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 [...]

I didn’t read Charlotte’s Web as a kid, sadly. Re-reading such books in adulthood is like finding the butter-yellow stuffed elephant you cuddled and carried on car rides. A new buttery elephant encountered first as an adult is likewise endearing and cozy, but it doesn’t smell of warm sleep and grandparents.
I read countless other classic [...]

Flat Stanley

Flat Stanley visited us this week. He’s a children’s book character who inspired a literacy and geography project for elementary school classes.

Larry Gets Lost in Seattle

Our visitor arrived from LaRue, Ohio, home to my cousin Natalie’s family. Her daughter Avery sent Stanley to visit my daughter Meg. We took him on a tour of [...]

Each Peach Pear Plum

This journal is about writing that informs and inspires me. It might be an inviting story or a cogent argument. It’s not usually a kid’s book.
I’m currently reading a children’s book that is a notable exception. I say “reading” not because it’s so long that I can’t get through it [...]