Find a Book by Date
Books featured in October
1
October happens to be Fire Pup Month. But even old dogs can learn new tricks—and today I will be writing about a cat, not a dog! This year I’ve been meeting with a group of children’s book experts and enthusiasts…
Animals, Cars, Cats, Transportation
Featured on October 1
2
Since the eighties the birthday of Mahatma Gandhi has been honored with World Farm Animals Day. If I were to pick a single book that celebrates living farm animals, it would have to be On the Farm, an inspired collaboration…
Featured on October 2
October 2, 1968 marks the establishment of California’s Redwood National Park, which protects slightly less than half of the remaining coast redwoods. Unfortunately, I have never personally seen one of these beauties, but hearing about the raging fires in Yosemite…
Featured on October 2
3
Mike Mulligan and His Steam Shovel
October 6-12 has been designated Great Books Week to remind us to use our time well by picking up excellent books. By asking questions such as “if stranded on an deserted island, what five books would you want?” or “what…
Featured on October 3
5
For the upcoming Great Books Week, I want to look at the work of Paul Galdone. In his lifetime, Paul received very little critical praise for his books, although he did garner two Caldecott Honors for Eve Titus’s Anatole and…
Featured on October 5
6
On October 3rd we celebrated National Poetry Day. Normally people set aside the month of April to celebrate poetry, but I actually think children’s poetry should be honored at least once a month. Even for children who think they don’t…
Featured on October 6
7
Today for Great Books Week (October 6-12) , I’d like to look at a modest picture book that launched an empire: Marc Brown’s Arthur’s Nose. In 1976 a failed television weatherman, Marc Brown, published his first picture book under the…
Featured on October 7
8
October is National Reading Group Month, and our author of the day, Kate diCamillo, has always been one of my favorite choices for reading groups. Now, I admit I am a sucker for a Kate DiCamillo story. From the beginning…
Featured on October 8
10
Today we celebrate Columbus Day. Every now and then a book not only educates you but changes the way you view history. Once you have read it, you cannot see things quite the way you once did. That is how…
History, Multicultural, Native American
Featured on October 10
Were he still living, I’d be sending birthday greetings to Jim Marshall today. He died at the age of fifty, much too young and with too many great books still to come. And I have missed him, personally and professionally,…
Featured on October 10
12
On October 12, 1797, Napoleon signed the Treaty of Campo Formio, handing Venice over to Austria. In one of the best children’s books of the last decade, the city of Venice comes so alive that it almost seems like a…
Featured on October 12
13
Lunch Lady and the Cyborg Substitute
This week America celebrates National School Lunch Week. And as that old ditto goes: “Teachers come and teachers go,/It’s the lunch lady who you get to know.” But how well do you really know the lunch lady? Do you know…
Featured on October 13
Tomorrow marks the publication of the fourth installment of Ann M. Martin and Laura Godwin’s The Doll People series, The Doll People Set Sail. Since, for some inexplicable reason, I have not talked about the original book, published in 2000,…
Featured on October 13
14
October has been designated Vegetable Awareness Month and today also marks National Dessert Day. Certainly, I embrace both causes. The book of the day, Gregory, the Terrible Eater by Mitchell Sharmat, brings these two holidays together in a humorous and…
Featured on October 14
15
On October 15, 1860, eleven-year-old Grace Bedell wrote to a candidate running for the presidency, Abraham Lincoln. She stated that her brothers would vote for him if he grew a beard. “You would look a good deal better for your…
Featured on October 15
Today we celebrate the birthday of an illustrator who can list among his many accomplishments creating art for The Bible. Barry Moser was born and raised in Chattanooga, Tennessee, and then came East to teach. While living in western Massachusetts,…
Featured on October 15
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18
October is International Dinosaur Month. Except for cats and dogs, few creatures seem as appealing to children as dinosaurs. In fact, to have a dinosaur as a pet must be one of the great childhood fantasies, an idea explored by…
Featured on October 18
19
In October 1940 a new children’s book author and illustrator published his fourth book, one destined to become a classic. Admittedly since he had been rejected some twenty times for his first book, and then only been picked up by…
Featured on October 19
Ed Emberley’s Drawing Book of Animals
Today marks the birthday of Ed Emberley. Ed was born in Malden, Massachusetts, graduated from the Massachusetts School of Art, and then painted signs for the army and worked in commercial illustration. In the late fifties he began publishing books…
Featured on October 19
20
In October 1992, the board book edition of a title that had already gained a devoted following of picture book fans appeared, Alexandra Day’s Carl Goes Shopping. Often publishers eager for titles for the very young frequently republish material in…
Featured on October 20
21
October has been designated National Reading Group Month. Usually, reading groups select novels. But today I recommend an unusual and brilliant work of narrative nonfiction published last month: Brian Floca’s Locomotive. With a career that began when Brian illustrated books…
History, Science, Technology, Trains, Transportation
Featured on October 21
22
Born on October 22, 1882, in Needham, Massachusetts, Newel Convers Wyeth was raised on a family farm that dated from 1730. As a young man he fell under the tutelage of Howard Pyle, the great children’s book illustrator of his…
Featured on October 22
24
Today we celebrate an event everyone can enjoy. October is National Pizza Month, a perfect time to engage in America’s favorite pastime: eating a scrumptious pie. As a nation, we consume 350 slices of pizza each second! According to a…
Featured on October 24
25
Sadako and the Thousand Paper Cranes
For two and a half weeks, through November 11, we celebrate World Origami Days. Why not try your hand at the Japanese folk art of paper folding that originated in the seventeenth century? During World Origami Days, I’m going to…
History, Origami, True Story, World War II
Featured on October 25
Today marks the death date of Chaucer, the birthdate of English historian Thomas Macaulay, and the Battle of Agincourt in 1415, when the English defeated the French. When I looked at those three events, a new beginning reader comes to…
Featured on October 25
26
October is Family History Month, celebrated by genealogists and family historians who believe in actively searching for information about ancestors. Because of my own family research, I have stood on the Gettysburg battlefield and imagined what my great-grandfather experienced there.…
Award Winning, History, Newbery, Pioneer
Featured on October 26
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28
On October 28,1886, Frédéric Auguste Bartholdi’s sculpture, Liberty Enlightening the World, was officially dedicated on Bedloe’s Island in New York. A sonnet by Emma Lazarus had been inscribed on the pedestal: “Give me your tired, your poor, your huddled masses…
Asian American, Award Winning, Caldecott, Family, History, Immigration, Multicultural
Featured on October 28
29
On October 29, 1924, England and America’s bestselling children’s book writer died in New York. After leaving her native land, she lived for years in the United States, and a New York Times obituary mourned the passing of this beloved…
Featured on October 29
Around this time of year, I like to alert Almanac readers to some new titles, ideal for holiday gift-giving, that they might have missed. Today I want to sing the praises of the second novel by Cat Winters, The Cure…
20th Century, History, Politics, Social Conscience, Women, Women's Suffrage
Featured on October 29
30
More than fifty years ago a down-on-his-luck, New York City playwright who had graduated from Yale wandered into the Times Square subway station late at night and heard a cricket chirp. It reminded him of his childhood in Connecticut when…
Animals, Award Winning, Cats, Classical, Insects, Mice, Music, New York, Newbery
Featured on October 30
31
Unless you are living under a rock, you know today is Halloween. Either for nutritional or theological reasons, Halloween has not been as appreciated in recent years as when I was a child. But I think there is a better…
Featured on October 31
Unless you are living under a rock, you know today is Halloween. Either for nutritional or theological reasons, Halloween has not been as appreciated in recent years as when I was a child. But I think there is a better…
Award Winning, Family, Newbery
Featured on October 31