I have never given birth, but some of my favorite people inthe world have. One of them, on the days our daughters were born, did something so powerful and raw that the memory of itstill fills me with awe. I often wonder why on birthdays we celebrate the person who was born, and not the person who gave birth. The day really should be called Giving Birth Day. Or,Giving Day. This feeling of awe made me want to write a children’s book about birth. I wanted to celebrate women, mothers, females of all species. It’s wild when you […]
May
07
EVERYTHING IN THE WORLD, SEEN THROUGH NUMBERS! by Jennifer Berne
posted by CBethM
I have to admit, I’m a bit of a number nerd. Even though I became a writer, and really do love the magic of words, I have a special soft spot in my heart for the wonderful language of numbers. And I know I’m not alone! The language of numbers Without using numbers we can describe things as “big” […]
May
03
Girl Power Picture Books of 2024: A Top Ten Round-up by Roxanne Troup
posted by CBethM
The world is full of amazing stories and inspiring people. Stories worth knowing. People worth emulating. But how do we expose kids to these stories when we don’t have immediate access to another culture or can’t travel through time? When a person’s story isn’t yet available through mainstream media? Picture books! Picture books are a great way to introduce young […]
April
17
What books are your kids loving? by Colby Sharp
posted by Colby Sharp
It feels wild to think that we only have 7.5 weeks left in the school year. One of my favorite things about the school year is watching my readers and their preferences evolve over the course of our 180 days together. I’d love to know which books the readers you serve are loving these days. […]
April
11
A Story of Resilience and Sisterhood in Three Summers by Amra Sabic-El-Rayess PhD
posted by CBethM
As a genocide survivor, so much of my life has been defined by my survival of the unimaginable during the Bosnian Genocide, as told in The Cat I Never Named. While the physical scars of hate, including the Serb military’s bombing of my home on my birthday, starvation, and isolation of living under the siege […]
April
09
Black Girl Joy and the Science of Belonging as Explained by Second Graders by Carmen Bogan
posted by CBethM
When I first walk through the doors of a new elementary school, the atmosphere is palpable. The place is humming with laughter, chatter, a random teacher’s elevated voice. Somebody is racewalking to the bathroom or dragging to the school office. Learning. It smells like recess sweat. A burst of colorful crayon art depicting friends’ faces […]
April
04
Bless Our Pets Cover Reveal by Lita Judge
posted by CBethM
It was a honor to illustrate this collection of poems curated by Lee Bennet Hopkins. First, because I’ve been a great fan of his work for as long as I can remember. Long after I began reading his poems, I met him at an ALA conference and our conversation is a cherished memory. Second, because […]
April
02
Author Candy J. Cooper and Editor Susan Dobinick on Shackled: A Tale of Wronged Kids, Rogue Judges, and a Town that Looked Away
posted by CBethM
Written by award-winning journalist and Pulitzer Prize finalist Candy J. Cooper, SHACKLED: A Tale of Wronged Kids, Rogue Judges, and a Town that Looked Away (Calkins Creek/Astra Books for Young Readers, April 2, 2023) is the explosive story of the Kids for Cash scandal in Pennsylvania, a judicial justice miscarriage that sent more than 2,500 […]
April
01
The Little Challenge Sleeping Inside Me by Maria Mazas
posted by CBethM
FROM CHILDREN’S BOOK EDITOR TO AUTHOR I’d been working as a freelance editor for children’s book publishing houses … and dreaming about writing my own stories. At least, trying to write my own stories! I’d written different beginnings, but few endings. It’s easy to begin a story, much more difficult to finish! So, there was this little challenge sleeping […]
March
28
Thanks Jon, Mac and Ruth: Inspiration for THIS IS A WINDOW by Lauren Paige Conrad
posted by CBethM
For years, I had been ruminating on boundaries to give myself as an illustrator-aspiring author. There were too many open-ended possibilities, and from my perspective just too many other books already. I needed parameters, or maybe a mantra, that guided my book-making, and one that honored the picture book form. To me, that meant intentionally […]
Nerdy Book Club 