Reading with your three-year-old turns ordinary afternoons into treasure hunts for the mind. Picture this: your kid's eyes light up as you flip a page, discovering a hidden world of…
Have you ever wondered why some people just seem to "get" you? They understand how you feel without you having to say a lot. A big part of this comes…
Night time is special for children. The day is over. Toys are put absent. Lights feel delicate. This is the best time to perused a story. A sleep time book…
For every generation categorized as “lazy” or “uninformed,” along comes a group of young people to Shut. That. Down. In 1960, it was four college students in Greensboro, N.C., who began…
All hail the best friend! That person we confide in and listen to without fear or judgment. The one with whom we share in-jokes. The one who holds our hand,…
Fairly often one of my students raises a hand in class just as I’m saying something that feels important. When the palm hangs there, imploring but impertinent, I turn and…
In 1955 Beverly Cleary published “Beezus and Ramona,” and the world fell in love with Ramona Quimby, a spark plug of a kid sister who made being bad look like…
On the surface, Rebecca Stead’s THE LIST OF THINGS THAT WILL NOT CHANGE (Wendy Lamb Books, 224 pp., $16.99; ages 8 to 12) is a book about complicated circumstances. Bea’s parents…
There are scores of novels about World War II, but far fewer about what happened next. When we meet Zofia Lederman in August 1945 in Monica Hesse’s THEY WENT LEFT…
The writer E. L. Doctorow — who, in “Ragtime” and other novels, pioneered a new way of presenting historical material in fiction — once said in an interview: “The historian…
POEMS ALOUD Written by Joseph Coelho. Illustrated by Daniel Gray-Barnett “Poems are made to be performed!” Coelho declares early in this rousing book, which guides young readers through the basics of…
Late in WHEN STARS ARE SCATTERED (Dial Books for Young Readers, 264 pp., $20.99; ages 9 to 12), 17-year-old Omar Mohamed is asked to write a paper on “What It…
