AudioFile’s 2020 Best Young Adult audiobooks offer a wide range of stories for teen listeners. Each are AudioFile Earphones Award winners, and they showcase the incredible talent of the narrators and creativity of the authors. Skilled narrators use their evocative performances to draw listeners into rich fantasy worlds, revisit historical moments, and to help […]
Author Archives: CBethM
November
30
PLAYING WITH HISTORY by Christopher Healy
posted by CBethM
Worldbuilding may well be my favorite aspect of writing. When working on my Hero’s Guide series of fairy tale adventures, it gave me immeasurable joy simply to sketch maps of the thirteen kingdoms in which the stories would take place. I love challenging myself with the creation of fantastical settings in which to house my tales, and […]
November
25
NOTHING IN COMMON by Kate Hoefler and Corinna Luyken
posted by CBethM
When I think about my most recent picture book collaboration, NOTHING IN COMMON, written by Kate Hoefler, and when I am asked to describe the book, I have found myself rambling on a bit. Not entirely sure how to describe it. Certainly, it’s a book about two kids, an old man, and a dog. There’s […]
November
16
How a Makerspace Project Inspired a Book by Melissa Stewart
posted by CBethM
Back in 2018, I had a dream, and while attending a makerspace workshop led by educators Dana Kramroff and Rabecca Hester at the Keystone State Literacy Association conference in Pennsylvania, I decided to create a 3-D representation of it. What exactly was my dream? I wanted to help educators understand a critical part of […]
November
13
COVER REVEAL – The Renegade Reporters by Elissa Brent Weissman
posted by CBethM
When I do school visits, kids always ask where I get the ideas for my books. Well, the idea for The Renegade Reporters came from doing school visits! When I was in elementary school, sixth graders took turns reading the morning announcements over the loudspeaker in the main office. But doing school visits as […]
November
11
What Love Can Do by Joan Bauer
posted by CBethM
I saw the noses first. They were poking through the gate. “Come around the back,” I was told. “We meet in the yard.” I was excited — I was here to begin researching my 14th novel for young people. I love dogs and these were special ones— part of a guide dog-in-training puppy playgroup in […]
November
10
SHOWING KIDS THEY HAVE A VOICE AND CAN USE IT by Lisa Schroeder
posted by CBethM
Before I entered kindergarten, I went to a pre-school that took place at a church. Almost every day, a kid named Jaime threatened to throw me in the fire of the wood-burning stove they had there. This happened over forty years ago and yet I can still clearly remember being stuck in a storage closet […]
November
05
Moving Forward by Sylvia Vardell and Janet Wong
posted by CBethM
There are poems that are perfect in times like these, when we feel frazzled and too tired to tackle much of anything. Poems can calm and center and energize us: “On a Beach” by Suzy Levinson transports us to a balmy beach. Sharing this poem is like giving yourself—and your children—a 30-second winter break. […]
November
04
COVER REVEAL: Flight of the Puffin by Ann Braden
posted by CBethM
I’ve always avoided conflict. Every day when I was in preschool, one of the other girls at the dress-up station would tell me, “You can wear the purple dress tomorrow.” I never pushed back. I never told the teacher. I also almost never wore the purple dress. (Except for one glorious day when that girl […]
October
31
Top Ten Tips for Reading Scary Books by Kristiana Sfirlea
posted by CBethM
Like all holidays in 2020, Halloween is going to look a little different this year. For many, season staples such as trick-or-treating, costume parties, and haunted house attractions will not be part of their celebrations, and it can leave everyone feeling put out like a jack-o-lantern with its candle extinguished. But never fear! When […]
