Yes, you’ve all heard about NewSouth Press publishing Huckleberry Finn and Tom Sawyer without the “n” word. Â But a couple of important points are getting lost in all the uproar. As Natalia Cecire points out on her blog, the “political correctness” circus-goers are missing the point. I find it more noteworthy that such Bowdlerization is
For those of my readers who might be attending the MLA in LA this week, I am posting all of the Children’s Literature sessions. Hope to see you there! Â (Well, except for the first one. Â MLA’s sessions are – for the first time that I’m aware – beginning before 3:30 pm. Â So, I won’t have
1. Best novel that I missed when it came out: Guus Kuijer’s The Book of Everything (Scholastic, 2006). Narrated by a nine-year-old, this is an all-ages book about love, faith, and growing up. It has a sense of humor, too. I devoted a post to this book earlier in the month. 2. Album of the Year:
Quick post from Amtrak heading north. Â On the way back from the Diane Rehm Show (now archived on website), I passed the person at right, who was selling copies of Street Sense and who kindly granted me this photograph. Â I always enjoy spotting signs of Seuss in the world. Â And, here, I suspect that Seuss
These days, I don’t talk much about my first book. Â I wrote it when I was 7 years old, in collaboration with Dr. Seuss and Roy McKie. Â As you can see, I improved upon their artwork with the aid of stickers from the United Fruit Company (of whose bananas I was then an avid consumer)
“What do you want to be when you grow up?” “Happy,” said Thomas. “When I grow up, I am going to be happy.” Nine-year-old Thomas sees things that others don’t, like “tropical fish swimming in the canals,” thousands of frogs massing outside his house, and the loveliness of sixteen-year-old Eliza, who has “an artificial leg made
My article, “Obamafiction for Children: Imagining the Forty-Fourth U.S. President,” is now available on-line in the Children’s Literature Association Quarterly‘s current issue (35.4, Winter 2010). Â To give you a sense of its thesis, here’s a brief excerpt from early in the piece: To examine how these Obama biographies attempt to fit him into dominant national
With thanks to the Children’s and Adolescent Literature Community (ChALC) for organizing the event, we held a Mock Caldecott at the Manhattan Public Library this afternoon. And, yes, of course, we weren’t able to get all of the books we wanted to look at – so, there are quite likely candidates we didn’t get to
Anita Silvey has a new blog. Â Well, she started it late last month. Â But I just began reading it. Â If you have any interest in children’s literature, you’ll want to read it, too. Â Here’s why. Anita Silvey really knows children’s literature. She’s a former editor at Houghton Mifflin, former Editor-in-Chief of the Horn Book, and
Oh, I could do this all day. Except that, well, I couldn’t – too many other things to do. So, here are ten more. And then I’ll stop. For now. “Welcome!” he said. “Welcome to a new year at Hogwarts! Before we begin our banquet, I would like to say a few words. And here
