Book-A-Day Almanac
Discover the stories behind the children’s book classics and the new books on their way to becoming classics.
Home of the Brave
Elementary School, Poetic NovelDuring National Poetry Month, I have been featuring some of the best single poetry volumes of recent years. But today I want to take a look at a free-verse novel, Home of the Brave, by Katherine Applegate. She is best known for her Newbery novel The One and Only Ivan, which was published in 2012. […]
African American, Animals, Cows, Multicultural, PoliticsFeatured on April 20
Make Lemonade
Fiction, Middle School, Poetic NovelToday marks the birthday of American author Virginia Euwer Wolff. She grew up on her family’s fruit ranch in Oregon’s Cascade Mountains. Her father died when she was five—she would later create many fatherless children in her novels. A violinist, Wolff attended Smith College, and then traveled with her husband and two children. In the […]
Family, School, WomenFeatured on August 25
The Watch that Ends the Night
High School, Historical Fiction, Middle School, Poetic NovelOn July 13, 1864, John Jacob Astor IV was born in Rhinebeck, New York. He would become the richest man in the world—a land developer, inventor, and even author of a science fiction novel. Today Astor is best remembered as one of the victims of the Titanic. He serves as one of the multiple narrators […]
20th Century, HistoryFeatured on July 13
Hidden
Elementary School, Middle School, Poetic NovelAround this time of year families and children start wrapping up summer activities and begin to prepare for a new school year. All those summer camps, weeklong or month-long, come to an end. In 2011 Helen Frost published Hidden, a novel that will make me look at those summer camps in a slightly different way. […]
Adventure, Friendship, Seasons, Summer, SurvivalFeatured on August 10
Hurricane Dancers
Elementary School, Middle School, Poetic NovelThis month marks the beginning of the Atlantic, Caribbean, and Gulf of Mexico hurricane season. June also marks Caribbean-American Heritage Month. Both events are celebrated in the book of the day, Margarita Engle’s Hurricane Dancers. In a powerful, 145-page poetic novel, Engle presents a fresh and unusual look at Cuba, its history from 1509–1510, and […]
16th Century, History, Hurricanes, Latino, Multicultural, WeatherFeatured on June 5
Love That Dog
Elementary School, Poetic NovelApril has been designated Poetry Month by the Academy of American Poets. If I could make any single volume the book of the month, I would choose Sharon Creech’s Love That Dog, published by the Newbery-Award winner author in 2001. In a small volume of one hundred pages, Sharon uses free verse to celebrate poetry and the […]
Animals, Dogs, SchoolFeatured on April 7
Out of the Dust
High School, Historical Fiction, Middle School, Poetic NovelOn March 4, 1791, Vermont became the 14th state admitted to the Union. Certainly at the time, the event did not seemed connected to the children’s book community. But by the beginning of the twenty-first century, Vermont had emerged as one of the best environments for those who create books for children and young adults. […]
Award Winning, Great Depression, History, NewberyFeatured on March 4
Diamond Willow
Middle School, Poetic NovelToday marks Alaska’s statehood day, when in 1959 Alaska became the forty-ninth state in the Union. Of the myriad books for children that have been set in Alaska, my favorite, Diamond Willow by Helen Frost, appeared recently in 2008. Frost lived and taught for three years in a small Athabascan community in interior Alaska. Many […]
Adventure, Animals, Dogs, Multicultural, Native American, Religion/Spirituality, SurvivalFeatured on January 3
Crossing Stones
High School, Historical Fiction, Middle School, Poetic NovelOn 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 I for young readers have originated in England. But Crossing Stones by Helen Frost, written entirely […]
Family, History, Women, Women's Suffrage, World War IFeatured on November 11
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.
