BOOKEXPO 2018: CHILDREN’S AUTHORS TELL BOOKSELLERS: “WE ARE ALL DREAMERS HERE”
Emcee Jacqueline Woodson set the tone right away for Friday morning’s children’s book and author breakfast at BookExpo, explaining, “We’re very intentional in the stories we are trying to tell. Through our narratives, we’re trying to change this crazy world.”
Reading the text of the semi-autobiographical picture book she wrote and illustrated, Dreamers (Holiday House/Porter, Sept.), (Yuri)Morales said, “I have a story to tell. We are dreamers. We are love, amor, love. We are not done. We will be here to hear all the other stories.”
BOOK CON 2018: WE NEED DIVERSE BOOKS: BEYOND DIVERSITY 101
We Need Diverse Books (WNDB) began, like so many things do these days, as a hashtag. After ReedPOP, the company that puts on BookCon, announced in April 2014 an all white and male author lineup for its inaugural BookCon “Blockbuster Reads” panel, a firestorm erupted on social media. #WeNeedDiverseBooks went viral during a three-day campaign in which people were urged to post online photos of themselves holding signs with the hashtag. In response, ReedPOP didn’t just add a woman of color to its “Blockbuster Reads” panel: it also invited the grassroots group behind the hashtag to put together its own blockbuster panel of diverse authors. The panel, “The World Agrees: We Need Diverse Books,” featured Jacqueline Woodson, Grace Lin, and Matt de la Peña…
READ MORE…BOOKEXPO 2018 IN PHOTOS
Jane Addams Children’s Book Award Titles by Jacqueline Woodson, Shane Evans, & Yuri Morales
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GREEN ROOM SERIES TO FEATURE POETS NAOMI NYE AND CATHY SONG
Naomi Shihab Nye has spent 40 years traveling the country and the world leading writing workshops and inspiring students of all ages. She was born to a Palestinian father and an American mother and grew up in St. Louis, Jerusalem, and San Antonio. Drawing on her Palestinian-American heritage, the cultural diversity of her home in Texas, and her experiences traveling, Nye uses her writing to attest to our shared humanity.
Jane Addams Children’s Book Award Titles by Naomi Shihab Nye:
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GOT A RELUCTANT READER AT HOME?
Some kids look forward to filling summer’s idle hours with books. But plenty of others see all those unscheduled days as freedom from reading.
Then there are the high-stakes basketball stories of Walter Dean Myers, including “Slam!,” “Hoops” and “Game,” and Matt de la Peña’s gritty debut novel, “Ball Don’t Lie.” The books’ heroes play hard, to escape desperate economic and family circumstances.
READING IS HOW I TRAVELED AS A KID – BECAUSE LEAVING MY HOMETOWN JUST WASN’T AN OPTION
Reading has always been my primary form of travel.
I was basically raised in the Malden Public Library, scouring through the children’s section downstairs or heading over to the nonfiction section to learn more about places, animals, and people. Books took me to places around the world and throughout history that I couldn’t explore in person, and it was an adventure every time.
I learned about the boroughs of New York from Jacqueline Woodson’s Miracle’s Boys, Louise Fitzhugh’s Harriet the Spy, and Walter Dean Myers’ Scorpions.
Jane Addams Children’s Book Award Title by Walter Dean Myers:
