Fiction

It is my great pleasure to write about The Sea of Tranquility today. I can’t remember the last time I enjoyed a book quite so much. I read it at the same time as a few other books because I wanted it to last. Each time I checked something while writing the review I got caught [...]

I am a big fan of the talented, adorable and slightly wacky author/illustrator/kidlit blogger/podcaster Katie Davis. I am also a big fan of the slightly wacky, digital animation tool PowToon with its cool themes, props, animated characters and transitions. So what happens to the equation when a popular picture book author/illustrator partners with digital, comic-based presentation/video maker platform? [...]

A Funny Little Bird By Jennifer Yerkes Sourcebooks Jabberwocky (an imprint of Sourcebooks, Inc.) $15.99 ISBN: 978-1-4022-8013-9 Ages 3-7 On shelves now When I was a kid I tried to learn how to draw by reading Drawing on the Right Side of the Brain. A lot of the book was dedicated to showing your average [...]

From tragic turning points to budding first love, some of the most talented and up-and-coming authors for the middle grade audience shared their insights on the writing process, connection to their intended audience, and how humor plays a part in all of their works at SLJ’s annual Day of Dialog, held at Columbia University's Faculty House on May 29.

... the gateway to countless worlds of pure fancy intentionally looks pedestrian—one has to transcend the importance of “surface” to be rewarded with the riches that lie beneath.

Tales of the S.S. Junky Star By the Fillbach Brothers First Comics; $6.99 Matthew and Shawn Fillbach have been making various kinds of science fiction comics for a while, from alien invasions (an oversimplified description that doesn’t do justice to the craziness of Maxwell Strangewell) to werewolves fighting vampires on the moon. They’re best known [...]

Penny Warner's The Code Busters 2: The Haunted Lighthouse won the 2012 Agatha Award. Capstone is adding 60 more Presidential titles to the K–3 PebbleGo Biographies module in August 2013. ABDO’s will publish library editions of IDW’s "Jurassic Park" and "Star Trek" graphic novels this fall.

In the last 12 years, the fantasy genre has dominated the middle grade market. Thanks to “Harry Potter”, children worry less about the number of pages, and authors have been happy to comply with longer imaginative offerings. These lengthy tomes are fast-paced reads, full of magical creatures, daring adventures, and loyal characters that fight for the good of all. In the following titles selected by JLG editors, themes of family and friendship are woven into sets of enchanted lands, and fans can escape to a place where their own problems seem far away.

They may be young, but teacher Arturo Avina’s talented kindergarteners are already celebrities in their own right. Students at the Los Angeles Unified School District Olympic Primary Center are the stars of a short-film adaptation of Harry G. Allard Jr.’s beloved children’s classic Miss Nelson Is Missing. Over the course of two months, Avina directed the youngsters, filmed the scenes, and, with the help of the budding actors, edited the movie with technology available in most classrooms.