Politics in Practice
May 31, 2017 by Travis Jonker
On the occasion of his latest book, Rodzilla (written by Rob Sanders) coming out earlier this month, Dan Santat kindly took a few of my questions about unicorn fraps, cardboard humans, the Caldecott Medal, and bad picture book ideas. As rare as… a unicorn. The color-changing, flavor-changing #UnicornFrappuccino—here for a limited time at participating stores.?? […]
May 30, 2017 by Travis Jonker
Last week we reviewed the 10 most popular picture books in our school library this year. But that was last week! Which chapter books are tops? T8. The BFG by Roald Dahl I’m going to go ahead and call this the Feature Film Effect. The movie released last summer generated interest, and I could feel […]
May 25, 2017 by Travis Jonker
So what was passionately close to my heart was a kid. And a kid doing something. And whatever that something was was what the book was going to be about. That’s Maurice Sendak (who as we now know is unquestionably better than Dr. Seuss) talking about the heart of what was to become his masterpiece: Where […]
May 24, 2017 by Travis Jonker
The school year is ending soon – a good time to take a look at the most popular books in our K-4 school library. Today – picture books. I did something with this list – I excluded all series books (there is one sequel on here, though). Why? Because if I didn’t, the thing would be […]
May 23, 2017 by Travis Jonker
Peter H. Reynolds always manages to walk a delicate line with his books – make that a couple lines: weighty but not weighed down. Universal yet kid-centric. No easy feat. I was happy to share the cover for Peter’s upcoming book, The Word Collector, but first – I wanted to talk to him about it. […]
May 22, 2017 by Travis Jonker
Trying something new here – an original story. Well, not exactly original. It’s inspired by the above short film Leaf From Orange Tree Learns Guitar by Amy Krouse Rosenthal, which I first learned about while reading this. If you would like a PDF of this story, you can download it here.
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May 19, 2017 by Travis Jonker
Pull up a chair and enjoy a close-to-the-end-of-the-school-year staff lounge snack: Go ahead and finish off those cinnamon ones. Let’s talk about the books that got a lot of checkouts this year in my K-4 school library that you might not expect. Love, Aubrey by Suzanne LaFleur This book just keeps on circulating quietly, as […]
May 19, 2017 by Travis Jonker
Can you guess the classic children’s book by its scathing one-star review on Goodreads or Amazon? Dr. Mr. Sendak, Please seek therapy elsewhere and stop scaring the hell out of me! Click here for the answer. Previously . . . One Star Review Guess Who (#1) One Star Review Guess Who (#2) One Star Review […]
May 16, 2017 by Travis Jonker
I thought I was all smart with my Little Red and Triangle placement in the library the other day. But I’m no match for the creative genius Hilary Leung. He commented on my Instagram post with an even better idea. Flip Triangle and see what happens. So I flipped it. The result? Little Red now […]
May 15, 2017 by Travis Jonker
“Jimmy, you will never be an artist.” I love this Weston Woods video featuring children’s literature legend James Marshall. The story of why he stopped drawing as a kid is equal parts heartbreaking and triumphant. (via Austin Kleon)
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Politics in Practice
by John Chrastka
Teen Librarian Toolbox
by Amanda MacGregor
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