Clearly no one needs to be told to read Margaret Wise Brown’s seminal text Goodnight Moon, which is going stronger than ever as it approaches its 80th birthday. But what this episode presupposes is that maybe we all need to talk about how creepy the book can be, no matter how much our kids might…
Listen here or via your podcatcher of choice. Like what you hear? Don’t forget to subscribe! The great bibliographer Fredson Bowers once accused his graduate students of thinking that the editions they used in their textual criticism came down from Mt. Sinai. That might be a bit harsh, but do we really think about the…
Listen here or via your podcatcher of choice. Like what you hear? Don’t forget to subscribe! The genre of novel has dominated fiction for centuries now, and its form hasn’t exactly spared picture books. But as valuable as this genre is, do we leave something behind when we fail to consider other, more episodic forms…
Listen to the episode directly on Buzzsprout here, or on your podcatcher of choice. Don’t forget to subscribe! About the Episode We all dread teaching our children about death—probably because of the way death figures into our own lives. If we could forestall death’s terror by refiguring it as a natural part of lived experience,…
Happy 250th Birthday, USA! Shall we try for a few more, do you think? What do Abe Lincoln and Hobbits have in common? How do biographers decide what information to include in biographies? Just as importantly, how do they decide what to exclude? And what has our walk down Caldecott Lane started to tell us…
Happy Pride! People—and by that we mean corporations—often start Pride off strong and end with a whimper. But we recognize that while Pride is about pride, it’s also about resistance. And resistance is a very, very long-form game. Today’s episode looks at four picture book iterations of a classic Russian folktale, The Gigantic Turnip: One…
We wanted to find a Juneteenth book for our little that would address the holiday without requiring a lot of context she just isn’t equipped to understand yet. The Gathering Table did just that, showing us a world where Juneteenth is every day that we’re able to love and honor our families and community without…
How does a story’s point-of-view change our understanding of it? Is narration important in a children’s book? 2023’s THE KITTEN STORY: A MOSTLY TRUE TALE isn’t just another book about cute cats—though it’s got those. It’s also a fantastically illustrated story that teaches kids about the inevitability of disappointment on big days; the…
How can children’s literature teach lessons, provide representation for marginalized groups, and provide insight into different ways of living–all without being preachy or pedantic? Join us for our discussion on 2019’s THE GIFT OF RAMADAN, a picture book that manages to do all these things beautifully. We’ll address the recent Mac Barnett scandal, then do…
The second entry in our fortnightly Caldecott series focuses on Thomas Handforth’s 1938 Mei Li. Books naturally fall in and out of the publication cycle: some get found and republished, others remain dead. Despite having won one of the most prestigious awards in children’s literature, Thomas Handforth’s stunningly illustrated picture book debut is today out…