Nobody thinks it odd to listen to a song more than once. To revisit a movie or watch reruns on TV. To read a poem again and again over time. To look often at a painting, or a photograph, or a sculpture. Quite the contrary. Part of the pleasure is knowing what’s to come – looking forward […]
Category Archives: Author Posts
April
13
Not Necessarily Keats by Linda Williams Jackson
posted by CBethM
“A shack with only a dozen or so books is an unlikely place to discover a young Keats.” – Alice Walker, In Search of our Mothers’ Gardens A dozen or so books? I doubt that many books could be found in the shacks in which I grew up. I actually only recall having one book […]
April
09
Crafting Story to Generate Empathy by Heather Mateus Sappenfield
posted by CBethM
America is wading through a divisive era. Theories abound as to why, and social media—the great forum of false fronts, of defacing the individual, of stripping away our shared humanity—stands as culprit in many of them. Social media’s great irony is that many of us wander there seeking connection. The work of middle-grade readers is […]
April
07
Those Kids from Fawn Creek: A Conversation with Erin Entrada Kelly by Maggie Bokelman
posted by CBethM
Newbery medalist Erin Entrada Kelly wants kids to know that they matter. Her latest book, Those Kids From Fawn Creek (Greenwillow, March 8,2022), explores many of the same big ideas as her previous books: friendship, belonging, self-acceptance, and empathy. But unlike her earlier titles, Fawn Creek features an entire ensemble of viewpoint characters. Each one […]
April
06
Books: My Connecting Thread by Christine McDonnell
posted by CBethM
I can’t imagine my life without books. I am a reader, writer, teacher, librarian, bookbinder, and bookseller— books connect them all. In grade school in the 1950s, at the beginning of every year we were given school books to bring home and cover with brown paper from grocery bags. My best friend and I always […]
April
05
Names by Connie Wanek
posted by CBethM
Once there was a child of six. No, seven. She had just had a birthday, and it was better, being seven. She was already thinking about what eight would be like. She loved all animals, and her father had brought home a blue birthday parakeet for her. It had no name yet. She like to […]
March
29
On Theater Vs. Book Nerds by Janet Key
posted by CBethM
Even before I was a loud-and-proud, card-carrying book nerd, I was an all-out, full-tilt-boogie theater nerd. The thing about being a book nerd is it kind of depends on being able to read, which might take a few years of life to figure out. But a theater nerd? We’re born whenever the lights drop and […]
March
24
In the Generation After the Butterflies by Julian Randall
posted by CBethM
I’ve only seen my mother cry a handful of times. I want to tell you a story about the first time I realized that she could. My mother was sitting in a room downstairs of the house we lived in on Talman ave, in the Logan Square neighborhood of Chicago. I walked in and saw, […]
March
22
The Lost Things Club by J.S. Puller
posted by CBethM
When it came to writing THE LOST THINGS CLUB, I did a lot of the work backwards. Many authors tell you that when they get an idea for a book, they go on to do a lot of research about the setting, events, or history before sitting down to write. It’s logical and it’s how […]
March
19
Let’s Have a Few Words by Jennifer Ziegler
posted by CBethM
Hello, readers. I join you here today with a confession: I, Jennifer Ziegler, am a ginormous word nerd. And my new middle grade novel, Worser, is a love letter to words and the people like me who adore them. The book’s main character, Worser, shares this aspect with me. He and I both have favorite […]
Nerdy Book Club 