Monica Edinger's Blog, page 16

Shannon Hale’s Real Friends

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Shannon Hale’s Real Friends was a Reading Without Walls challenge for me. That is, as a child and still today, I’m not much of a group person, most likely related to my introversion. From childhood on I can recall being part of groups of people I liked, but they almost always wanted to spend way more time together than I did. Shyness is probably also a factor as we moved a lot and so I was never in a school more than three years. This made me happy to find just a single friend. Now Shannon w...

Indie Press Spotlight #3

Here are two oversized books that feature languages from around the world.

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The Hello Atlas by Ben Handicott and Kenard Pak is a very cool look at language from all over. It is remarkably comprehensive (while, of course, not able to be complete) and a rich reading/looking/listening experience. (That last is because it comes with an app.) Each section begins with a map showing the languages highlighted, provides brief text about them, and then come a series of illustrations for representationa...

Celebrating Rick Riordan

I’ve been a fan of Rick Riordan‘s kid books from the very beginning and of the man as well. (He previously wrote books for adults.) After reading and loving The Lightning Thief I wrote him after checking out his teacher guide. At the time he was either still teaching middle school or had only very recently stopped and the guide was one he’d developed himself for his own classroom. Happily it is still available on his website here. He wrote me a lovely handwritten letter back (which I, sadly,...

Africa is My Home: Scholastic Reading Club Edition

I don’t think I ever posted about this, but Africa is My Home was a Scholastic Reading Club choice last fall.  Was fun to see it in the flyer and to receive copies of the special Reading Club edition.

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Independent Press Update

In order to make it easier for visitors to check out the ever-growing list of independent presses that I started on my “Amplifying Diversity: Independent Presses” post, I’ve created a page featuring them and added it to the menu above. Please continue to let me know of presses to add. (FYI I will only add international presses that have US distribution.)  I will also be continuing my Indie Press Spotlight series — two so far and many more to come.

Thinking About Identity Labeling

A few days ago I was struck by Lisa Selin Davis’s New York Times Op-Ed, “My Daughter is Not Transgender. She’s a Tomboy.” It captured for me the need we seem to have to get young people identified and then label that identity. Often kids who, in my experience, are exploring and trying out identities as they figure out what they want to be.

Then a few days later I read Chase Strangio’s thought-provoking response, “An Open Letter to Those Praising the New York Times ‘Tomboy’ Piece.” And I reali...

Indie Press Spotlight #2

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Ossiri and the Bala Mengro from Child’s Play Books is a delightful yarn of the Travelers (as Romani are called in the UK). Penned by Romani Richard O’Neill and Katharine Quarmby with charming illustrations by Hannah Tolson this is both an entertaining tale and a book that gives a good sense of the Traveler life.

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In  from Kids Can Press, Kelly Collier takes on confidence, bravado, hubris, and what it means or not to be exceptional in a wry way, both in her text and in her...

Not Your Nice Little Bunny Books

Seeing all the sweet bunny books being touted for Easter makes me think of those that aren’t so, er, nice. Here are few that came quickly to mind. By all means suggest more in the comments.

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You may be surprised to know that one of the first is Beatrix Potter’s The Tale of Peter Rabbit.  Potter’s Peter and other animal characters (she’s got quite a few bunnies) in her books tend to be selfish, silly, and not particularly nice.

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A recent subversive one is Jon Scieszka, Mac Barnett, and Matthew...

Impressions of the Bologna Children’s Book Fair 2017

Last year as I began planning my spring term sabbatical  I realized that I would be free to check-out the legendary Bologna Children’s Book Fair. And so I convinced Susannah Richards to join me and on Friday, March 31, off we went for a week at the fair.

While I had heard a lot about the fair from others, got plenty of advice, I still went with few expectations other than that it seemed to be more for buying foreign rights and not so much for the likes of me. I quickly discovered that while i...

Kwame Alexander’s Phenomenal Closing Write-up for SLJ’s BoB

….Once upon a time, a poet made a decision that since there was no rubric for judging heart and pain and soul and love and vicious clubbing and death and love and magic and the audacity to hope, the criteria for judging the School Library Journal Battle of the Books would be, get this: remembering….

Please, please, whether you follow the BoB or not, whether you approve of the concept or not, read Kwame’s post — it is magnificent.