Last week I looked at a deeply serious book by Jonah Winter. Today I look at another of his books, Mickey Mantle, the Commerce Comet, which has a completely different tone. This is an enthusiastic biography of a famous baseball player. As Winter notes in the front matter, Mantle “had a rough childhood” and is “famous […]
I’m thrilled that my book, Mountain Chef, was chosen as a Notable Book in the Sigurd F. Olson Nature Writing Award. I’m especially flattered to be in such august company. Here are the winners in the children’s division: Children’s Winner “Journey: The Most Famous Wolf in the West,” by Emma Bland Smith with illustrations by Robin […]
I was excited to get my hands on The Secret Project. Who could resist that mysterious cover? And I love nonfiction picture books that interpret tough moments in history for kids. What could be a tougher moment to interpret than the Manhattan Project and the creation of the atomic bomb? The book is gorgeous and carefully […]
Our local library offered to send their mascot, Library Hamster, with me on my school visits this week and next. They dressed him ready for the road and gave him a book to read, too!
Sue Macy writes big, bold picture book biographies of female athletes. Trudy’s Big Swim: How Gertrude Ederle Swam the English Channel and Took the World by Storm is a gorgeous book that begins with Trudy in the Channel and follows her swim, hour by hour, to a new world record. I loved the details of her […]
Recently I talked with a writer friend about a new project, her first attempt at a picture book biography. She started telling me all sorts of fascinating details about her subject’s life, and then stopped and asked, “How do you decide what to keep in?” Carole Boston Weatherford’s new picture book biography, Dorothea Lange: The Photographer […]