In the great green room
One of the great moments of grandparenthood (so far): reading Goodnight Moon to a granddaughter who pulled it from the shelf at bedtime and said she didn’t understand it.
Raymond Briggs (1934–2022)
Writer and illustrator of The Snowman (1978), among many other books.
Lois Ehlert (1934–2021)
If Lois Ehlert’s name doesn’t ring a bell, think Chicka Chicka Boom Boom.
Eric Carle (1929–2021)
Artist and author of countless books for children.
Chicken and cheese
As a boy, with Dracula as my inspiration, I would add a slice of American cheese to my plate whenever we had chicken for dinner. Cheese, right?
A World Book cameo
On MSNBC.
Selected titles
Some of the titles a young relation removed from a bookshelf during her visit.
Feminist Baby
Complaints on Amazon — for instance, that the book doesn’t help the title character “grow to a strong, open-minded individual who recognizes all the paths available to her” — seem to forget that this book is about the very young, who do indeed throw up, and throw their toys.
Book tour
A Scholastic Book Services truck, sighted in the wild.
Happy birthday, Beverly Cleary
Beverly Cleary celebrates her hundredth birthday today.
A is for Artichoke
Sally Rightor Parks’s A is for Artichoke (Pasadena: Water Works, 2014) is a book of fifty-two paintings, two for each letter of the alphabet.
Bernard Waber (1921–2013)
He wrote and illustrated the Lyle books.
Donald J. Sobol (1924–2012)
Donald J. Sobol, the creator of Encyclopedia Brown, has died at the age of eighty-seven.
No Sleep
What’s wrong with Go the F**k to Sleep?
On One Morning in Maine
Elaine Fine's favorite book from childhood
The Lonely Phone Booth
For wistful 4- to 8-year-olds
Jay Bennett (1912–2009)
He wrote one of the best books of my youth
Children, “best readers in the world”
Novelist Katherine Paterson on her readers
Clifford Hicks’s new Alvin Fernald novel
Alvin Fernald forever
Reading Rainbow ends
After 26 years
Fresh cookies, fresh ironing
Proustian passage from a childhood book
Scholastic madeleines
Scans of Scholastic Book Club covers