There’s nothing quite like the first day of school. That excited-nervous, jittery-joyful anticipation of new classmates, and maybe new friends. Turns out, it’s the same feeling you get when you embark on a huge collaborative project with sixteen other authors whose work you’ve always loved and admired. And it’s also the feeling you get when […]
March
19
Where Butterfly Came From by Adam Pottle
posted by CBethM
Like many Deaf people, I grew up in a hearing family. Sign Language didn’t exist in our house, so I had to do things my family’s way, which meant wearing hearing aids and enduring speech therapy. Because I couldn’t hear myself speak, I’d sometimes mumble or mispronounce something and be chastised for it. My brother’s nickname for me was “freak.” I never believed there was a place for me in the world, because I […]
March
05
What If…What If…What If by Deborah Freedman
posted by CBethM
What is that worm doing, underfoot? That bird flying overhead? Where did the parts of my house come from? Could a character be too shy to appear in its own book? What if… what if… what if…* They usually begin with a question, the books I write, their ideas springing from wonder. Ideas are all […]
March
01
A Recipe for Book Joy: Collaborative School & Public Library Author Visits by Eti Berland, Emily Day, Kelli Pilmer, Muffy Pinney & Alicia Wiechert
posted by CBethM
In Grace Lin’s best-selling nonfiction book, Chinese Menu: The History, Myths, and Legends Behind Your Favorite Foods, she shares that “every mouthful you eat from a Chinese take-out box was born of centuries of ingenuity, myths, and legend” (257). This groundbreaking book urges readers to recognize that our favorite dishes have fascinating and powerful origin […]
February
22
Time Traveling in Across So Many Seas by Ruth Behar
posted by CBethM
When you’re a child it’s so difficult to imagine that all the elders around you were ever children like you. You have the sense that they’ve always been old. That they were brought into the world old. As you grow up, maybe you see a photo of a relative in their youth, and you have […]
February
21
From the Library to the Page by Uma Menon, Author of My Mother’s Tongues
posted by CBethM
Like many other readers and writers, my love of books was born in the library. As a child, I visited the Winter Park Public Library often with my parents, attending story time and browsing through bookshelves. I remember the first book I ever checked out by myself was Chrysanthemum by Kevin Henkes, a book that […]
February
19
The Joy of Laughter by Sharon G. Flake
posted by CBethM
Years ago, in the middle of the night, my older brother Gregory said something so silly it made me laugh until my belly hurt. He and I were young then and not alone in our shenanigans that evening. In my room slept my sister Daphne. Greg shared the middle room with my two brothers, Regenald […]
February
06
Childhood Adventures in our Age of Surveillance by Amy Noelle Parks
posted by CBethM
As a child, I loved E.L. Konigsburg’s book about a brother and sister running away for a week to live in New York City’s Metropolitan Museum of Art. Growing up in the Midwest, I had never seen anything like the automat where Claudia and Jamie could buy everything from pie to baked beans, and sleeping […]
February
04
We Can be Heroes by Alan Gratz
posted by CBethM
With great power comes great responsibility. If you’re a fan of superhero comics or movies, you’ve heard this before. It’s Spider-Man’s motto: With great power comes great responsibility. It’s a lesson Spider-Man learns the hard way. You know the story: Spider-Man is bitten by a radioactive spider that gives him super-strength, and the ability to […]
February
02
Top Ten Picture Books that Teach Cause and Effect by Abi Cushman
posted by CBethM
Using picture books is a fun way to teach children about cause and effect. Understanding cause and effect helps kids develop critical thinking, literacy, and science skills. Here are my favorite picture books that use cause and effect in an engaging way. These books also provide a great model so kids can create their own […]
Nerdy Book Club 