As soon as the Harry Potter series started hitting best-seller lists, something came along for the ride: the detractors. The most vocal of these were usually conservative, religious people who felt that the series promoted witchcraft, among other things, and …
Continue ReadingLast weekend at Wordstock, I sat in on a panel with Jonathan Hill and Vera Brosgol, both Portland-based cartoonists who have published books with First Second Books this past year. They both shared a bit about their process and read …
Continue ReadingTo kick off my round of Wordstock interviews, I spoke to Jonathan Hill, illustrator of Americus. Jonathan is here in Portland, so I was able to stop by and see his studio space. His drafting table and cart with brushes, …
Continue ReadingI have a confession: I didn’t actually know a whole lot about Richard Feynman. Well, okay, I knew a bit about his role at Los Alamos from a history class, and I knew a little about his outsized personality and …
Continue ReadingEarlier this year I did a series of posts of Stories About Girls: books that featured female main characters, with a broad range of types of books and subject matter. I tried to pick a lot of books that both …
Continue ReadingAs I’ve mentioned before, I don’t read a lot of graphic novels. And when I do, my taste seems to run less towards fantasy than memoir. But when an unsolicited copy of Anya’s Ghost from publisher First Second Books, the …
Continue ReadingDo you ever feel like you’re a disappointment to your parents? Or that they have extremely high expectations for you, plans for your life that never included your own preferences or desires? If so, chances are high that you were …
Continue ReadingEver since I started reading comics from First Second Books (a comics imprint of Macmillan), I’ve been consistently impressed with the quality of the books. Maybe the writing doesn’t always fall into the category of Serious Literature, but it’s nearly …
Continue ReadingAlmost right from the beginning, you know there’s something wrong at Camp Fielding: two kids racing for a geocache suddenly start convulsing and coughing up feathers. It certainly doesn’t look like a “summer of learning and fun” as promised on …
Continue ReadingAre you celebrating Talk Like a Pirate Day today? Here’s some fun pirate-based reading for you and your kids, as well as fun activity kit to get everyone in the mood. First, download the Walker Bean Pirate Kit and print …
Continue ReadingDo your kids like comics? Ok, that’s a silly question. Do your kids like to draw comics? Maybe they’re already experts at it, or maybe they need a little push in the right direction. Either way, I’ve got just the …
Continue ReadingIt’s 1942, World War II is raging, and New York City is full of Nazi spies. At least, it seems that way to Evelyn, a young girl who’s stuck with her aunt while her dad is off honeymooning with a …
Continue ReadingFor some reason, I’ve come to associate Jane Yolen with fairy tales, although she’s written a lot more than that. She’s the author of the How Do Dinosaurs… series of picture books, the Commander Toad series for young readers, fiction …
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