People

How do, folks.  Well, as you might have heard, this past ALA Caldecott/Newbery/Wilder Banquet saw me interviewing hoards of famous people alongside the multi-talented Jim Averbeck and partner-in-crime Kristin Clark.  Those videos have now all appeared online at a single solitary location: Kidlit Red Carpet.  It is very unfortunate that my interview with Laura Rodgers [...]

Greetings from Boston where I’ve been learning and presenting with friends at Alan November’s Building Learning Communities Conference. I have much to report on, but first I want to share Shannon Miller’s Padlet asking folks to share their vision of library change–roles, responsibilities, physical spaces, collections, etc.–for the upcoming school year. The response was wonderfully [...]

Acclaimed author/illustrator Ashley Bryan celebrated his 90th birthday at the Simon & Schuster Children's fall preview on July 25. The winner of the Laura Ingalls Wilder Medal, and the Coretta Scott King–Virginia Hamilton and Coretta Scott King Awards was joined by librarians, publishing professionals, and fellow children's books artists.

On Wednesday, July 11 through Sunday, July 15, while attending the Comic-Con International 2012 in San Diego, I ran around to as many of my favorite kids comics creators as I could and asked them all the exact same questions. Keep in mind, comic book conventions are crazy loud and crazy busy, so there is [...]

MTV recently surveyed its core audience, the Millennials, in order to better understand the younger subset of that group, ages 13-17, as they age into the older group, ages 18-24. And while the results may not be surprising, MTV's deft interpretation of the responses divides the Millennials into two distinct archetypes as represented by the two biggest names in fiction over the past 15 years—Harry Potter and Katniss Everdeen.

Some summer camps offer what schools straining under reduced budgets and months of test prep can't—and they aren't just for the wealthy. Turn your library into a clearing house of information for kids and their parents about the range of programs available to them.

Leonard Marcus might just be the busiest man in the world of kid lit. In June, the children’s literature historian and scholar launched a critically acclaimed exhibition at the New York Public Library (which he curated) and had a book published that celebrates the life and work of Maurice Sendak (which he edited). Marcus shared with SLJ some of the details of his recent projects, insider knowledge of children’s literature history and icons, and his belief that picture books might be the solution to saving all physical books.

From Rita Willams-Garcia's P.S. Be Eleven to Cynthia Kadohata's The Thing About Luck, these middle grade novels selected by Junior Library Guild editors showcase plucky protagonists who learn to forge their own paths despite the circumstances that come their way.

Meet Isol.  Incredibly badass Isol.  The fact that you may not know her name instantly is a crime.  We Americans are fairly . . . how to put this . . . screamingly awful about paying attention to authors and illustrators from other countries.  Isol won the most recent Astrid Lindgren Award, but she’s hardly [...]