The Joy of Children's Literature

From NPR (thanks to Christine for the link!)  Walter Dean Myers grew up in Harlem, the son of a janitor. He became an author, writing young adult fiction that's especially popular with teenage readers. But as he tells his son, Christopher, there was one person Myers always wanted his writing to impress: his dad. Christopher and Walter Dean Myers "He bought you a typewriter at one point," Christopher says. "Why do you think he knew that that was important to you?" "Well, I was working at 14," Walter says. "I saved my money up, and I went to buy a typewriter. And at that point, Mom was having a drinking problem. And she spent it up. And so he went out and bought me a typewriter, a Royal." Soon after, Walter Dean Myers started typing. And he stuck with it — today, his bibliography includes nearly 100 books. He collaborates on some of them with Christopher, working together as writer and illustrator. Their connection is on...

From NPR... Pottermore . When a new website appeared from Harry Potter author J.K. Rowling called " Pottermore ," sporting nothing but some owls and a link to a countdown clock on YouTube that, as of right now, has a little less than six days to go until she makes an "announcement," the speculation was rampant. Of course, the creation of rampant speculation is the only reason to do something like this in the first place. The only reason to announce an upcoming announcement a week in advance is to bring on a round of heavy breathing from fans eager to know what that announcement, when it eventually comes, is going to be. As Morning Edition mentioned today , the only thing Rowling's publicists will say is that the announcement is not a new book. In other words, "Pottermore" does not mean more Potter, at least not in the way fans might most optimistically think about it. It's important to get that out of the way, because if Rowli...

From Read Roger : The 2011 Boston Globe-Horn Book Award Winners Fiction Winner: Blink & Caution by Tim Wynne-Jones (Candlewick) Honor: Chime by Franny Billingsley (Dial) Honor: Anna Hibiscus by Atinuke (Kane Miller) Nonfiction Winner: The Notorious Benedict Arnold: A True Story of Adventure, Heroism, & Treachery by Steve Sheinkin (Flash Point/Roaring Brook) Honor: Into the Unknown: How Great Explorers Found Their Way by Land, Sea, and Air by Stewart Ross, illustrated by Stephen Biesty (Candlewick) Honor: Can We Save the Tiger? by Martin Jenkins, illustrated by Vicky White (Candlewick) Picture Book Winner: Pocketful of Posies: A Treasury of Nursery Rhymes by Salley Mavor (Houghton) Honor: Dark Emperor & Other Poems of the Night by Joyce Sidman, illustrated by Rick Allen (Houghton) Honor Pecan Pie Baby by Jacqueline Woodson, illustrated by Sophie Blackall (Putnam) [ Go here for the complete press release .] Judged by Jennifer Brabander (chair)...

Recently, I wrote a blog post on the impact of my mother's love of reading and our visits to the public library on my own passion for reading. Since my mother and father were divorced when I was very young, I didn't have a male influence, but early in my career as an educator, I read a research study on the impact of a father reading to a child on the child's reading development. My son will graduate from high school on June 18th, the day before Father's Day. My husband read to my son for most of his early years, but I was the one who read to him nightly -- until he was a freshman in high school! We love it! Some of our most cherished memories are of piling up in the bed together to read the next chapter in the His Dark Materials trilogy, or the Harry Potter books, or the Lord of the Rings books. This summer, we have our reading list and though I won't be reading aloud to him, we'll still be reading and talking together about the books. In the fall, my son wi...

From NPR, June 6, 2011: Seeing Teenagers As We Wish They Were: The Debate Over YA Fiction Over the weekend, The Wall Street Journal ran a piece claiming that fiction at least nominally aimed at readers under 18 — young adult or "YA" fiction, that is — is entirely too dark. Calling out the books about kids who cut themselves or suffer abuse right alongside the books with abundant profanity in them, it laments the fact that young readers will be "surrounded by images not of joy or beauty but of damage, brutality and losses of the most horrendous kinds." Unsurprisingly, the commentary has come under intense criticism — it's not in any way a new complaint, and every response to it points that out, along with plenty of other problems . Read the rest of the article here .

The following titles will receive starred reviews in the July/August issue of The Horn Book Magazine : - Naamah and the Ark at Night written by Susan Campbell Bartoletti, illustrated by Holly Meade (Candlewick) - Bone Dog written and illustrated by Eric Rohmann (Roaring Brook) - Press Here written and illustrated by Herve Tullet (Handprint/Chronicle) - Hooray for Amanda & Her Alligator! written and illustrated by Mo Willems (Balzer + Bray/HarperCollins) - Queen of Hearts by Martha Brooks (Farrar) - Anya’s Ghost written and illustrated by Vera Brosgol (First Second/Roaring Brook) - Paper Covers Rock by Jenny Hubbard (Delacorte) - This Dark Endeavor: The Apprenticeship of Victor Frankenstein by Kenneth Oppel (Simon) - I’ll Be There by Holly Goldberg Sloan (Little, Brown) - When Apples Grew Noses and White Horses Flew: Tales of Ti-Jean written by Jan Andrews; illustrated by Dusan Petricic (Groundwood)

Are Books Obsolete? An Analysis of Data from Titles Printed Stephen Krashen A common view is that books are obsolete, and for two reasons: People just aren't interested in reading these days, and for those who are, ebook readers, such as the Kindle, are taking over. Not according to at least one indication. The number of new book titles printed each year continues to increase, and the increase over the last decade is dramatic. Bowker, an information service company, reported that 215,138 book titles were published in 2002. This increased to 302,410 in 2009, and the projected total (based on preliminary data) for 2010 was 316,480. The increase in titles published holds even when we consider the increase in the population of the US. The population in 2002 was estimated to be about 288,600,000. In 2010 it was estimated to be about 318,750,00 million. The ratio of books per person in the US has increased: In 2002, there was one book published for every 1342 people, in 2010, the...