Find a Book by Date
Books featured in November
1
In 1929 the General Federation of Women’s Clubs adopted a holiday that became generally observed in the country by 1949 as National Author’s Day. The resolution for the holiday reads: “by celebrating an Author’s Day as a nation, we would…
Featured on November 1
3
In the Year of the Boar and Jackie Robinson
On November 3, 1938, Bette Bao was born in Shanghai, China. By the age of eight she came to the United States with her father and mother and one sister. When Mao Zedong and his Communist party won the Chinese…
Baseball, Family, History, Immigration, New York, Sports
Featured on November 3
4
This week has been designated World Communication Week to remind us that computer access has made worldwide communication possible. Even this blog, read around the globe, and my national and international friendships on Facebook and Twitter would not be possible…
Featured on November 4
5
The Strange Case of Origami Yoda
To celebrate World Origami Days (October 24–November 11) I would recommend one of my favorite books of the last five years. The ancient Japanese art of Origami does not seem an obvious premise for a trendy, very funny, and contemporary…
Featured on November 5
6
Today we celebrate the birthday of one of the most original creators of children’s books, Lothar Meggendorfer, born in Munich in 1847. Meggendorfer did not want the images of a book to lie flat on the page—he thought they should…
Featured on November 6
7
In November we recognize National Aviation History Month. Flight and flyers have always appealed to children, and this month we’ll look at four superb books that chronicle the Age of Aviation. Let’s begin with the Wright Brothers because they made…
Flight, History, Planes, Transportation
Featured on November 7
8
The second week of November we celebrate National Young Readers Week, an event created in 1989 by the Center for the Book of the Library of Congress to help schools recognize the joys and benefits of reading. To go along…
Adventure, Award Winning, Nature, Newbery, Survival
Featured on November 8
9
On November 9, 1731, American astronomer, mathematician, clockmaker, and surveyor, Benjamin Banneker, called “the first black man of science,” was born in Elliott’s Mills, Maryland. Banneker published an almanac, becoming the first black man to do so. His life has…
History, Immigration, Slavery, Women
Featured on November 9
10
On November 10, 1923, the eighth puppy in a litter of Akita Inu dogs was born on a farm near Odate, Japan. He would become one of the most famous dogs in the world. Although Akitas are naturally smart and…
Featured on November 10
On November 7, 1917, a revolution began in Russia that would change the twentieth century. In what is sometimes called the October Revolution, Bolshevik Revolution, or the October Uprising (because at the time Russia used the Julian or Old Style…
20th Century, History, World War I
Featured on November 10
11
On this day in history, the eleventh hour of the eleventh day of the eleventh month, World War I ended in 1918. America’s involvement came late in the conflict, and, in fact, most of the books written about World War…
Family, History, Women, Women's Suffrage, World War I
Featured on November 11
12
November has been designated Native American Heritage Month. A perfect book for this month is Louise Erdrich’s fabulous new novel for young readers ages eight through twelve, Chickadee. Several years ago, Erdrich, a member of the Turtle Mountain Band of…
19th century, History, Multicultural, Native American
Featured on November 12
November has been designated Life Writing Month, dedicated to the idea that each person has a story to tell from his or her own history. Next week, we celebrate National Geography Week. Our book of the day, Uri Shulevitz’s How…
Geography, History, World War II
Featured on November 12
13
On November 13, 1926, a short story appeared in a New Zealand newspaper, the Christchurch Sun, by a young writer, who had emigrated to England from Australia. It recounted the saga of an “underneath nurse” age seventeen, and her charges…
Featured on November 13
14
Born on November 14, 1907, Astrid Lindgren grew up on a farm just outside Vimmerby, Sweden. Pippi Longstocking, the book for which she became world-renowned, published in the United States sixty years ago, arose from stories she told her seven-year-old…
Featured on November 14
Sylvester and the Magic Pebble
While I was vacationing in the Rangeley Lakes area of Maine in October a sign caught my eye: “Wilhelm Reich Museum.” Although I could not get in, I was intrigued to see the location of the laboratory of the radical…
Animals, Award Winning, Caldecott, Magic
Featured on November 14
15
The Scrambled States of America
This month schools began participating in the National Geographic Bee, an annual contest sponsored by the National Geographic Society. The third week of November the Society marks Geography Awareness Week, providing a multitude of project materials at their website. Since 1989,…
Featured on November 15
16
On November 16, 1915, Jean Fritz was born to American missionaries in Hankow, China. She spent the next thirteen years there—and observed another culture while “wondering what it was like to be an American.” Fritz would write about that childhood…
Award Winning, History, Newbery
Featured on November 16
17
My Season with Penguins: An Antarctic Journal
On November 17, 1820, Nathaniel Palmer and his men on the Hero became the first Americans to set foot on the Antarctic Peninsula. He was a young man, twenty-two, when he accomplished the act for which he has been immortalized.…
Animals, Award Winning, Penguins, Sibert
Featured on November 17
18
Almost Astronauts: 13 Women Who Dared to Dream
Next for National Aviation Month, I’ve chosen a book honoring women who loved flying. When Lieutenant Colonel Eileen M. Collins became the first woman to command a spacecraft that orbited the earth, a group of women pilots had been invited…
Award Winning, History, Sibert, Space, Women
Featured on November 18
19
On November 19, 1863, President Abraham Lincoln helped dedicate seventeen acres of the Civil War battlefield at Gettysburg, Pennsylvania. Orator Edward Everett delivered the main speech that day. He spoke for two hours; Lincoln’s short address lasted about two minutes.…
Award Winning, Caldecott, Civil War, History
Featured on November 19
20
The (Mostly) True Adventures of Homer P. Figg
On the third Saturday in November, the town of Gettysburg celebrates Remembrance Day with a parade of Civil War groups and organizations. One of the most dramatic events of the battle at Gettysburg occurred on the second day when Joshua…
Adventure, Award Winning, Civil War, History, Newbery
Featured on November 20
Today marks the seventy-fifth birthday of one of the loveliest ladies in the children’s book field, Marion Dane Bauer. I first met Marion, who has lived in Minneapolis most of her life, in Hattiesburg, Mississippi, at Hattiesburg’s fabulous book festival.…
Award Winning, Feelings, Friendship, Newbery
Featured on November 20
21
On November 21, 1908, Elizabeth George Speare was born in Melrose, Massachusetts. After finishing degrees from Boston University, she taught in the Massachusetts schools, then married and moved to Connecticut. When her children entered junior high school, she began writing…
Adventure, Award Winning, History, Newbery, Pioneer, Survival
Featured on November 21
22
The genre of science fiction has always provided endless opportunities for writers—as well as endless memories for the young people who read their work. Today marks the first interracial kiss on TV, between Captain James Kirk and Lt. Uhura of…
Featured on November 22
For more than eighty years, the Macy’s Thanksgiving Day Parade has entertained Americans. For many households the viewing of the parade is as essential as eating turkey. But how did such an event come about? In Balloons Over Broadway, author…
History, Holidays, Humor, Thankgiving, Toys
Featured on November 22
23
Today we celebrate the ninety-fifth birthday of an incredible artist, Marc Simont, who in seven decades has illustrated more than one hundred books for children. Born in Paris to parents from the Catalonian region of Spain, Simont lived in France,…
Animals, Award Winning, Caldecott, Dogs
Featured on November 23
On November 23, 1903, an already popular writer and playwright began the first draft of a play entitled “ANON” and set in the night nursery of the Darling family. A few years later, in 1911, he extended the script ideas…
Featured on November 23
24
We all have at least one talent. November 24, Celebrate Your Unique Talent Day, allows all of us to acknowledge our own individual abilities. Whatever you do best, take some time today to recognize that talent. What if you knew…
Adventure, Award Winning, Family, Magic, Newbery
Featured on November 24
25
1621: A New Look At Thanksgiving
Today Americans worship those twin pastimes of indulging in food and football. How did this day, Thanksgiving, become a holiday? In searching for the best book on the topic, I discovered that there aren’t as many Thanksgiving books as you…
Colonial America, History, Holidays, Multicultural, Native American, Thankgiving
Featured on November 25
26
On November 26, 1865, a children’s book was published by Macmillan in England that has remained in print ever since: the longest standing and best-known of our classics, Lewis Carroll’s quirky and unforgettable Alice in Wonderland. Although it was clearly…
Featured on November 26
27
On November 18 for National Aviation Month, we looked at Almost Astronauts, the story of some of the astronauts who did not make it into space. To round out the month, let’s take a look at a man who actually…
Featured on November 27
28
Today for National Aviation Month, let’s look at a perfect book for four- to eight-year-olds that explains the Apollo 11 mission. In 1969 families and friends gathered around small television sets in households across America to watch Neil Armstrong, Michael…
Adventure, Award Winning, History, Sibert, Space
Featured on November 28
29
We are going to end the month with two birthday celebrations—one a writer, the other an illustrator. C. S. Lewis, today’s celebrant, was born on this day in 1898 in Belfast, Ireland. But he would live and write in Oxford,…
Adventure, Animals, Magic, Other Worlds
Featured on November 29
On November 29 we celebrate the birth date of one of America’s most beloved authors. Madeleine L’Engle was born in 1918 and throughout her life faced many obstacles, including roughly twenty-seven rejections of the book that made her famous, A…
Award Winning, Family, New York, Newbery, Women
Featured on November 29
30
We’ll end the month of November with another birthday celebration, this time of one of the finest book illustrators of the twentieth century, Margot Zemach, born in 1931. Strangely, and I have never figured out why, male illustrators for children…
Adventure, Award Winning, Caldecott
Featured on November 30