Authors & Illustrators

Book lovers of all ages came out in droves to the Brooklyn Book Festival on Sunday, September 22. It is the largest free literary event in New York City, and showcased a diverse group of authors and illustrators that live or work in the borough. Gene Luen Yang, Raina Telgemeier, and Jarrett J. Krosoczka were just a few of the acclaimed and bestselling children's books creators that were present.

Torrential downpours did not dampen the crowd’s enthusiasm for the over one hundred authors and illustrators who participated in the Library of Congress’s 13th annual National Book Festival on the National Mall in Washington, D.C., this weekend. Hundreds of attendees jammed the festival tents to see and hear such favorite authors as Richard Peck, Katherine Paterson, Phyllis Naylor Reynolds, Oliver Jeffers, Veronica Roth, and Jon Klassen.

Friends and family gathered in New York City on Saturday, September 21, to pay tribute to storyteller, folklorist, and picture book author Diane Wolkstein, who died on January 31, 2013. During the memorial, Wolkstein was honored for her contributions to the world of storytelling through her performances and numerous books, audiobooks, and DVDs of tales she collected from around the world.

An idyllic trip ends when Somalian pirates size a yacht and hold the family onboard for ransom.

Hey all!  Before I dive into the oddities of the world in which we live, I just wanted to give a bit of a shout out to two distinct groups that allowed me to sprawl my librarian self all over their respective gatherings.  First up, credit and love to Nancy Castaldo and all the folks [...]

Read for the Record Day is October 3, and children all over the country will be celebrating by reading Loren Long's Otis, including the students at teacher librarian Shannon McClintock Miller's school. Five lucky classrooms that pledge by September 25 will also get the opportunity to chat with the author in a Google+ Hangout.

Acclaimed author/illustrator Kevin Henkes spoke to a live audience at Bank Street College of Education in New York City on September 17. The event, which coincided with the publication date of his latest children's book The Year of Billy Miller, was also broadcasted to classrooms and libraries across the country.

In the editor’s note in the ARC of All the Truth That’s in Me, Kendra Levin describes Julie Berry’s debut YA book as a “pinhole” narrative—“you start looking through a tiny hole… and as the story goes on, the pinhole widens and widens until you can see a bigger picture.” SLJTeen caught up with Berry to learn more about the setting, characters, and the origins of this beautifully written story.

Planned school visits by YA authors Meg Medina and Rainbow Rowell set to coincide with Banned Books Week (September 22 to 28) have been cancelled due to local challenges over the content of their acclaimed books, the National Coalition Against Censorship reports.