I love reading about words. They have such interesting histories. I had an experience like that last week. I was reading an article in the New York Times about two women who had an altercation in a McDonalds. It was a rather sleazy, forgettable story, except that something in the article caught my eye. One [...]
An Imaginary Conversation: Author: Let’s read! Books are wonderful. Read together with your family every evening! Child: My parents don’t read. We don’t have any books in our house. Author: That’s no problem. Your school library has plenty of good books that you can check out and read. Your school librarian will be happy to [...]
One of the most exciting parts about being an author is that your life is full of surprises. Your words have wings. You never really know where your books are going, who is reading them, and whose lives they are changing. In 1978 I published a picture book with Pantheon called Why Worry? It was [...]
My critique group was winding up its bi-monthly meeting. We were in Nancy Coffelt’s living room. Before we called it a night and went home, I raised a question. It had been on my mind for some time. I asked the group: “What exactly is a memoir?” Every time I scan the New Book shelf [...]
Is there anyone who didn’t read William Golding’s Lord of the Flies when we were in junior high school? Golding’s bleak view of human nature left me depressed for a week–which isn’t hard to do when you’re in junior high school. Well, here’s something to cheer you up. There is hope for us yet. Perhaps, [...]
A librarian friend of mine asked me to write a letter of support for the librarians in her distract. The district has been considering eliminating elementary and middle school library positions. This has been happening all over the country. In some cases, the librarians are replaced with interns or teachers working toward a library certification. [...]
I keep hearing that the picture book genre is dead. The one exception is books for very young children. That used to be defined as kindergarten and below. Now it seems it’s even younger than that: two and three year olds. The pressure is on to get those tots into the Ivy League. They don’t [...]
Something significant just happened in the book world. For the past eleven years the winners of the Newbery and Caldecott Medals appeared on the Today Show a few days after the award is announced. This year they were pre-empted—by Snooki Polizzi of Jersey Shore! Snook has a book! Matt Lauer, with a straight face, attempted [...]
An interesting article entitled E-Readers With Color Open Door For Pictures appeared in the New York Times yesterday. Here’s a link if you’d like to check it out for yourself. Click HERE. I’m interested in this topic because right now every writer and illustrator I know who does picture books tells me that they’re becoming [...]
I had an interesting experience this morning. I took part in a panel discussion with author David Michael Slater. The program was part of the adult education program at Temple Beth Israel. David and I spoke to the question of how being Jewish affects what we write. Some of David’s comments really intrigued me. His [...]
