Comedy is hard. Lane Smith makes it look easy. I’m not going to reveal the punch line to his latest, It’s a Book, because I don’t have to: There are plenty of amusing moments along the way. When the jackass asks, “Where’s your mouse?” Smith provides a wordless page in which a mouse emerges from
Dr. Seuss‘s Green Eggs and Ham is one of the reasons I do this blog, write books, and am an English professor.  Nearly forty years ago, Green Eggs and Ham — which turns 50 this month — taught me to read.  It also taught me that reading is fun, helping to make me a life-long reader. The
Just back from Scott Pilgrim vs. The World, which (as you may have read by now) is a fantastic adaptation of Bryan Lee O’Malley’s siÂx-volume series of graphic novels. This is why. Director Edgar Wright understands what O’Malley is trying to do. As in the books, the film treats narrative as a playful, allusive, genre-bending
Graduate schools don’t teach you how to get your book published. This blog post does.
A 1943 letter from Crockett Johnson. Asked about himself, he dodges the question.
Would you like to stop abusing PowerPoint? Good. This blog post can help.
Is it just me, or does “This is the lady who knows what children think — BEFORE THEY DO” sound like the tag line for a horror movie? Â You will be relieved to know that Ruth Krauss could not read children’s minds. But she was an excellent and sympathetic listener. In her earliest work, she
Two high-school cartoons by Crockett Johnson. Neither has been seen since the 1920s.
Tim Egan, seriously funny author-illustrator of picture books, deserves a prize. A big prize. In this post, I try to explain why.
For those of you in the northern hemisphere, August and September mark the beginning of the fall term – or, at least, they do if you are or have been a student, a parent/guardian of a student, or a teacher. This mix is for you. And, yes, I know that I’ve omitted the Beach Boys’
