Betsy Bird's Blog, page 110

Review of the Day – The 1619 Project: Born on the Water by Nikole Hannah-Jones & Renée Watson, ill. Nikkolas Smith

The 1619 Project: Born on the Water
By Nikole Hannah-Jones & Renée Watson
Illustrated by Nikkolas Smith
Kokila (an imprint of Penguin Random House)
$18.99
ISBN: 9780593307359
On shelves November 16th

For as long as authors of books for children have determined that they should be open and honest with their young readers, they have struggled with how much trauma is appropriate. You hear this debate a lot as it pertains to the Holocaust. Should we put it in books? How often? How young should reader...

Review of the Day РThe 1619 Project: Born on the Water by Nikole Hannah-Jones & Ren̩e Watson, ill. Nikkolas Smith

The 1619 Project: Born on the Water
By Nikole Hannah-Jones & Renée Watson
Illustrated by Nikkolas Smith
Kokila (an imprint of Penguin Random House)
$18.99
ISBN: 9780593307359
On shelves November 16th

For as long as authors of books for children have determined that they should be open and honest with their young readers, they have struggled with how much trauma is appropriate. You hear this debate a lot as it pertains to the Holocaust. Should we put it in books? How often? How young should reade...

Book Trailer Reveal: Friends Forever by Shannon Hale & LeUyen Pham

Good old book trailers. They just keep blowing and going after all these years. I confess to having an inordinate fondness for them. Particularly the ones that feature comics in some way. And what more popular series is there at the moment than Shannon Hale and LeUyen Pham’s “Friends” series?

Today I premiere the trailer for the latest book in the trilogy, Friends Forever. Coming out August 31st the book takes place when Shannon was in 8th grade and all the awfulness (and wonder) of middle s...

Best Last Books: Which Ones Are Worth Reading?

I don’t have many literary podcasts on my feed (if you have any to recommend, please drop ’em in the comments!) but one that I always make time for is Marlon and Jake Read Dead People. Hosted by author Marlon James and his editor Jake Morrissey, I am consistently impressed by the range of topics the two delve into. And in one recent episode the topic was “Best Last Books”. In other words, “Which last books are actually worth reading?”

Naturally, this made me think of the wide and wonderful w...

NIKI NAKAYAMA: A Chef’s Tale in 13 Bites – An Interview with Debbi Michiko Florence and Jamie Michalak

When you think of it, celebrity chefs haven’t had the easiest time of it when it comes to picture books. Remember A Birthday Cake for George Washington (who doesn’t)? A rather extreme case in point. Still, the nice thing is that not all books go that route. Some picture books about celebrity chefs actually have an interesting and accurate story to tell.

Now I’m not very up on my chefs, but I appreciate the food that they put into my belly. And you know who does know their chefs? Debbi Michik...

Fuse 8 n’ Kate: First Day Jitters by Julie Danneberg, ill. Judy Love

Since I was 98% sure that we’d already done The Kissing Hand, when Kate asked to do a first day of school book I discovered that today’s book was perfect as it came out in 2000. This book is huge with teachers and schools but isn’t a book that won a lot of literary awards or anything. My kids go back to school on Wednesday of this week, so the timing could not be better. With its M. Night Shyamalan-esque twist and fondness for slips and magenta clogs, this proves to be an excellent peek into the...

Review of the Day: The Last Cuentista by Donna Barba Higuera

The Last Cuentista
By Donna Barba Higuera
Jacket Art by Raxenne Maniquiz
Levine Querido
$17.99
ISBN: 9781646140893
Ages 9-12
On shelves October 12th

** spoiler alert – Plot giveaways ahead **

The worst thing you can do to your dystopia is to let it grow stale. After all, the true joy of science fiction is its capacity for variety. Say the term “science fiction” and it conjures up images of robots and space rockets and the like. All fine and good things but the whole point of the genre is t...

The Many Meanings of Meilan Q&A with Andrea Wang

It’s Andrea Wang’s world and we’re just living in it.

It would be enough for most authors to have a picture book like WATERCRESS out in 2021. I mean, talk about an award contender. You’ve got Jason Chin’s art. A heartfelt story that doesn’t tug the heartstrings so much as it plays them like a cantina band. And then there are the rave (professional) reviews. So how nutty is it that this isn’t her only book out this year?

THE MANY MEANINGS OF MEILAN is the kind of middle grade novel unafraid...

Big Apple Diaries Interview

History’s weird when it happens to you, but history’s even weirder when it happens to someone younger than you and then they write a book about it. Alyssa Bermudez was just a kid when the September 11th attacks occurred and she lived in NYC with both her parents working in the area of the Twin Towers. Now she’s taken that story and turned it into a highly engaging, highly illustrated novel.

Here’s the official description:

“In Big Apple Diaries, a heartfelt diary-style graphic memoir by Al...

The MG/YA Confusion: Why Do Lists for Young Adults Always Contain Children’s Books?

The purpose of this blog has been, and always will be, a consideration of children’s books for kids. The wide and wonderful world of YA it out there, and I respect it, but it has little to do with me. I leave the YA discussion to the talented librarians, booksellers, teachers, and actual physical teenagers that love it so well. There’s really only one time when I pay an inordinate amount of attention to it and that is when someone, somewhere, produces a list.

Let me say right off the bat that...