Here’s a selection of my regular online reads:
for brief bookish insights: 52Books
for tidbits from the world of the literati: Arts & Letters Daily
for book publishing news: EarlyWord
for food and farm politics (and my writing, every once in awhile): The Ethicurean
for detailed information about what’s happening in my neighborhood: EveryBlock
for conversations about the business of books: [...]

I’ve cheated by back-dating this final Children’s Book Week post to keep it in series.

“Once upon a time there was a little brown mouse.”
“No, wait! I want the mouse to be blue.”
“Well then, this mouse was blue, except for her tail, which was black. Her coloring was an advantage for the mouse, because she lived [...]

Is there a word for a feeling or insight so subtly and perfectly expressed that it touches you and moves you and becomes a touchstone for what a concept — one as large as “love” or “family” or “reconciliation” — truly means?

Where The Wild Things Are is like that. Max, after making mischief of [...]

My declaration yesterday that Mo Willems’ Gerald and Piggie are kid lit’s best-written friends since Frog and Toad was rash. While I do love the duo, had I considered more carefully, I would have qualified that statement: they are one of the best pairs.

How could I have forgotten Houndsley and Catina? Like Gerald and [...]

The winners of the 2009 Children’s Choice Book Awards, announced this week, include The Pigeon Wants a Puppy, by Mo Willems, as the Kindergarten to Second Grade Book of the Year. While I’m charmed by the simplicity of Mo Willems’ drawings, and I think his Elephant and Piggie are the best pair of friends in [...]

Sandman and a fifth of Jack are the only good things I ever picked up from a boy’s dorm room floor. That was 15 years ago, and I haven’t discovered a comic book that’s grabbed me since.
Now I’m in the position of trying to find intelligent comic books that work for a young child and [...]

Audio books make for pleasant car rides, especially with my girl. Though I’d never listen to hours of Raffi on a road trip (or any other setting, truth be told), I’ll gladly revisit favorite books from my childhood read by talented performers.

A good audio book does require a good narrator. We’ve discovered some gems, like [...]

“Emergent” means “in the process of becoming.” My daughter is an emergent reader. While she’s not yet reading independently, she has many skills of a reader. She understands the arc of a story, she can read the pictures, and she recognizes some words and can figure out others from the context and the [...]

Julie Powell’s writing strikes me as overly breezy and self-absorbed. Plus, you may know how I feel about stunt books. So I haven’t any great interest in reading Julie and Julia. I’m eager to see the film adaptation though. Take a look:

I’ll forgive Streep’s performance in Mamma Mia for nothing more than the first [...]