2014 Children's Book Week Celebrations Begin Today! Are you a children's book champion?

Today marks the first day of 2014 Children's Book Week.  Children's Book Week has been celebrating books for young readers for 95 years now.  A new poster is created every year by a children's book illustrator and this year's poster is by Robin Preiss Glasser, who was also a CWB 2013 Children's Choice Illustrator of the Year winner.  

And what's a book without a celebratory bookmark?  This year's bookmark was created by nonfiction picture book author/illustrator Steve Jenkins.  You can print as many as you like when you go HERE

We are all Children's Book Week Champions at heart, but here are some that authors and illustrators who want you to know why they are champions. (Be sure to hit PLAYLIST) to hear all the champions).

Speaking of Children's Book Week posters, Leonard Marcus, children's book historian par excellence, published a book called 75 Years of Children's Book Week Posters: Celebrating Great Illustrators of American Children's Books.  There are 69 posters included and each page contains one poster in full color with brief commentary about it.  When I reviewed this book, I wrote "This is a book well worth close examination, if you are a reader who really appreciates the work of each illustrator in the books you read.  According the publisher's description, these posters are not only first rate illustrations, but they also reflect the history, social climate and wider concerns of the country at the time each was created."

The book was published in 1994, so the posters only go up to the mid-1990s, I think you will find this book to be very informative.  You can probably get this book through Inter-Library Loan if it isn't in your local library.  

And if you are going to be in NYC this summer, maybe going to BEA or for a vacation, be sure to take some time and visit The New York Public Library at 42nd Street and Fifth Avenue, where you can see the free exhibit curated by Leonard Marcus called The ABC of It: Why Children's Books Matter.  It's a wonderful exhibit with lots of surprises and Leonard really knows his kidlit.

How many times have you read Goodnight, Moon?

And while you are at the library, take the free docent guided building tour.  These run at 11 and 2 Monday thru Saturday.  Trust me, you will find it positively enlightening.