Chris Barton's Blog: Bartography, page 24
April 11, 2019
2020 pub-date updates
For a while, my next two picture books had the easy-to-remember tentative publication dates of 1/1/2020 and 5/5/2020. Now, they have new dates that are closer together and less tentative, and if these two dates together no longer seem quite as memorable, well, that’s why we have calendars. If you’re so inclined, you can mark […]
April 3, 2019
“Being able to recreate a slice of my border town was a truly magical experience.” (2-question Q&A and giveaway for April 2019)
Welcome to the Q&A and giveaway for the April edition of my Bartography Express newsletter (which you can sign up for here). My Q&A this month is with Raúl the Third, the illustrator of the Lowriders graphic novels (written by Cathy Camper) and now a creator of picture books. Raúl’s first book as author and […]
April 1, 2019
Come see Jennifer and me at TLA!
Whenever I try to explain to anyone how much Jennifer Ziegler and I love the annual gathering of the Texas Library Association, I just let them know that when we got married six years ago, the TLA conference in Fort Worth was our honeymoon. Whether the person I’m talking to is appalled by that choice […]
March 29, 2019
Voice wins Texas Institute of Letters award for Best Children’s Picture Book
What Do You Do with a Voice Like That? The Story of Extraordinary Congresswoman Barbara Jordan has picked up another close-to-home, deep-in-the-heart-of-Texas honor: the Texas Institute of Letters (TIL) award for Best Children’s Picture Book. Written by me, illustrated by Ekua Holmes, and published by Beach Lane Books/Simon & Schuster, What Do You Do with […]
March 27, 2019
Dazzling doings in Illinois and Virginia
I’ve learned lately that Dazzle Ships: World War I and the Art of Confusion has been named to the 2020 Illinois Bluestem Readers’ Choice Award Nominees Master List sponsored by the Association of Illinois School Library Educators (AISLE) and to the elementary nominees for the 2019-20 Virginia Readers’ Choice award organized by the Virginia State […]
March 21, 2019
Barbara Jordan book wins Barbara Jordan Award
The life of Texas hero Barbara Jordan included many facets, and one of those was her experience with multiple sclerosis, which began soon after she entered Congress in 1973. Fittingly, the Texas Governor’s Committee on People with Disabilities bestows the Barbara Jordan Award each year on authors and journalists whose work “accurately and positively reports […]
March 17, 2019
All the college kidlit conferences (as of March 2019)
Or, more formally, “A Comprehensive List of U.S. College- and University-Sponsored or -Hosted Children’s and Young Adult Literature Conferences, Festivals, and Symposia.” (All of them that I could find, anyway). Several years ago, I was looking for such a list, wondered why I couldn’t find one, and decided to just go ahead and make one […]
March 15, 2019
My first-ever New York State school-visit trip
I did my first New York State school visits last week, outside Rochester, so the first thing I needed to do was head northeast. Here’s what that looked like: All week long, I saw terrific examples of the preparation and investment of time and energy on the part of these schools — from kindergartners to […]
March 4, 2019
“I don’t think there’s a kid in the world who hasn’t felt like an underdog at some point.” (2-question Q&A and giveaway for March 2019)
Welcome to the Q&A and giveaway for the March edition of my Bartography Express newsletter (which you can sign up for here). My Q&A this month is with Melissa Stewart and Stephanie Laberis. Melissa and Stephanie are the author and illustrator, respectively, of Pipsqueaks, Slowpokes, and Stinkers: Celebrating Animal Underdogs, an acclaimed nonfiction picture book […]
February 27, 2019
Thank you (again!), Pennsylvania school librarians
Earlier this month, my nonfiction picture book Dazzle Ships: World War I and the Art of Confusion (Millbrook Press/Lerner Publishing), illustrated by Victo Ngai, was named to the Pennsylvania Young Reader’s Choice Awards Program Master List for Grades 3-6 for 2019-2020. All by itself, that was great news, and immediately I was tremendously thankful for […]
