Book-A-Day Almanac
Discover the stories behind the children’s book classics and the new books on their way to becoming classics.
Rex Zero and the End of the World
Elementary School, Fiction, Middle SchoolAround this time of year, for almost forty years, the annual Kimberly International Oldtime Accordion Championships took place in Kimberley, B.C., Canada. Family dances, jam sessions, and pancake breakfasts marked a festival that distinctly reminded me of my childhood. I was once forced to take accordion lessons; my mother had visions of her daughter performing […]
Canada, Cold War, Family, Geography, History, PoliticsFeatured on July 5
The Wall
Elementary School, High School, Middle School, Picture BookOn June 17, 1969, in Prague, Czechoslovakia, ten months after the Soviet Union invaded the city with tanks, the Beach Boys gave a concert in Lucerna Hall. Although police with dogs waited nearby, in this dark time the American band provided “a glimmer of hope.” Peter Sís, recipient of a MacArthur genius grant, captured these […]
Autobiography, Award Winning, Caldecott, Cold War, History, SibertFeatured on June 17
The Rise and Fall of Senator Joe McCarthy
Elementary School, High School, Middle School, NonfictionOn June 9, 1954, a lawyer from Boston, Joseph Welch, confronted the most feared man in the United States with the cry “Have you left no sense of decency?” These words marked the beginning of the end of Senator Joe McCarthy, a man who had ruined the careers and lives of countless Americans, and his […]
Cold War, History, PoliticsFeatured on June 9
The Green Glass Sea
High School, Historical Fiction, Middle SchoolOn December 2, 1942, the Manhattan Project initiated the first self-sustaining nuclear chain reaction. Less than three years later, a group of scientists stood near Alamogordo, New Mexico, to watch the first nuclear explosion. One of them, J. Robert Oppenheimer would later say, “We knew the world would not be the same. A few people […]
Cold War, HistoryFeatured on December 2
Daily children’s book recommendations and events from Anita Silvey.
Discover the stories behind the children’s book classics . . .
The new books on their way to becoming classics . . .
And events from the world of children’s books—and the world at large.
