Everyone has a story. That's something children's book author and retired architect, Debbie Mills, has known all her life. She, her husband, Peter, and the couple's eight grown children also believe in the strong bond of family is everything and that belief is evident in this tight-knit family. After moving to Kerrville, Texas in 2007, Debbie...
{Guest Post by Author Sonia Panigrahy}
On a Saturday afternoon, I found myself rushing through Manhattan in preparation for a trip to Chicago to visit my best friend. I was searching for a gift for her five-year-old daughter. I opened the doors to a lovely two-storied children’s bookstore. I skimmed the shelves and struggled to find a book with a main female character that was not a princess. Seeking the help of an employee, I request a girl’s adventure book. She pulled out a book and described the plot, prompting me to purchase the book without having the time to read it. I figured the little girl and I would read it for the first time together in Chicago.
We were in our pajamas in Chicago on the sofa as I cracked open this new adventure story. The main character has a dream where an adventure awaits her. I turn the pages to find that the adventure involves the main female character cleaning and cooking. What struck me in a very painful way was that no adventure book for boys would include cleaning and cooking. Why is it that children’s books are delineated into boys’ vs. girls’ stories that restrict what they can and cannot become? Why don’t books have storylines where pronouns can be interchangeable so that kids can just be kids?
Guest post by Wiley Barnes from Chickasaw Press
Children innately love books. They have certain stories that become favorites, and they want to look at them or read them time and again. Books from our childhood have a way of staying with us and becoming a part of who we are.
I kept this concept in mind all through the process of writing the children’s book, “C is for Chickasaw.” I wanted every element of each page to continue to draw young readers back and make it their own much-loved book.
After the book’s release through White Dog Press in 2014, I began to develop a vision for realizing the full potential of the book as a creative educational tool. Dreaming beyond the paper page, I imagined what it would be like to bring the characters and words to life, packing as much action as possible into a simple, but exciting digital book-app format for young readers.
Guest Post By Author Jesica Nkouaga So What Do Nature and Children Have in Common? They grow! They grow especially when they are nurtured and cared for by someone who loves them. Nature and children are two things that author Jesica Nkouaga loves. Jesica’s love for nature inspired her to draw pictures of the natural surroundings around her,...
Friends, we still have so much work to do! Here's some information from the CCBC about diversity in kidlit. In their analysis of picture books published in 2017: Of the approximately 3,700 books received at the CCBC in 2017, most from U.S. publishers, here's the breakdown: 340 had significant African or African American content/characters. 100 of these...