In May, the Association of American Publishers celebrates Get Caught Reading Month—publicity for the event includes posters of famous people each absorbed in a good book. Certainly, any book featured on the Almanac over the past year would be great to be caught reading. But I’d like to showcase a series that not only engages […]
Adventure, Dystopia, SurvivalThis week we celebrate Children’s Book Week, a great time to look at old classics and new favorites. A couple of years ago for Scholastic Book Clubs, I worked with more than twenty children’s book experts to identify the best books to include in their offerings. When we took our original ballot, before discussion, one […]
HumorToday I would like to wish happy birthday to one of the loveliest ladies in the children’s book world, illustrator Barbara McClintock. Born in New Jersey, Barbara drew constantly as a child. By the time she reached seven, she knew she wanted to be an artist when she grew up—although she also had designs on […]
Nature, Seasons, WinterMay 1, International Workers Day, is celebrated in more than eighty countries around the world The observance originated in the United States in the 1880s as workers mobilized to secure an eight-hour workday. The Association of American Publishers has designated May as Latino Book Month. So today seems like a perfect time to look at […]
History, Latino, Multicultural, PoliticsToday marks the birthday of writer Paula Fox, born in New York City. Her memoir Borrowed Finery tells the haunting story of her childhood and her rejection by her mother who left her in an orphanage. Paula was initially raised by Reverend Elwood Corning and his bedridden mother; later Fox’s Cuban grandmother took care of […]
Animals, Award Winning, Cats, Family, Great Depression, History, NewberyApril 15 is, of course, tax day—but I have never found a suitable book on the subject for the Almanac. Some concerns really are not appropriate for children. Instead I will focus on a perfect title for Poetry Month, J. Patrick Lewis’s Book of Animal Poetry. In March at the Charlotte Huck Festival in Redlands, […]
Animals, Science, ZoologyThis week the International Cemetery, Cremation, and Funeral Association holds its annual convention. I once took care of the Houghton Mifflin booth during a convention held in a small hotel complex where funeral directors took up the other half of the hall. I couldn’t think of a book that I might bring over to them. […]
20th Century, Award Winning, History, Newbery, SummerHappy April Fools’ Day! As someone quite gullible, I find this day taxing. But since April is also Poetry Month, I have a reason to celebrate today. In a new offering that will appeal to both adults and children, Jack Prelutsky has teamed up with the talented Carin Berger to create a book that provides […]
Animals, Art, ScienceToday marks the birthday of Clara Lemlich, born in 1886 in Ukraine to a Jewish family. Following a pogrom in 1903, Clara and her family immigrated to the United States. She stood a mere five feet tall, but as Brave Girl, our book of the day, tells us, she had grit and was going to […]
20th Century, Clothing, History, Jewish, Multicultural, New York, WomenMarch has been designated Ethical Awareness Month. Really good books that allow children and adults to explore ethical issues are not that easy to come by, although both Wonder and How to Steal a Dog can be used for this purpose. But a 2012 nonfiction book by Jim Murphy, The Giant and How He Humbugged America, […]
Civil War, HistoryThe game’s afoot! This weekend in Cape May, New Jersey, one of my favorite events of the year, Sherlock Holmes Weekend, takes place. Anyone lucky enough to attend can don Victorian garb and stalk gas-lit streets to solve an intriguing mystery. I myself always want to go, if only to wear one of those great […]
Award Winning, NewberyToday marks the birthday of Canadian writer Iain Lawrence. He was born in Sault Ste. Marie, Canada, called simply “the Sault,” which is pronounced to rhyme with zoo. Once a year his brother would sing, “Happy Birthday to you. You were born in the Sault.” Possibly this early nonsense verse encouraged Lawrence to seek a […]
Adventure, England, History, SurvivalBorn in Chicago on February 22, 1925, Edward St. John Gorey briefly attended the Art Institute of Chicago but actually received a B.A. from Harvard in French. He began his career as a book jacket designer and became a staff artist at Doubleday. Around that time, Gorey started publishing illustrated tales, often under a pseudonym, […]
Art, FamilyFebruary has been designated Responsible Pet Owners Month. The book of the day, Jim Paulsen and Gary Paulsen’s Road Trip, has been dedicated to “everyone who’s ever loved and been loved by a really good dog.” It was pressed into my hands recently by Carol Stoltz of Porter Square Books in Cambridge, Massachusetts, when I […]
Animals, DogsIn the first week in February, we celebrate Children’s Authors and Illustrators Week. Of course, on the Almanac I celebrate them every day of the year. But still I appreciate a week where everyone can focus on these extraordinary people. After being in the field for more than forty years, I love finding an author-illustrator […]
Animals, Art, Award WinningIn January we celebrate National Folklore Month. Folklore collections and retellings have tended to be Euro-Centric in books for children, whether retellings from Grimm, Perrault, or the Lang Fairy Books. But after American-born Grace Lin traveled to the land of her ancestors, Hong Kong, China, and Taiwan, she began incorporating the folklore of this land […]
Asian American, Folktale, MulticulturalThe 20th Singapore Robotic Games is taking place today at the Science Center in Singapore. Does this sound like fun or what? Since I can’t be there, I am doing the next best thing: picking up Ame Dyckman’s Boy + Bot, one of the funniest and most original picture books of 2012. In a very […]
Friendship, Science, Technology, ToysMany make reading resolutions for the New Year, and I do as well for the Almanac. Last year, a consulting project I worked on made me painfully aware of how few of our best books for children focus on other than English-speaking countries. So this year I intend to write more Almanac entries with an […]
Award Winning, Family, History, Social ConscienceJanuary has been designated National Folktale Month. Ever since Jon Scieszka and Lane Smith published The True Story of Three Little Pigs, over two decades ago, fractured fairy tales, or folklore, have attracted writers and illustrators. Our book of the Day, Mo Willems’s Goldilocks and the Three Dinosaurs, falls squarely in that tradition. Children enjoy stretching […]
Dinosaurs, FolktaleToday illustrator Etienne Delessert celebrates his birthday—he has been creating children’s books for more than fifty years. When I was a young critic in the 1970s, the avant guard of illustration consisted of Maurice Sendak (Where the Wild Things Are), Tomi Ungerer (No Kiss for Mother), Edward Gorey (The Shrinking of Treehorn), and Etienne Delessert, […]
Art, Bedtime, Imagination, TrendsettingFor our last selection for Read a New Book Month, I’d like to look at one of the most original graphic novels to appear in the last couple of years, Na Liu and Andrés Vera Martínez’s Little White Duck. When books for American children focus on other parts of the world, they tend to be […]
20th Century, History, Women, World HistoryToday I am recommending a book to chase the holiday blues away. Sometime during this joyous, or not so joyous, season, people find themselves a bit depressed. When that feeling comes upon you, make sure you have a copy of Linda Urban’s A Crooked Kind of Perfect nearby. Urban’s first novel, published in 2007, provides […]
Family, Humor, Music, SchoolDecember has been designated Read a New Book Month. During this month many hunt for new books to give as gifts. If you are one of those people, take a look at the picture book biography, Monsieur Marceau, written by Leda Schubert and illustrated by Gerard Dubois, winner this year of NCTE’s Orbis Pictus Award. […]
History, Theater, World War IIDecember has been designated Read a New Book Month. I look forward to this celebration because I can present some new gems of the last couple of years. In 2012 Henry Cole published a remarkable wordless picture book, Unspoken: A Story from the Underground Railroad. In artwork created only with charcoal, paper and pencil, Henry […]
Civil War, History, Social ConscienceFor 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 and illustrator Melissa Sweet takes readers behind the scenes of the parade as she presents […]
History, Holidays, Humor, Thankgiving, ToysNovember 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 the Chippewa, began a series of books set in the same region as Laura Ingalls […]
19th century, History, Multicultural, Native AmericanNovember has been designated Adopt a Senior Pet Month. Most families want to find a puppy or kitten when they chose a pet, but there are so many benefits in bringing a more mature animal into the house. My own senior pet, a Bernese mountain dog named Lady, turns twelve this month. Two years ago […]
Animals, Dogs, FamilyUnless 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 holiday to celebrate on October 31. In fact, I am sorry that it is not […]
Award Winning, Family, NewberyToday 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 mind: David Macaulay’s Castle: How It Works. Good beginning readers with historical or informational content […]
Architecture, HistoryToday 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 with the then-Boston firm of Little Brown and Company. For Ed Emberley, working on books […]
Animals, Art, NatureOn 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 face is so thin,” she advised. Lincoln wrote back, and then, as a reporter announced, […]
Civil War, History