Today we bring you a guest post by author Marina Budhos about her relevant and excellent new book, WATCHED. Now, more than ever, it’s important we embrace the diversity that literature has to offer. As Gene Yuen Lang has challenged us all, this book, for many, will be a way to Read Without Walls. WATCHED…
YA Diversity Book Club: Q&A with Roshani Chokshi
Welcome to the May edition of the YA Diversity Book Club, a monthly feature we feature in partnership with Lucy at The Reading Date and Kristan at We Heart YA. This month we read THE STAR-TOUCHED QUEEN by Roshani Chokshi, a lushly written fantasy inspired by Greek mythology and Indian folklore that we felt was reminiscent of THE NIGHT…
Children’s Book Week Celebrates Kids Comics
Welcome to Children’s Book Week. Once again I’m thrilled to participate in this celebration of graphic novels, because my own three children are such big devotees of comics and graphic novels. The books in First Second’s catalog are of particular interest to my clan, so when I was asked to participate in this special comics-focused…
YA Diversity Book Club: Q&A with Jessica Love
Welcome to the March edition of the YA Diversity Book Club, a monthly feature we feature in partnership with Lucy at The Reading Date and Kristan at We Heart YA. This month we read IN REAL LIFE, a contemporary “best friends to more” romance by Jessica Love. We were lucky enough to get Jessica to speak to us about her…
YA Diversity Book Club: Delicate Monsters Discussion
Welcome to the December edition of the YA Diversity Book Club, a monthly feature we run in partnership with Lucy at The Reading Date and Kristan at We Heart YA. For our last pick of 2015, we read DELICATE MONSTERS by Stephanie Kuehn. It was an intense novel with heavy themes and complicated characters. Some or all of them…
YA Diversity Book Club: 5 Things to Know About Rainbow Rowell
Welcome to the October edition of the YA Diversity Book Club, a monthly feature we run in partnership with Lucy at The Reading Date and Kristan at We Heart YA. For November we read CARRY ON by Rainbow Rowell. This was super exciting for us, because we’re all big Rainbow fans and were excited to see what she had…
Blog Tour: Dare to Disappoint Author Ozge Samanci
How do you make a graphic novel? With paper and ink … or, in the case of Ozge Samanci and her new nonfiction memoir graphic novel about growing up in Turkey, with a whole host of unconventional materials – like tumeric, bread, and burned paper. We’re thrilled to be the third stop on the DARE…
YA Diversity Book Club: Q&A with Una LaMarche
Welcome to the October edition of the YA Diversity Book Club, a monthly feature we created in partnership with three other book bloggers: Kristina at Gone Pecan, Lucy at The Reading Date, and Kristan at We Heart YA. This month we read DON’T FAIL ME NOW, our second novel by Una LaMarche (her third YA…
Kids Comics Q&A Blog Tour: David Rubin
In honor of Children’s Book Week (which was earlier this month), Macmillan organized a month-long blog tour featuring Q&As (all written by Dragons Beware! authors Jorge Aguirre and Rafael Rosado) with 32 different authors and illustrators of children’s and teen’s comics and graphic novels. For our stop on the tour, we’re featuring Jorge and Rafael’s…
Author Appreciation: Kate DiCamillo
Last night Candlewick hosted a dinner for Kate DiCamillo with DC-area children’s book reviewers, and I was lucky enough to attend. Kate was in town as the Library of Congress’ National Ambassador for Young People’s Literature. Earlier in the day, she had participated in an event with former Ambassadors Katherine Paterson and Jon Scieszka, who…