Angela Burke Kunkel

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Angela Burke Kunkel

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Born
in The United States
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February 2011

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Angela Burke Kunkel is the author of Digging for Words: José Alberto Gutiérrez and the Library He Built (Random House/Schwartz & Wade, 2020), an ALA-ALSC Notable Children’s Book and winner of both the Américas Award and International Latino Book Award. She is also the author of Penguin Journey (Abrams Appleseed, 2022). Look for her next books from Random House Studio, Make Way: The Story Robert McCloskey, Nancy Schön, and Some Very Famous Ducklings in 2023 and World More Beautiful: The Life and Art of Barbara Cooney in 2024.

Angela lives with her family in Vermont, where she works as a school librarian. She is represented by Liza Fleissig at the Liza Royce Agency. You can also connect on Instagram @angkunkel.

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Angela Burke Kunkel Years ago, when I was a student at Simmons College in Boston, I was also a nanny for a little girl named Emily. One of my favorite memories from that …moreYears ago, when I was a student at Simmons College in Boston, I was also a nanny for a little girl named Emily. One of my favorite memories from that time was taking Emily to the Public Garden on a beautiful spring day and watching her interact with the bronze sculpture of Mrs. Mallard and her ducklings, walking up and down, patting and hugging and sitting on the each of the ducks.

Years later, when my own daughter was born, a friend from Massachusetts sent us a copy of Robert McCloskey's Make Way for Ducklings, encouraging us to come visit Boston (and the sculpture) again. And within a few years, we did. And a few years after that, during a trivia game at the wedding reception of an American relative and his Russian groom, I learned that in 1990, a replica of Boston's beloved duckling statues was installed in Moscow's Novodevichy Park. With that, the idea for a picture book began . . . and shifted.

As it turns out, the diplomatic ins and outs of a Cold War-era gift does not make for very good picture book material. It led me, however, to a new appreciation of the artistic processes of both Robert McCloskey, author and illustrator of Make Way for Ducklings, and Nancy Schön, the sculptor who reimagined McCloskey's book as public art. My next book, Make Way: The Story of Robert McCloskey, Nancy Schön, and Some Very Famous Ducklings, is a dual picture book biography of both artists, illustrated by the incredible Claire Keane.

Claire's color palette was inspired by McCloskey's early color sketches for Make Way for Ducklings, and I can't wait for readers to see her brilliant nods to the original. Make Way (Random House Studio) won't be on bookstore shelves until April of 2023, but if you're a fan of Robert McCloskey, Nancy Schön, a Bostonian, or just an admirer of the creative process, you can preorder a copy now!(less)
Average rating: 4.4 · 1,712 ratings · 427 reviews · 5 distinct worksSimilar authors
Digging For Words: José Alb...

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4.46 avg rating — 1,030 ratings — published 2020 — 9 editions
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Make Way: The Story of Robe...

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4.36 avg rating — 349 ratings — published 2023 — 3 editions
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World More Beautiful: The L...

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4.35 avg rating — 204 ratings3 editions
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Penguin Journey: A Picture ...

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4.08 avg rating — 126 ratings2 editions
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Snow Geese Season

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it was amazing 5.00 avg rating — 3 ratings3 editions
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It's Been Awhile

I started a draft of this newsletter and realized it’s been a whole year since I sent one out? That seems both impossible and also very possible. Time has passed quickly and slowly, and I’ve spent a lot of it rethinking my online presence, acknowledging how social media affects my brain, and detangling myself from platforms like Facebook and Twitter (and taking long breaks from Instagram, too, tho

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Published on February 25, 2026 06:12
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"We are thrilled to announce that Barbed Wire Between Us received its 3rd Starred Review, this time from School Library Journal:  Gr 2-5–Set in Fort Sill in Lawton, Oklahoma, Barbed Wire Between Us uses verse poetry to tell the story of how Fort S..." Read more of this blog post »
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Topics Mentioning This Author

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Goodreads Librari...: Please merge these two editions? 3 12 Nov 15, 2022 06:24AM  
Goodreads Librari...: Please Combine Editions [Done] 3 9 Dec 20, 2023 09:13AM  
One Million Pages...: Lindy-Lane's MILL 212 284 Jul 01, 2025 02:26PM  
Virginia      Evans
“Imagine, the letters one has sent out into the world, the letters received back in turn, are like the pieces of a magnificent puzzle, or, a better metaphor, if dated, the links of a long chain, and even if those links are never put back together, which they will certainly never be, even if they remain for the rest of time dispersed across the earth like the fragile blown seeds of a dying dandelion, isn’t there something wonderful in that, to think that a story of one’s life is preserved in some way, that this very letter may one day mean something, even if it is a very small thing, to someone?”
Virginia Evans, The Correspondent

Pamela Zagarenski
“There are never any rules, rights, or wrongs in imagining--- imagining just is.”
Pamela Zagarenski, The Whisper

E.B. White
“It was the best place to be, thought Wilbur, this warm delicious cellar, with the garrulous geese, the changing seasons, the heat of the sun, the passage of swallows, the nearness of rats, the sameness of sheep, the love of spiders, the smell of manure, and the glory of everything.”
E.B. White, Charlotte’s Web

E.B. White
“Next day, as the Ferris wheel was being taken apart and the race horses were being loaded into vans and the entertainers were packing up their belongings and driving away in their trailers, Charlotte died. The Fair Grounds were soon deserted. The sheds and buildings were empty and forlorn. The infield was littered with bottles and trash. Nobody, of the hundreds of people that had visited the Fair, knew that a grey spider had played the most important part of all. No one was with her when she died.”
E.B. White

Octavia E. Butler
“People have the right to call themselves whatever they like. That doesn't bother me. It's other people doing the calling that bothers me.”
Octavia E. Butler

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