In honor of the Golden Kite Awards and the Society of Children’s Book Writer’s and Illustrators upcoming celebration of the winners, I’m thrilled to have John Parra as our guest this week! John won the prize for his incredible illustrations for Marvelous Cornelius: Hurricane Katrina and the Spirit of New Orleans, a heartwarming and inspiring story about a real-life New Orleans … Continue reading
I’m thrilled to welcome Margarita Engle as our guest this week! In March, Margarita won the Nonfiction Golden Kite Award for her memoir Enchanted Air, a gorgeously-written account about growing up as a child of two cultures—the United States and Cuba. Enchanted Air has also won a Pura Belpré Award, a Lee Bennet Hopkins Poetry Award, and a … Continue reading
It has been awhile since I’ve done a What Was on My . . . Life events—some wonderful and some less wonderful—kept me away. But, I was travelling last month and tripped across something fascinating that has sent me back to tell you about it. So, here is What Was on My . . . … Continue reading
I’ve been looking forward to this day for a long time. I at long-last get to say: Our guest is Kate Hosford, a wonderfully talented author and also my very good friend. Kate is here as part of the festivities surrounding the release of Feeding the Flying Fanellis and Other Poems from a Circus Chef, … Continue reading
This month, What Was on… celebrates the release of Skyscraping with author Cordelia Jensen! Skyscraping has been hailed as ‘exquisite free verse poems.’ ‘Illuminating and deeply felt.’ (Booklist’s Starred Review). And Pop Crush has named it one of the 10 Best New YA Books that Explore Sexuality. Mira is just beginning her senior year of high school when … Continue reading
In celebration of the release of Surviving Santiago on June 2nd, I’m thrilled that our guest today is Lyn Miller-Lachmann! Surviving Santiago is set in the tense, final months of the Pinochet regime in 1989 Chile and is the suspenseful tale of the survival and redemption of the Aguilar family, first introduced in the critically … Continue reading
Our guest today is author, artist, and anthropologist Dana Walrath, whose first Young Adult novel, Like Water on Stone, was released in November. Like Water on Stone is Dana’s beautiful rendering of a horrific story—her grandmother’s fleeing of the 1915 Armenian Genocide when she was only a girl. Told in verse, this lyrical and moving … Continue reading
