Thank you so much to NEA for including Barbed Wire Between Us in the Read Across America calendar. We are featured in April 2027, under the theme, Build Belonging. Build Belonging Belonging grows when people are able to be who they are and find their place among others. Encourage students to read and explore…
My Oldest Won a National Science Foundation Grant for Grad School!
My oldest, Zoe Lee, who graduated from the Rhode Island School of Design (RISD) and studied Industrial Design, won a National Science Foundation grant for graduate school. She will be starting her Master’s Program at MIT this fall. This fellowship will also fund her PhD. We are so excited for her to begin this new…
I had a great time at the Westchester Children’s Book Festival at Camp Mohawk
Thank you for inviting me to the Westchester Children’s Book Festival! I had a wonderful time. It is always a good time to sit next to Phaea Crede. We met many years ago at a Barefoot Books event where her wildly popular picture book, Jet the Cat (is not a cat!), is now being translated…
How My Kids Stopped Asking for Screens — And Started Asking for the Next Adventure
Thank you to House of Heroes for sponsoring this post. If you are anything like me, you have tried every trick in the book to make screen time feel less like the default setting of your evenings. Activity kits that lose their novelty by Thursday. Board games that work brilliantly for two sessions and then…
9 Outstanding Poetry Collections for Young Readers and Teens from School Library Journal
Thank you for including Barbed Wire Between Us in this list of 9 Outstanding Poetry Collections for Young Readers and Teens from School Library Journal! 2026 Stars So Far Home Page These lyrical titles include homages to Langston Hughes and Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., as well as a collection of pet poems. Our…
No More Hiroshimas or Nagasakis: Passing on the Stories of Survivors
No more Hiroshimas. My mother’s side of the family is from Hiroshima… Every August, people around the world honor the victims of the atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki. In a world where the risk of nuclear catastrophe is rising, it’s more important than ever to remember and share these stories. Eighty-one years after the…
False Domestic Violence Accusations: What Happens Next?
According to CDC data, more than one in three women and more than one in six men deal with some form of contact sexual violence, physical violence, or stalking by an intimate partner at some point in their lives. There is a saying that there are three sides to every story: your side, my side,…







