Authors & Illustrators

Sesame Street's "Maria," Sonia Manzano, received top honors in the 2013 Americas Award for Children’s and Young Adult Literature for her The Revolution of Evelyn Serrano. Celebrate International Dot Day with its creator, author/illustrator Peter H. Reynolds, at the Eric Carle Museum of Picture Book Art in Amherst, MA, on September 15.

Leonard Peacock has big plans for his 18th birthday....to kill Asher Beal and then commit suicide....This is a difficult, yet powerful, book. Quick’s use of flashbacks, internal dialogue, and interpersonal communication is brilliant.

With another school year on the horizon, the focus of August’s Listen In column is on the relationships that children and teens make—with other kids and with adults—to help them navigate the stormy waters of growing up. The ten audiobooks featured are excellent for group listening and for generating discussions about what’s happening to the young people in the stories, from the poignant depiction of friendship in The Other Side to the real drama wrought by abuse in Eleanor and Park.

Darius and Twig both dream of leaving their poor neighborhood for better and safer lives. Narrator Brandon Gill does a great job differentiating between the two boys as they make their way through the obstacles set before them. Be sure to read the review of the audiobook version of Walter Dean Myers’s novel.

There must be a psychological disorder associated with an extreme preference for speculation over cold hard facts.  Or, at the very least, a layman’s term for it.  But until I research this fully, let us indulge my proclivities and talk a little about the National Ambassador of Young People’s Literature and all that it entails.  [...]

The first movie adaptation of Cassandra Clare’s popular series, The Mortal Instruments: City of Bones, is out in theaters on August 21. Lily Collins as Clarissa “Clary” Fray and Jamie Campbell Bower as Jace star in the action-fantasy, which provides the thrill of the chase and a sprinkling of the romance for its core audience.

YA Author Todd Strasser poses with his surfboard in Montauk, New York. Strasser started surfing when he was in his mid-50s. His next book, Fallout(Candlewick), publishes in September 2013.

From paperboy routes to dealing with a dad fighting in Afghanistan, these new releases selected by Junior Library Guild editors feature boys who make difficult, life-altering decisions.

Forgive Me, Leonard Peacock by Matthew Quick. Little, Brown. 2013. Reviewed from ARC from publisher. The Plot: It is Leonard Peacock’s birthday. No one remembers. He has wrapped up four gifts, to give to his four best friends. And he is bringing his grandfather’s handgun to school. Today is the day he will shoot Asher [...]