Monica Edinger's Blog, page 12

In the Classroom: Using Melissa Sweet’s Some Writer! in an E. B. White Author Study

For decades I’ve been launching my 4th graders’ school year with an  E. B. White author study. You can read more about it here and find the materials for the students here. As you will see there is close reading, passionate essay writing, and art. I’ll still be doing all of that this year, but I’ve added in something new that I’m very excited about — Melissa Sweet’s glorious Some Writer! The Story of E. B. White.

As the children read or reread Charlotte’s Web at home in preparation for our cl...

Indie Press Spotlight #4

[image error]

Today I wish to spotlight a wonderful, authentic, and original series — Atinuke’s Anna Hibiscus books published in the US by Kane Miller.  As she writes about herself, Atinuke was “…born in Nigeria to a Nigerian university lecturer father and an English editor mother…” and spent her early years in Nigeria before heading off to a British boarding school at age ten. As for the books themselves, she writes:

I had been meaning to write those stories for years – ever since the homesickness of my...

The Complexities of Virtual Platforms When it Comes to the Newbery

Heavy Medal has a thoughtful post, debating the recent ouster of a Newbery Committee member for breaking rules related to social media. Here’s my comment:

This is such a dilemma. I started my blog in 2007 thinking naively that I’d feature a series on my Newbery reading (being on the 2008 Committee). Roger Sutton, on Caldecott, similarly had just started his blog. I remember vividly sitting with a bunch nascent bloggers at Midwinter that year where the Board was contemplating a rule that we co...

Book Fest @ Bank Street College

New York, NY, September 13, 2017—On October 28th, Bank Street College of Education will host BookFest @ Bank Street, an annual event devoted to the celebration, discovery, and discussion of books for children and teens. This year, guests will hear from a number of renowned authors, illustrators, editors, reviewers, and scholars from the children’s literature community in a series of panel discussions, thought-provoking presentations, and interactive small group book discussions. The event, wh...

On This First Day of School Remembering one Sixteen Years Ago

It was the first day of school for my new cohort of fourth graders here in our New York City private school.  Those kids are now moving on with their lives and the ones I’m going to meet in a few hours were not alive back then. But they will find a mascot of sorts in the classroom — ladybugs. I will hid 18 of them and when they come into the classroom each child will be required to find one. That will relax them and give me a chance to explain the ladybugs.

Why Ladybugs?

Because September 11...

In the Classroom: First Day of School Reading

Whew — coming back to school after being away on sabbatical is exhausting! I did expect it to be given the more leisurely lifestyle I had so it wasn’t a surprise, but still….  I hope I can keep my resolution to continue my writing even as the school takes over more and more every bit of my thinking.

The good news is that getting my room in order (and I am so so grateful to our building staff who helped me unpack and shelve my many books), reconnecting with colleagues, and learning about my ne...

In Memoriam: Child_lit

Born in late September of 1993, Child_lit was one of the first online discussion groups about children’s literature. Founded and maintained for twenty-four years by Rutger’s University rare book librarian Michael Joseph, it quickly became a community of individuals from many walks of life. Academics, booksellers, editors, publishers, librarians, writers, collectors, educators, illustrators, reviewers, publicists, and more interacted in this virtual space.

The Web was new in those days and soc...

Animals or People — Which Make Kids More Giving?

The article “Only Children’s Books With Humans, Have Moral Impact” has me rolling my eyes and snorting. To be fair, what caused my irritation wasn’t the article, but the study it featured (which can be read in an academic paper here).  And why am I so annoyed? Because I think the study is meaningless. The researchers asked some kids to do a task involving sharing stickers before and after reading them a book. They found that directly after hearing a book featuring animals the children were mo...

On The Mocking of Bad Spelling

I’m a terrible speller. I came to pre-computer college with this liability coupled with a worse one — an inability to revise due to a terror of writing given to me by an AP high school teacher who told me I need to “work on my writing” but not doing anything to help me. Since all my attempts to revise made things worse, I would hand in first drafts (typewritten, of course), filled with spelling errors. I remember one time I forgot to put my name on a paper and it came back with “Monica Edinge...

Cover Reveal for Avi’s The Button War

The distinguished and award-winning author, Avi, has a fascinating and unique new work of historical fiction coming out next June from Candlewick Press: The Button War.

Here is the publisher’s description:

Twelve-year-old Patryk knows little of the world beyond his tiny Polish village; the Russians have occupied the land for as long as anyone can remember, but otherwise life is unremarkable. Patryk and his friends entertain themselves by coming up with dares — some more harmful than other...