Writers and Their Teachers edited by Dale Salwak (Bloomsbury, May 2023) is an enlightening collection of essays by 20 different world-renowned authors, delving into the influential figures who shaped their writing journeys. The book gives a diverse range of perspectives, allowing for an anthology that many will enjoy reading. The anthology contains contributions from twenty

Read Post

I’ve been blogging on this page for eight years now. It’s kind of hard to believe that my oldest child was five months old when I began. Here I am, two more children later (and the youngest is 5 months old), and I struggle to find time to read the books I love let alone

Read Post

At first, I thought Teaching Kids to Think by Darlene Sweetland and Ron Stolberg (Sourcebooks, March 2015) had a deceptive title. I had thought it would be  about helping kids learn and logic through academics. Rather, Teaching Kids to Think is focused on helping parents raise children that think through the basics of everyday survival and life, emphasizing

Read Post

Chloe and the Lion by Mac Barnett, illustrated by Adam Rex (Disney Hyperion, 2012), is a unique book about artistic creation, not a book about a girl meeting a lion. It’s difficult to begin explaining. Let me start with a description of the artwork, as mentioned in the front matter: The art in this book was

Read Post

As I mentioned yesterday, I’ve been struggling to post thoughts on the books I’ve read recently. But I saw this article and knew I needed to get these thoughts up now. The topic is an interesting one, and that article about the book I just read reminded me to get in gear and gather my

Read Post

In the introduction to A Moveable Feast (published 1964), his memoir of the years between the wars during which he lived in Paris, Ernest Hemingway writes: If the reader prefers, this book may be regarded as fiction. But there is always the chance that such a book of fiction may throw some light on what has

Read Post

When, in 1918, a clerk erroneously ordered twelve times the number of children’s books intended, Western Publishing Company may have faced ruin. Instead, the company persuaded Woolworth’s department stores to sell it, a practice unusual since children’s books were normally only sold during the holiday season. Years later, in the 1930s, one publishing novice was

Read Post