Nine years ago, I started teaching a course I called “Harry Potter’s Library: J.K. Rowling, Texts and Contexts.” This coming fall, I’ll be teaching it for the seventh time (eighth, if you count the semester I taught two sections). The course has been so popular that Kansas State University uses it in its promotional materials….
Many folks who attended Julia Mickenberg’s and my “Radical Children’s Literature Now!” lecture today at the Children’s Literature Association Conference in Roanoke asked: “I didn’t get a handout. Could I have one?” Since we only made 200 copies, here is that handout. (The entire lecture will be on the Children’s Literature Association’s website in the…
Happy First Day of Summer! Here’s a “Summertime” box set. I will now take your questions. Q: Are there good “summer” songs omitted from these four mixes? A: Yes, of course there are. I came up with an additional 133 songs that I did not use. Q: Will you assemble more mixes including those songs?…
An update. Shortly after yesterday’s blog post, my editor said I could go ahead and send it all in. This means either that he (or someone else) will now seek places to cut or that it’s moving ahead to the copy-editing stage. Either way, it’s off my desk until [unknown date]! With a mixture of…
On Monday, I finished the eighth edit of The Purple Crayon and a Hole to Dig: The Lives of Crockett Johnson and Ruth Krauss, and sent it to my editor. I’m really happy with all of the edits I’ve made. I finally understand his advice, and have cut anything that feels purely “completist,” and focused…
Actual bathroom graffiti advises graffiti artists: “screw all this relationship stuff on the wall. What we should really focus on is Harry Potter because those books are cooler than we’ll ever be.”
Each year the Children’s Literature Assocation is guaranteed one session at the MLA and can submit proposals for up to two more.* If you would like to propose a session topic, by June 17th please send the ChLA/MLA Liaison (Philip Nel: philnel@ksu.edu): (1) a short description of your proposal idea, and, if relevant, (2) the…
In an op-ed piece that the Wall Street Journal published as an article, Meghan Cox Gurdon criticizes contemporary young adult fiction for its darkness. As she writes, “it is … possible—indeed, likely—that books focusing on pathologies help normalize them and, in the case of self-harm, may even spread their plausibility and likelihood to young people…
The good news. I’m making progress, and — currently up to Chapter 20 (of 28) — have cut far more (already) than I did on the last round of revisions. I have a clearer sense of The Purple Crayon and a Hole to Dig: The Lives of Crockett Johnson and Ruth Krauss (UP Mississippi, June 2012)….
