Hurricane by John Rocco

 

Hurricane 

written and illustrated by John Rocco

Little,Brown BFYR, 2021, 48 pages

Hurricanes are scary weather events for lots of kids and it seems we are experiencing more and more extreme storms nowadays. Here is the story of one such storm and its aftereffects. 

Before our young unnamed narrator tells his hurricane story, this new book by John Rocco begins with the front endpapers giving brief information about how hurricanes are categorized according to the Saffir-Simpson Hurricane Wind Scale, and including an illustration of just how hurricanes begin and end.  

From there, our narrator tells us that his favorite place in the world is the old splintery neighborhood dock that no one uses except him. There, at the river, he can fish, swim, crab, or just watch what is going on around him. One day, as he walks home, he sees his neighbors and his dad boarding up and taping the windows of their homes in preparation for an impending hurricane. 

Later that night, the hurricane roars in bringing destruction everywhere and causing the river to overflow and wash away anything that can float. 

By the next day, the hurricane is gone but what a path of destruction it leaves in its wake. Our young narrator, fishing pole and tackle box in hand, almost doesn't recognize his street anymore. But the real shock come when he sees what the hurricane has done to his beloved dock.

The boy asks his dad and his neighbors for help repairing the dock, but they are all busy fixing the damage done to their homes. Instead of fixing the dock, the boy stays and helps his neighbors instead. After, returning home, he decides to try to fix the dock on his own. Day after day, he works on it, though it's a big job for a young boy. But just as he is about to give up, the whole neighborhood shows up to help him. In the end, the dock is better that ever - it is sturdier, safer, and best of all - it has become everyone's dock and it is still his favorite place in the world.

I suspect this story may be somewhat autobiographical, it just has the feeling of something actually experienced. Maybe this is because Rocco has really captured the young narrator's emotional range so well, at times, he looks so vulnerable, other times scared, stunned, and disappointed, but also hopeful and happy.  

What I really liked was how Rocco showed the change in the neighborhood before and after the storm. The fact that the dock belonged to the town but the narrator was the only one using it indicates that maybe people were not friendly with each other before the storm. Also, the narrator is always shown alone. But after the boy has helped them out and they have reciprocated by helping fix the dock shows a new, stronger feeling of community. 

The illustrations, done with pencil, watercolor and digital color, are colorful and detailed. One of the things Rocco does so well is depicting movement even in a still image. Take for example, the image of the storm I've included - you really get the sense of heavy slanted rain forced by the strong winds, and the water from the river flowing up the street. All of the illustrations are just brilliant.

So, what do you think Rocco included on the back endpapers? Why, the parts of a dock, of course.

This book is recommended for readers age 5+

This book and the images included here were a PDF gratefully received from Ana Sierra at Wunderkind PR 

#MMGM: Violet and the Pie of Life by Debra Green

 

Seventh grader Violet Summers, 12, has always thought of her dad as a fun, loosey-goosey free spirit and her mom as a nagging, work driven spoil sport. And to make matters worse, they have been fighting much more than usual. Then, one day, Violet's dad moves out without much of a good-bye and goes radio silent. Meanwhile, at school, Violet's best friend McKenzie Williston talks her into auditioning for the school play The Wizard of Oz. McKenzie really wants to play Dorothy, but is cast as a monkey instead. Violet lands the part as the Lion, and the part of Dorothy goes to Ally Ziegler. Beautiful, talented, biracial Ally happens to be Violet and McKenzie's arch enemy (though Ally is completely unaware of this). McKenzie tries to talk Violet into quitting the play with her, but Violet decides she wants to do it. 

With her father gone, tension between Violet and her mom increases. Violet is sure that if her mom hadn't nagged so much, her father would have stayed. And she is hoping that attending her play will bring her parents together and they can become a whole family again. But the more her dad doesn't respond to her calls and texts, the angrier Violet gets at her mom.

As rehearsals begin for the play, Violet and McKenzie start to drift away from each other. Soon, Violet is eating lunch with Ally and her friends and she discovers that Ally doesn't have the picture perfect life that she and McKenzie always believed she had. 

As Violet's life unfolds, readers also learn about McKenzie's life. Her father had passed away years earlier, and her mother believes in free range parenting, which really amounts to plain old neglect. Her clothes are old and worn, but she had always found comfort in her sleepovers at Violet's house, and gets along well with her mother. Ironically, Mrs. Summers is the stable adult in McKenzie's life. She's is a real estate agent and, unlike Violet, McKenzie is interested in what she does, so Mrs. Summer's is beginning to teach her all about that business.

Parents separating is always hard on the children who inevitably believe it is their fault. Violet's father, who appeared to be a free spirit at first, really is just selfish and immature, behaving more like a spoiled child than a grown man. Her mother does come across as a nag, but as readers get to know her, they will see she is really a caring person who only wants the best for both Violet and McKenzie. 

Violet struck me as quite bratty at first, but she does change over the course of the novel. At first, she lets rehearsals and her father take up so much of her time that she begins to fall behind in school. Luckily, her math teacher is perceptive and quickly realizes that Violet is a math wiz and gives her a special math packet that is more challenging. In fact, one of the ways Violet deals with things in her life is by putting them into graphs, charts and other mathematical diagrams all through the novel.   

The real takeaway from Violet and the Pie of Life is that while math problems always work out just as they should, life doesn't but it does make for an interesting, engaging coming of age novel.

This book is recommended for readers age 10+

This book was gratefully received from the publisher, Holiday House

Be sure to check out the other Marvelous Middle Grade Monday offerings, 

now being carried on by Greg at Always in the Middle

#MMGM: Born Behind Bars by Padma Venkatraman

When she was pregnant with him, Kabir Khan's mother was accused of a crime she did not commit and put into a Chennai jail where he was born. He has lived there since that day, in a cell with several other women besides his mother. Small for his age, no one paid much attention to Kabir until the new warden decides that at age 9, he is old enough to be released. Before he goes, his teacher at the prison school tries her best to prepare him for the outside world, as do his cellmates. 

On the day of his release, Kabir is picked up by a man who says he is his uncle. But it doesn't take long for him to realize that the man is not a relative and that he plans to sell Kabir. Using his wits, Kabir manages to escape and in the process he meets Rani, a Kurava (Roma) girl a few years older than him and living on the streets with her pet parrot. 

Rani take Kabir under her wing, teaching him how to survive on the streets, educating him on India's caste system that makes low caste people like them invisible to others. Together, they manage to earn money for food - Rani tells fortunes and Kabir sings. Kabir knows all about his father and how much his dad loved his mother, but his father never told his parents about his wife before he left for Dubai because she is Hindu and Kabir's father's family are Muslim. Now, Kabir is determined to go to Bengaluru to find his grandparents. 

A stroke of good luck and Kabir's strong sense of honesty enables him to get enough money to buy train tickets to Bengaluru for him and Rani. Sadly, they face caste discrimination buying the tickets and riding the train, but also kindness of strangers helping them. In Bengaluru, they find the mosque that the Khan family worships at and follow a man to his business thinking he might be a relative of Kabir's. But when fighting over water breaks out, Rani manages to help the man save his business. In return, he posts their pictures on social media and luck is once again on Kabir's side. His grandparents see the post and manage to find him and Rani. Soon, Kabir finally has new, clean clothes, enough to eat, a room of his own and he even makes another friend who teaches him how to play cricket. Rani, who hates being confined indoors, is introduced to a woman who runs a school that allows her to live in a tent of her own with her parrot,  and get an education. The woman also knows lawyers who may be able to get Kabir's mother released so that they can be reunited. 

Born Behind Bars is told in chapters that consist of short paragraphs and that are narrated entirely from Kabir's open, honest, observant perspective. Though his eyes, readers learn what jail is like for the women and children who are incarcerated there, and also what life on the streets is like for so many children in India. Kabir's story is a nice mix of good and bad things happening to both him and Rani as Venkatraman explores themes of poverty, tolerance and intolerance of religious and caste differences, justice and injustice, loss and revelation. I also think it may be surprising for young American readers to realize that children can find themselves alone in the world on the streets of India and that it isn't just a thing of the past. 

But is Kabir's luck too good to be true? I wondered that as I read the book and perhaps the story focused on the upshot of his good luck rather than the alternatives. Think what could have been if his fraudulent uncle has managed to sell this plucky, hopeful boy into what would have amounted to slavery.

I have always enjoyed reading Padma Venkatraman's novels set in India and this is no exception. The writing is beautiful, the story is poignant, and Kabir is a character you won't soon forget. He is honest, with an engaging sense of humor regarding his circumstances (I loved his private nicknames for the women with whom he shared his jail cell) and the challenges he faces on a daily basis. It is, in short, an enlightening, compelling novel.

This book is recommended for readers age 9+

This book was an eARC gratefully received from NetGalley.com

Be sure to check out the other Marvelous Middle Grade Monday offerings, 

now being carried on by Greg at Always in the Middle

Book Blitz and Giveaway: The Hideaway by Pam Smy

The Hideaway by Pam Smy

Pavilion Children's Books, September 7, 2021, 256 pages

$19.95 ISBN: 978-1-84-365479-7

The Hideaway combines gripping text and stunning illustration to tell the story of Billy McKenna, a boy who runs away from a difficult situation at home and takes refuge in an overgrown graveyard to deal with his mixed-up emotions. There, Billy meets an elderly man who tends the graves in preparation for All Souls' Eve, and ultimately witnesses the magical events that come to pass on that spooky night. 

Interwoven in Billy's supernatural story is the all-too-realistic tale of his mother's situation at home and the police search for Billy. With themes of family and childhood, separation and reunion, domestic violence and doing the right thing, this is an important and beautiful book for middle graders through adults.

Billy's story is illustrated throughout in tonal and textured black and while drawings, until the event on All Souls' Eve, when the text gives way to a series of double page images of the supernatural happening. 

The Hideaway is a compelling, exciting and emotional story that will stay with you long after you turn the final page.

Meet the Author:

Pam Smy studied illustration at Cambridge School of Art, where she now lectures part-time. Pam has illustrated books by Conan Doyle, Julia Donaldson, and Kathy Henderson, among others. Her first novel, Thornhill, was a critical and commercial success, shortlisted for the Waterstones Children's Book Prize, the UKLA Book Awards, the CILIP Kate Greenaway Medal 2018, and winning the 2018 British Book Design & Production Award for Graphic Novels. She lived in Cambridge, UK. 

Connect with Pam on her website Pam Smy

or on Instagram @pamsmyillustrator

or follow her on Amazon: Pam Smy

The Giveaway:

Five (5) winners will receive a hardcopy of The Hideaway. This giveaway is open to books lovers in the United States and in the United Kingdom (US/UK). The giveaway ends on September 19, 2021 at 11:59 PM ET

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Book Blast + Giveaway: Soccer Trophy Mystery by Fred Bowen

This fall, award-winning author and Washington Post KidsPost Sports Columnist ("The Score") Fred Bowen is back with more soccer action and a new mystery - in Soccer Trophy Mystery, the newest addition to the popular tween Fred Bowen Sports Story Series. 

Soccer Trophy Mystery by Fred Bowen

(Fred Bowen Sports Stories Series #24

Peachtree Publishing,  9/1/2021, 144 pages

$16.99 ISBN: 978-1-68263-078-5

Thirteen-year-old twins Aiden and Ava and their good friend Daniel, all avid soccer players, have just learned their county league soccer trophy mysteriously disappeared forty years ago from the town library. It was never recovered.

So between games and practices for the town's soccer championships, the three friends try to solve the case. But will these amateur detectives be able to unravel the mystery and find someone who had both motive and opportunity to commit the crime? And will their teams make it all the way to the championships?

As with the rest of the acclaimed series, Fred Bowen weaves exciting play-by-play sports action with real sports history, including a chapter in the back of the book of "The Real Story" behind the disappearance of the original World Cup trophy that was never recovered. Featuring a new mystery storyline, as well as focusing on girls in sports, Soccer Trophy Mystery  is also a great book for character education both on and off the field.

Now with 24 books and close to a million copies sold, the bestselling series has received national and critical acclaim, saying the series "is flush with life lessons about perseverance, dedication, and picking oneself up after a hard knock" (Booklist) and "Fred Bowen never disappoints. His many action-packed novels speak to the hearts and minds of young sports lovers, and he demonstrated know-how and grace in writing about baseball, basketball, soccer and football" (Washington Parent). Each title in the series functions as a stand alone, so readers can dive right in whether this is their first foray into the series or their 24th. 
 

Meet the Author: 

Fred Bowen is the author of Peachtree's popular Fred Bowen Sports Story Series for middle grade readers. A lifelong sports fanatic, he has coached youth league baseball, basketball, and soccer. His kids' sports column "The Score" appears each week in the KidsPost section of the Washington Post. Bowen lives in Maryland.

Visit his website at fredbowen.com

You can also find Fred on Twitter @FredBowenBooks

THE GIVEAWAY

5 Winners will receive a 3-book set from the Sports Story Series: Soccer Trophy Mystery, Hardcourt Comeback, and The Golden Glove. The giveaway is open to residents living in the United States, Canada, and Puerto Rico and ends September 19, 2001 at 11:59 pm ET

Hardcourt Comeback (2010) by Fred Bowen

Part of Fred Bowen Sports Story Series

Calling all basketball fans! Return to the court in this action-packed Sports Story Series book from Washington Post KidsPost columnist and author Fred Bowen – perfect for fans of Mike Lupica and Tim Green.

“Reads like a successful drive to the hoop—quick, purposeful, and effective.” ―Booklist

Brett Carter, the Wildcats’ star forward, is a hotshot on his basketball team—or at least he was. After missing an easy layup shot at the buzzer in one of the most important games of the season, he feels like a total loser. And things only get worse from there…

At his best friend’s birthday party at a rock-climbing center, Brett freezes on the wall. Then he blows an easy question in the American history bee at school. And when he gets back on the court, he can’t get rid of this terrible pounding in his chest. Brett is losing his confidence fast. With the championship game is coming up, can he overcome his fears and play like a “winner” again?

In the afterword, author Fred Bowen shares real stories of well-known players and their hard-fought comebacks.

Buy: 

https://peachtree-online.com/portfolio-items/hardcourt-comeback/

Excerpt: 

https://peachtree-online.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/09/HardcourtComebackexcerpt.pdf

Discussion Guide: 

https://peachtree-online.com/pdfs/DiscussionGuides/HardcourtComebackDG.pdf

The Golden Glove (2009) by Fred Bowen

Part of the Fred Bowen Sports Story Series

Ready to hit the baseball diamond? Check out this action-packed Sports Story Series book from Washington Post KidsPost columnist and author Fred Bowen – perfect for fans of Mike Lupica and Tim Green.Jamie’s lucky glove is the most precious thing in the world to him. He’s spent all winter oiling it while readying his skills for the upcoming season. But what happens when he loses the glove?After an unsuccessful search and a disappointing first game, Jamie realizes he’s lost much more than his glove. He’s lost confidence. So when he seeks help from the owner of a local sporting goods shop—a former minor league player—the old-timer shares the history of baseball gloves along with a few fielding tips to help improve Jamie’s game. But will it be enough to rebuild his confidence and replace the “luck” his beloved glove gave him?Author Fred Bowen engages baseball lovers in this relatable story of self-doubt, luck, and facing your fears. In the afterword, readers can learn more about the history of baseball gloves. 

Buy: 

https://peachtree-online.com/portfolio-items/the-golden-glove/

Excerpt: 

https://peachtree-online.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/09/GoldenGloveexcerpt.pdf

Discussion Guide: 

https://peachtree-online.com/pdfs/DiscussionGuides/GoldenGloveDG.pdf

Reviews

“The books in the Fred Bowen Sports Story series are fast-paced, and at just over 100 pages, they’re perfect for reluctant readers…. Young readers will devour these stories, along with their painless lessons, and still have time to join their friends for games.” 

—School Library Journal 

Hardcourt Comeback: “This entry in the Fred Bowen Sports Story series is flush with life lessons about perseverance, dedication, and picking oneself up after a hard knock, not to mention loads of on-court action. It reads like a successful drive to the hoop—quick, purposeful, and effective.” 

—Booklist 

“Fred Bowen never disappoints. His many action-packed novels speak to the hearts and minds of young sports lovers, and he demonstrates know-how and grace in writing about baseball, basketball, soccer and football.” 

—Washington Parent Magazine

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Threads of Peace: How Mohandas Gandhi and Martin Luther King Jr. Changed the World by Uma Krishnaswami

 

Threads of Peace: 

How Mohandas Gandhi and Martin Luther King Jr. Change the World

written by Uma Krishnaswami

Caitlyn Dlouhy Books/Atheneum, 2021, 336 pages

Publisher's Summary: 

Mahatma Gandhi and Reverend Martin Luther King Jr. both shook, and changed, the world, in their quest for peace among all people, but what threads connected these great activists together in their shared goal of social revolution?

A lawyer and activist, tiny in stature with giant ideas, in British-ruled India at the beginning of the 20th century. 

A minister from Georgia with a thunderous voice and hopes for peace at the height of the civil rights movement in America. 

Born more than a half-century apart, with seemingly little in common except one shared wish, both would go on to become icons of peaceful resistance and human decency. Both preached love for all human beings, regardless of race or religion. Both believed that freedom and justice were won by not one, but by many. Both men met their ends in the most unpeaceful of ways - assassination. 

But what led them down the path of peace? How did their experiences parallel...and diverge? Threads of Peace keenly examines and celebrates these extraordinary activists' lives, the thread that connect them, and the threads of peace they laid throughout the world for us to pick up and weave together.  

My Thoughts: 

I always knew that Martin Luther King Jr. use of civil disobedience during the Civil Rights Movement was influenced by Mahatma Gandhi, but that was pretty much it. Reading Uma Krishnaswami's new book about these two great men made me realize how little I actually knew about either one of them and just how extensive their impact on the world was and still is. As young men, both Gandhi and Martin Luther King Jr. faced similar instances of racial discrimination that led them into a peaceful fight for equality for all people. 

As part of the merchant caste in Hindu society, Gandhi was able to go to school and get a good education. And following tradition, his married a 13 year-old girl named Kasturba in a union that had been arranged by his parents. Ironically, it may been the headstong Kasturba who first planted the seeds of passive resistance in his mind when she quietly refused to bend to his authoritarian demands that she obey him unquestioningly. Later, Gandhi's ideas about nonviolence may have been further influenced after reading Civil Disobedience by Henry David Thoreau while imprisoned in South Africa for urging passive resistance to the ruling British among working Indians who were required by the 1906 Asiatic Registration Act to be fingerprinted and carry registration cards or be deported. He called this "passive resistance strategy satyagraha or holding fast to truth." (pg 67) 

Protesters March in Transvall (pg71)

Martin Luther King Jr. grew up in the south, in a world divided into white and "colored." At a young age, Martin learned to stay away from angry white people, but it was Martin's father who refused to accept the discriminatory system under which they were forced to live, imparting the values of dignity, self-respect and resistance to injustice that became guiding principles in Martin's life. Later, studying to become a minister, Martin began to read Walter Rauschenbusch, a theologian who believed that not just people's souls should be ministered to, but their bodies as well. Martin realized that he also needed to be concerned with unemployment, living conditions and economic insecurity in the lives of America's marginalized populations. Another influence was J.J. Muste, activist and clergyman, who believed in pacifism and peacefully resisting injustice. "Could nonviolent resistance ever be practical?" Martin wondered. (pg 135)  

March to Montgomery (pgs 256-7) 

The first section of Threads of Peace is devoted to Gandhi and his life, the second section covers the life of MLK Jr, but it is the third section that is so difficult to read as it cover the assassination of both men. But, as Krishnaswami shows, their untimely deaths hardly cut the threads to peace and equality that both men had worked so hard for during their lifetimes. 

Accompanying her well-researched biographies of Gandhi and MLK Jr. are copious photographs and documents, along with text boxes give more information. The author's text is simple, straightforward, and follows a linear timeline. Back matter includes an Author's Note, a Timeline for both Gandhi and Martin Luther King Jr., a Glossary, an excellent Bibliography for further reading, and a list of Sources used.

Click to Enlarge

This histories of Gandhi and MLK Jr., a lawyer and a minister, makes for fascinating reading, all the more so because their stories a real and still resonate in today's world. I think this 1968 cartoon by Bill Mauldin of the Chicago Sun-Times says it all (pg291). Fifty-two years later, I personally witnessed an example of this in the spring, summer, and fall of 2020 when I joined supporters of the Black Lives Matter movement who were peacefully protesting down the street from me every evening.   

Meet the Author: Uma Krishnaswami

Uma Krishnaswami is the author of several books for children including Book Uncle and Me (International Literacy Association Social Justice Literature Award, USBBY Outstanding International Book [and one of my personal favorites]) and Step Up to the Plate, Maria Singh (Asian Pacific American Librarians Award. 

Uma was born in New Delhi, India and now lives in British Columbia, Canada.

To learn more, visit her website: umakrishnaswami.com or her Facebook page: umakrishnaswami.author

Praise for Threads of Peace: 

★ “Krishnaswami’s comprehensive yet accessible text, complemented by intriguing, lesser-known facts, traces the life of each man, from his formative years to his rise as an influential leader to the untimely assassinations that cut both lives short…. A reflective presentation that will inspire young peacemakers.”  —Booklist (starred)

★“The book’s attractive design, lucid text, and carefully chosen details combine to create an inviting and original treatment of its subjects. History has been carefully intertwined with the present in this engaging and reflective book.” —Kirkus Reviews (starred)

#MMGM Echo Mountain by Lauren Wolk

 

Echo Mountain

by Lauren Wolk

Dutton BFYR/Penguin, 2020, 356 pages

When the depression causes her family to lose everything, and move from town to a more rustic life on Echo Mountain, Ellie, 11, finds herself quite at home in the forests surrounding the mountainside, as does her father. Her older sister Esther and mother don't feel quite as at home and would prefer to move back to town and the life they once had, where father was a tailor and mother was a music teacher. But when her father is severely injured in an accident while he is cutting down a tree that leaves him in a coma, Ellie feels that she is entirely to blame for it, and knows that Esther sees it as her fault as well. Ellie begins to take over many of her father's responsibilities and the only bright spots in her life are the little carved wooden forest creatures and plants she finds in different places and her dog, Quiet. It was thought that Quiet was dead when he was born, but instead of burying him like she was supposed to, Ellie thrust him into a bucket of cold water, which revised the puppy. Unfortunately, similar rash attempts at reviving her father do not end that successfully.  

Ellie also has noticed a dog without an owner a number of times in the forest. But when she is led to the cabin at the top of Echo Mountain by the dog, she finds not the hag everyone says to stay away from, but a rather seriously ill elderly woman named Cate whom Ellie helps nurse back to health. Impressed by Ellie's innate sense of what to do, Cate begins to share her own secrets for healing. But Cate, like Ellie, has some secrets and as the two get to know and trust each other, secrets are revealed.  

I originally read Echo Mountain for the Cybils award, but recently had the pleasure of rereading it for a summer program. I loved it, as did the kids I read it with. In fact, I couldn't put it down both times that I read it, even knowing what was going to happen. It is the kind of book that I would have read as an 11 or 12 year-old and hung on every word. The writing is lyrically beautiful and the characters are just eccentric enough to be really appealing. I loved seeing Ellie grow and change, becoming more and more comfortable in her surroundings and just absorbing everything about natural healing that Cate can teach her. Overall, I thought Ellie was a wonderfully strong, independent protagonist and her story will resonate with readers for a long long time, as it did with my readers this summer.

I said the writing is lyrically beautiful. How beautiful? Let me share my favorite passage and judge for yourself:

"What am I supposed to do?" I said aloud, though I was alone. But the sky was busy being the sky. And the trees were busy being trees. And the birds, likewise, were busy being exactly who they were. Which was, in itself, an answer. I made up my mind to listen to the flame in my chest, which sighed and roared  and sighed again like a long piece of music I knew by heart but still seemed to be hearing fresh." (pg. 169)

This book is recommended for readers age 9+

This book was borrowed from the NYPL

Be sure to check out the other Marvelous Middle Grade Monday offerings, 

now being carried on by Greg at Always in the Middle

Some Very Good News from the Bank Street Children's Book Committee

 

I have three pieces of good news from the Bank Street Children's Book Committee for all fans of children's literature. 

The first piece of good news is that The Bank Street Children's Book Committee's Best Children's Book of the Year 2021 Edition is now available as a PDF. You can download the entire list, or you can download the age ranges you are most interested in:

The Best Children's Books of the year 2021 Edition or

  Best Books of the Year 2021 Under Five List

  Best Books of the Year 2021 5-9 years-old List

  Best Books of the Year 2021 9-12 years-old List

  Best Books of the Year 2021 12-14 years-old List

  Best Books of the Year 2021 14 year-old and Up List

You can also purchase a print edition of this list for $15.00 by contacting The Children's Book Committee at bookcom@bankstreet.edu 

The second piece of good news is the 50th annual BookFest@Bank Street will be virtually held on October 16, 2021. It costs $35.00 to attend and you can register through Eventbrite HERE. This year Jerry Craft (New Kid, Class Act), who is a great friend to Bank Street, is the keynote speaker. What else is on the BookFest program, you might ask? This is👇🏽

My third piece of news, which you may have already read about in School Library Journal and Publishers Weekly, is that the Children's Book Committee has announced "the creation of the Margaret Wise Brown Board Book Award for excellence in literature for very young children." The first prize will be awarded in the spring of 2023. This will be for board books published in 2021 and 2022. Picture books adapted to board book form will also be considered. Margaret Wise Brown is known for her wonderful picture books and she had always been closely allied to Bank Street, so we are very excited to have this award named after her. 

The Margaret Wise Brown Board Book Award is in addition to the Book Committee's other annual awards - The Flora Stieglitz Straus Award for Nonfiction, The Josette Frank Award for Fiction, and the Claudia Lewis Award for Poetry.

I hope you find this news to be as good as I do.