Elwyn Brooks White was born on July 11, 1899, in Mount Vernon, New York. In a 1980 article from the New York Times he discusses his name: “I never liked Elwyn. My mother just hung it on me because she’d run out of names. I was her sixth child.” Later, at Cornell University, he was called… Read more »
Children’s Books
Personalized Picture Books
Back when I was first dipping into the field and studying ways to improve my own attempts at writing for children, I was a big fan of attending author events (and I still am). If they are signing copies of their books, all the better. Seems a shame to keep my collection of signed books closed on the shelf all these years, so… Read more »
2017 Middle Grade Fiction
After recently sharing some of my library’s new picture books and enjoying all your comments, I realized I should do a second post featuring middle grade books. I’m only starting to dip into the fun task of reading these new books, so to avoid playing favorites I won’t attempt to review them at this time. Below are what we’ve added… Read more »
2017 Picture Books
Below are a baker’s dozen of new picture books in alphabetical order that we’ve recently added to our library collection. All were released in 2017, so brandy new. Well, except for Piggy who came in at the tail end of 2016, but really, who can resist him? ABC Pasta an Entertaining Alphabet written and illustrated by… Read more »
And the winner is…
Thanks so much to everyone who participated in my New Year’s Day Giveaway. I appreciate that so many of you took the time to comment whether you wanted to win a book or not (and hey, if you’re not a winner today, you could always borrow or request one of the Amy books at your local library!). My plan… Read more »
Happy New Year and a Giveaway!
As a New Year’s resolution, I’m determined to get a little more writing done. With that intention, I’ll be blogging less frequently this month. I still intend to moderate comments (your chance to win a prize) and I look forward to hearing from you. As for 2017, I’ve already thought up many fun ideas for upcoming posts. I can’t wait to… Read more »
New Picture Books
As always, there are many beautiful new picture books being released (yay!). Therefore, I’m sure I’ve missed a bunch of deserving titles, but I did try to vary between styles and publishers to come up with the following sixteen favorites to review—all hot off the press. First up: My Friend Maggie, written and illustrated by Hannah E. Harrison, is a delightful, gentle read about friendship, peer pressure, bullying,… Read more »
Library Author Visits
Do you ever go to your local library to hear an author talk about their writing process or share their latest book? I’ve been to quite a few over the years at various libraries and now that I have my own books out there in the world, I sometimes am a guest at those same libraries. Here are a… Read more »
Girls Reading Books (Part 2)
Before publishing my last post, I searched for paintings of girls of various complexions to be included in the portraits I shared, but between the time period and my need to use only public domain pictures, my choices were limited. Rather frustrating, since nine different countries were represented in that post. For this second part of the post,… Read more »
Girls Reading Books (Part 1)
Have you ever watched a child, or anyone for that matter, deeply engrossed in a book? Maybe they wear a slight Mona Lisa smile. Maybe they glance away from the page for a minute, but still have a faraway look in their eyes. Or maybe they even cry, gasp, or laugh out loud. There are… Read more »
