit the daily double.
Who could blame him?
Your novel, The Wicked and the Just, has two feisty 13th-century teens: Cecily, whose father forces her to move to Wales from England to seek a better life, and Gwenhwyfar, her resentful servant who lost everything when the British took over her town. Why Wales? Most folks have never even heard of it!
