Writing with a broken tusk is the blog of author, Uma Krishnaswami. The blog focuses on writing books for children. Wonderful insights and inspiritional ideas.
Author: Tasha
Blue Roses
GraceAnne DeCandido is a children’s book reviewer amongst many other things. Her site offers information on how to write a good review, how to become a book reviewer, and a list of her favorite books from the last two years.
Picture Book Article
Sound Bend Tribune has a great article about art in picture books. It ends with:
“Exposing children to many different visual styles is doing them a great service, says dePaola. “Children who are picture-book age — I don’t think they have any ‘taste.’ Their taste is in formation. Let them see as much as they can, and then they’ll form their own taste.””
Exactly. Read, read, read to those kids!
Notable Children's Videos
ALA also has a list of Notable Children’s Videos for 2006. You will see lots of videos from Weston Woods, the high quality creator of films based on children’s picture books. Though Weston Woods videos can be prohibitively expensive for many libraries, you will want to take a look at the DVD series from Scholastic that compiles several Weston Woods films on a single DVD for a very reasonable price.
Pete Hautman
Pete Hautman, author of Godless and Invisible, has a new book coming out in May, entitled Rash. He also has an Amazon author blog that is worth checking out.
Gryphon Award
The Center for Children’s Books has announced the 2006 winner of the Gryphon Award. This year’s winner is Stinky Stern Forever by Michelle Edwards. The Gryphon Award is given to “an English language work of fiction or non-fiction for which the primary audience is children in Kindergarten through Grade 4. The title chosen best exemplifies those qualities that successfully bridge the gap in difficulty between books for reading aloud to children and books for practiced readers.”
Stir It Up
School Library Journal has a great article: Stir It Up that has a list of things you should NEVER do with teenagers at your library.
Because it is written so bluntly, you can immediately see why you shouldn’t do something. But check yourself, are you doing some of these things? When I worked in a larger library with other staff who had issues with teens and their behavior, this would have been a very handy way to start a conversation about why they were having problems with the teen patrons we had.
Hip Librarians
HipLibrariansBookBlog is a great blog that was also featured in SLJ’s list of recommended book review blogs. Click here to get the full list.
Reading Is Genetic
News in Science – Bookworms born not made has interesting information for parents and teachers. A study shows that genetics play a larger role than environment in deciding children’s reading ability. The article is quick to say that this does not mean that children do not need to be read to, and in addition it does mean that children with reading issues need to be very fully supported to overcome them.
