Best picture books, chapter books, young adult books, graphic novels and non fiction for kids.
My neighbors and I are enjoying watching a Red-tailed Hawk family grow up. There are two baby chicks who are now fully-fledged teenagers with keys to the car. They can be seen swooping around from tree to tree and they are a raucous bunch; noisy, playful, and fun! Their arrival this spring has made birdwatchers…
Please welcome Rumi Hara today with her list of books that inspired her graphic novel Nori. She is a Japanese cartoonist living in New York who’s been gaining acclaim in the comics community. Nori by Rumi Hara Nori is a spirited preschooler who lives in suburban Osaka in a multigenerational family. Her grandmother takes care…
I’m extra excited to announce our newest Multicultural Children’s Book Day Classroom Kit on Activism and Activists! You can get it here. There’s something more … I illustrated the poster this year! Now, I didn’t set out to illustrate anything! I had been working on my drawing skills, taking figure and portrait classes recently. I…
“Chink!” “Jap!” “Where are you from?” “Do you eat dog?” “Why don’t you go back to where you came from?” “Do you know Kung-Fu?” From the racist to the innocuous, issues of culture, ethnicity, and discrimination are prevalent themes for Asian minorities in the United States. The Asian desire to be “American” and fit into mainstream society in the U.S. can be challenging as…
The unthinkable happened. Olympics have been canceled due to war in 1916, 1940, and 1944 but this is the first time in the history of the Olympics that the games have been postponed. What does this mean for the Olympic athletes? Let me tell you about my boxing trainer, Marc Gargaro… Marc has been training…
I’ve always had a fascination with Ancient Egypt. It makes me happy that my kids get an introduction to ancient cultures at school. Isn’t it amazing how these books make history from so long ago feel like we are part of it? And there are still secrets to be discovered from these stories of Pharaohs…
This was my first World Read Aloud Day as an author. I did Skype author visits with three classrooms. I was supposed to meet with a fourth, but I forgot to check their time zone and we ended up having to reschedule. The classrooms ranged from first to third grade. All the kids asked really…