I attended an advance screening of The Tale of Despereaux this weekend (thanks, Candlewick!) and enjoyed being there surrounded by Despereaux afficiandos and those who knew it both first and best. Illustrator Timothy Basil Ering and his wife were seated one row in front of me, and it was a sincere joy to hear Tim's WHOOP! of joy when the opening credits began rolling and "The Tale of Despereaux" appeared on the screen. How amazing it must be to breathe life into a writer's characters then later watch them stand up and speak, literally.

Overall I would say I enjoyed this movie, though I wouldn't say I "loved" it. If I was t...Read More

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I have only the faintest memory of learning to diagram sentences in elementary school, no memory of what grade I was in at the time, and no recollection of just how to draw those branching pictures now. (I could never have written the book Sister Bernadette's Barking Dog: The Quirky History and Lost Art of Diagramming Sentences.) But I do remember LIKING the sentence-diagramming process as a kid. I enjoyed the orderliness of drawing those twig-like lines sprouting one from the other, then filling them with words like birds come home to roost....Read More

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I received an e-mail from author/illustrator Debra Frasier yesterday in which she explained the following: 

"The Make-A-Wish Foundation has invited Janell Cannon, Eric Carle, Ian Falconer, David Kirk, Ida Pearle, my dear friend, Lauren Stringer (see her new book: Snow, with Cynthia Rylant), and me to create e-cards for holiday sending. One click takes you to an array of illustrations to send, and a donation is made by E! Network to the foundation. The scenes are L...Read More

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Can you get a repetitive stress injury from wrapping gifts? Though we are certainly witnessing signs of an economic slowdown, our store is nevertheless in holiday retail mode, our fingers sore from near-constant folding and cutting and taping and ribbon-curling. I'm having a hard time keeping a regular blogging routine as my store routine becomes busier with each passing day. (I say "busier" because it's not like my usual routine leaves much time for slacking. Sadly.)

One of the more entertaining holiday diversions at our store of late was an event we hosted yesterday starring none other than... SANTA CLAUS. Yep. The guy in red. The jolly old soul. The realio, trulio bringer of loot. 

In what was a very clever, non-traditional publicity scheme, Little, Brown arranged to send us (umm... kids, stop readin...Read More

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What books for "grown-ups" should no self-respecting bookstore be without? I said this post would go up on Friday, and it is technically still Friday! (At least, it is for another 10 minutes...) It's just much later in the day on Friday than I'd planned to be posting. As for WHY this post has been delayed by 15 or so hours, I plead "holiday retail" which is what vaporized 12 hours of my day (no exaggeration). As my apology gift to those of you who've been patiently waiting to list your favorite adult titles here, I'm going to allow you to list up to TEN books for today's category! Yes, TEN!

So, again: What books for "grown-ups" should no self-respecting bookstore be without? You tell me. This week we've covered books for teens, ...Read More

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We're in the final stretch of "Build a Bookstore" week, having already suggested must-have books for young adults, the middle grade set, and the picture book crowd. Today we address books for the littlest ones. Tomorrow we weigh in on books for the biggest ones (i.e. adults).

Name up to FIVE books for infants and toddlers (board books, picture books, bath books, cloth books, funky novelty-type books) that you think no self-respecting bookstore should be without! Yes, you can repeat others' suggestions. No, you can't mention your OWN books, unless your name is Margaret Wise Brown (which it's not) or Eric Carle or... you get the idea.

To get the ball rolling, I will now list FIVE books for babies and/or toddlers that I think no store should be without. (Drum roll, please...)

The Very Hungry Caterpil...Read More

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It's day three of "Build a Bookstore" week! So far we've tackled the challenge of naming five young adult books and five middle grade books no self-respecting bookstore should be without. Today your task (and mine!) is to list UP TO FIVE PICTURE BOOKS (fiction and/or non-fiction!) for lower elementary and/or preschool that you believe should appear on every bookstore's shelves. Once again, you are welcome to repeat the suggestions of others (thereby giving an additional "vote" to those repeated titles).

I expect there to be a LOT of variation in today's lists plus a lot of "classics," so that makes even more exruciating for me to limit my own list to JUST five... (What if the others I love don't get mentioned here??) But so be it. Here, with much grimacing on my part, are FIVE picture b...Read More

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Yesterday I kicked off this week's "Build a Bookstore" week by asking you to list up to five young adult novels that you think no self-respecting bookstore should be without, knowing that (of course) no one store can afford to carry everything.

Today your charge is to list up to five middle grade novels and middle grade non-fiction books (meaning non-fiction aimed at upper elementary and/or middle school) you think no self-respecting bookstore should be without. Yes, your list of titles can contain some of the same titles that others' do. NO, you can't list more than five titles, even if you find it torturous to limit yourself this way!

Once again I will put myself through the wringer here and list five choices of my own.

Walk Two Moons by Sharon Creech
The Watsons Go to B...Read More

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What young adult novels and non-fiction should no self-respecting bookstore be without? That's my question for today, and it kicks off my "Build a Bookstore" theme for the week. Here's what prompted this discussion.

We recently sold a copy of Dicey's Song by Cynthia Voight and I decided, after a LOT of hemming and hawing and silently berating myself, NOT to reorder the book. I had already given Homecoming the axe a couple months ago, and now I, in essence, have done the same with this "classic" of young adult literature. WHY? Because that recent sale was the first one we'd had on that title in two years. Homecoming had been sitting for even longer. Given that we barely have enough room to shelve all the boo...Read More

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It seems only right on Thanksgiving to focus on things that, well, I'm thankful for. Here then is a short list:

I'm thankful that kids today are growing up with a vast treasure trove of reading material at their fingertips, in their ears, up the wazoo. It's true that I think there is a lot of inconsequential "fluff" that's being published nowadays, but there is a lot of truly fantastic stuff rolling off those presses too.

I'm thankful for authors and illustrators who conjure images and ideas that make my jaw drop or make me shake my head in wonder or just make me smile. It is a JOY to read books that elicit these responses. And a joy to respond these ways as often as I do.

I'm thankful for talented editors and visionary art directors and smart book designers and all the other skilled people who w...Read More

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Toothpaste for Dinner has produced some very entertaining t-shirts that may appeal to those grammarians on your holiday gift list. Click on any photo below to visit its t-shirt purchasing page.

Ignore the "Women's" and "Men's" designation on each of the designs. You can have them printed on shirts for either.





...Read More

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I'm a big fan of unusual endpapers. I love opening to a book to be surprised by some unexpected piece of artwork or intricate pattern. A year ago, Drawn posted a link to a fantastic online collection, to which you're encouraged to upload others and add them to the mix. What follows are some of endpapers I've admired in recent years.

Note: A few of these endpapers are ones I scanned months ago, before I'd learned how to resize a photo in the blog tool and link it to a larger version, so you'll have to settle for seeing those in their small sizes here. The scans that have a blue line around them, though, are ones you can click on and view larger. (Ah, technology...) In many cases the books were larger than even Gareth's big scanner,...Read More

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