My humor picture book club is one of the highlights of my week. We’re all writers of picture books who want to learn to write funny – we’ve read books on humor writing, but most of the time we all read and discuss a picture book. Our chats are equal parts insightful and hilarious. View …
Every year I put together a list of my favorite children’s books I read that year. As in previous years, the books are broken down into age categories. This is definitely to make it easier for you to find appropriate books and not because I’m incapable of whittling the list down to something reasonable. Books …
The research is in on the first three Little Elephant books. Drumroll, please! Yes, kids learn math from fictional picture books! Specifically: preschoolers learned a significant amount of math from reading my picture books with their caregivers. If you’ve read books with young kids, you’ve probably experienced this. Kids pick up a surprising amount of …
The Research is in on the Little Elephants’ series Read More »
Every year I put together a list of books you can gift to kids in the holiday season. Giving books is a tradition in my family, but if you don’t spend all day thinking about children’s books like me, it can be a little overwhelming to figure out what books to get. So I make …
Genres carve up all the works we call “literature” and put them into helpful categories. For kids, the most helpful categories are developmental stages. So children’s book genres really equate to age categories or developmental stages. Why developmental stage? What’s interesting and appropriate to a toddler is wildly different from what would make the cut …
Yay! It’s time for me to gush about some books and convince you to buy them for every child you know. This has become a yearly tradition for me. (For five years now!) I admit – I get excited going through my Goodreads list and rediscovering the books I’ve read that year. I get less …
2019 Book Gift List for Kids at Every Age and Stage Read More »
While I hope my book reviews move you emotionally, in this case I’m talking about a change in location. I love reviewing books for so many reasons: I love to read it fills a need for teachers, parents, and readers it shines a light on excellent books that may be overlooked it pushes me to …
Each month I spread a little love for some lovely books with monthly book reviews. March is women’s history month, so this month I’m sharing women’s history books that focus on something I love: STEM. Check out these real stories of amazing women all of whom pursued their passions and became experts in science, technology, …
Welcome to my blog series on how children’s books are actually made. Last time, I explained illustration from the author’s perspective. This time, we’ll look at how the illustrator does their job. I’m not an illustrator, so I’m going to let them speak for themselves. I’ve gathered together videos and blog posts of different illustrators explaining …
How a Children’s Book is Made: Part 2. The Illustrator’s Speak Read More »
For this month’s Kidlit book roundup, I’m happy to welcome my friend, Deb Aronson. Deb was one of my first writer friends; she welcomed me into our local writer community way back when I was just beginning to learn the ropes. Somehow she stayed my friend despite seeing those early draft. *Shudder* We’re still friends …
Horse books for Kids: True stories and Favorite Fiction Read More »
