It’s a particularly important time for kids to be thinking about what qualifies as the truth. A big part of growing up is learning to grapple with how we know what we know, and to learn to filter the noise, the confusing and sometimes misleading babble, the constant flow of information. I wrote The […]
Author Archives: CBethM
February
12
Inspiration for Letters from Cuba by Ruth Behar
posted by CBethM
Though my new middle-grade novel takes place in the Cuban countryside in the late 1930s, Letters from Cuba is my heart’s response to the current news of deportations, immigrant travel bans, and international refugee crises. How, I wondered, could I talk back to the cruel anti-immigrant climate of our era? It occurred to me that […]
February
11
GO TELL IT! by Andrea Davis Pinkney
posted by CBethM
“Right here, I’m sharing the honest-to-goodness.”— Loretta “I’m gon’ reach back. Tell how it all went. I’m gon’ speak on it. My way.” — Roly Folks claim I got more nerve than a bad tooth. But there’s nothing bad about being bold! —Aggie B. It’s time to pull up a chair. Sit on down. […]
February
05
In Their Hearts, Dogs Can Read by Carlie Sorosiak
posted by CBethM
The first time I read an entire book aloud, it was to a German shorthaired pointer named Sally. She had the softest ears, the wiggliest butt, and man, was she fast. I used to watch her from my swing-set, tearing mad circles around our neighbor’s yard. I was a quiet kid. And in Charlotte, […]
February
04
On Writing Books for Real Kids…and Telling the Truth by Kate Messner
posted by CBethM
There’s a lot going on in the novels I write for kids. The Seventh Wish is a fairy tale reimagining about wish-granting fish, Irish dancing, science fair projects, and the impact that opioid addiction can have on a family. Breakout is about a prison break, journalism, relay races, privilege, perspective, and poetry. It also includes […]
January
31
The Magic of Empowerment by Anna Meriano
posted by CBethM
Wow. I am so lucky to be back on the Nerdy Book Club blog, and so lucky to be putting out the third and final book in the Love Sugar Magic Trilogy. I have to start with that because the last several months have been trying their hardest to make me feel down on my […]
January
30
Autistic Characters, Infinite Possibilities by Sarah Kapit
posted by CBethM
I didn’t know I was autistic as a kid. But I knew that I was a reader. I was the kid who brought five books along on a day-long visit with my grandparents, just to make sure that I didn’t run out. Oftentimes, I’d read on a bench somewhere while other kids my age ran […]
January
29
The Inspiration for Where the World Ends by Geraldine McCaughrean
posted by CBethM
What inspired you to write this book? My daughter had the good fortune to visit St Kilda on a day when conditions allowed a landing ashore. She had read many books about the place. We had both read about it in Judith Schalansky’s Atlas of Remote Islands. Being an actress, she had been moved to […]
January
27
A Book About a Book: Alice by Heart by Steven Sater
posted by CBethM
For a long time, books were my everything. To be fair, I had a rather unusual childhood. Bedridden due to respiratory ailments, I was regularly shuffled from home to the hospital, and was rarely allowed out — rarely even attended school. But my mother, who’d returned to college to complete her degree, used to read […]
January
24
DON’T LEAVE SPORTS BOOKS OUT OF THE GAME! FOR SOME STUDENTS, THEY ARE A WINDOW TO THE WORLD AND A SPARK FOR LIFELONG READING by Andrew Maraniss
posted by CBethM
When I was five years old, my grandfather mailed me my first set of baseball cards. I remember sitting on the floor of my parents’ apartment in New Jersey, sorting the cards in different ways – one day by team, the next by color. And my parents tell me I learned to read by devouring […]
