Monica Edinger's Blog, page 19

Some Books I Enjoyed in 2016

For reasons personal and public, this past year has been a tough one. At times reading was a solace and at other times it wasn’t. Here are some titles that were significant to me duringthis dark time.Included are books published years ago, this year, and even a couple coming out next year. Some are for kids and some for adults. These stand out for me as titles that were immersive, often profound, informative, sometimes just delightful in a lighter way, and always memorable. I didn’t write abo...

More on Those KinderGuides

“On the Road,” with its recurring references to sex, drugs and domestic violence, might not seem like an ideal bedtime story for a child. But that’s precisely the point of KinderGuides, a new series of books that aims to make challenging adult literary classics accessible to very young readers.

That is from Alexandra Alter’s New York Times piece, “Forget ‘Pat the Bunny.’ My Child is Reading Hemingway.” Back in August I read with disbeliefPW’s KinderGuides pieceand wrote a snarky blog post gi...

Coming Soon: Elizabeth Wein’s The Pearl Thief

Elizabeth Wein’s books offer so much. The worlds she creates are remarkable in their textures; whether they are set in actual historical pasts or fantasy historical pasts, they arerich with touches large and small that bring the worlds alive for readers. She does something similar with characters, making them complex, flawed, and vivid whether they are the ones we care deeply about, those that terrify us, or simply those a bit more on the fringe of the story. All of themfeel fully rounded, on...

R.I.P. John Glenn

New Trailer of A Series of Unfortunate Events, Netflix Style

So excited! Cannot WAIT for January 13th. For those who know the books, there is a lot here. (And, for one person who complained to me that Violet lacked ribbons in one of the teaser trailers — they are clearly here, just as I figured they’d be.)

Maurice Sendak’s Prescient Opinion on our President-Elect

From We Are All in the Dumps with Jack and Guy(1993). Many thanks to Michael Patrick Hearn for bringing it to my attention.

New York Times Notable Children’s Books of 2016

Congratulations to NYTBR children’s book editor, Maria Russo, and all the creators of these fabulous books. Goherefor the complete list with annotations.

Picture Books

DU IZ TAK? Written and illustrated by Carson Ellis. (Candlewick, $16.99.)

FREEDOM OVER ME. Eleven Slaves, Their Lives and Dreams Brought to Life. Written and illustrated by Ashley Bryan. (Caitlyn Dlouhy/Atheneum, $17.99.)

I AM PAN! Written and illustrated by Mordicai Gerstein. (Roaring Brook, $18.99.).

THE JOURNEY. W...

In the Classroom: The Critical Importance of Teaching and Learning History

The people in the country now who are spouting hate-filled words don’t seem to know their own American history. There is enough blame to go around as to why. But when it comes to fixing what’s wrong with America, one of our priorities should be making more of an effort to put our history into our classrooms in the earliest years, and to educate our teachers, too. I want all of our people—even the haters—to know why we have needed that armor and how we can, while wearing it, remain open to one...

Rep. John Lewis on Receiving the National Book Award for March Book Three

Congratulations to National Book Award Winners

Congratulations to allthe National Book Award winners, especially the two I have read: Colson Whitehead’sThe Underground Railroadand Representative John Lewis, Andrew Aydin and Nate Powell’s March: Book Three. I read the latter during the final week of the election campaign and the parallels are eerie. The former is remarkable for its topic, its ambition, its imaginative, its magical realism,….just everything. Both are amazing, amazing works (as are the first two books in the March series.)

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