I am an English teacher who is the child of an English teacher. I majored in comparative literature at college and went on to earn a PhD in English Literature. But the experience of reading picture books to my own children was more important to me than any fancy degree. I fell in love with books all over again, with the shape and feel of them, with the fonts, with the way the words sounded out loud, with the way the images extended and commented on the story. “Ah!” I thought, “I should write my own picture book.” So began a long and not so simple journey. I hope my own books foster a love of words, art, and creativity in both adult and child readers.
I wrote...
John Ronald's Dragons: The Story of J. R. R. Tolkien
By
Caroline McAlister,
Eliza Wheeler
What is my book about?
Tolkien wrote that when he was a child, he “desired dragons with a profound desire.” In John Ronald’s Dragons, I follow the development of this desire for the fantastic throughout Tolkien’s life. Tolkien created imaginary “other-worlds” to cope with loss and the trauma of war, but also to entertain his own children. With a bright green palette, illustrator Eliza Wheeler expresses the brilliance of the worlds he created. The book prepares the young reader for engaging with The Hobbit and the informative endnotes satisfy the curiosity of adult Tolkien fans. But ultimately, I hope the book is subversive rather than didactic with its insistence on the importance of imaginary creatures and places.
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The Books I Picked & Why
The Important Thing about Margaret Wise Brown
By
Mac Barnett,
Sarah Jacoby
Why this book?
This book is deceptively simple with its lovely child-friendly language and illustrations featuring rabbits. Yet, the sophisticated questions it poses come right out of graduate programs in literary theory. Is it important to know about an author’s life? How does our knowledge of that life influence how we read an author’s books? Margaret Wise Brown’s life was unconventional, even scandalous, and not necessarily picture book appropriate. But Barnett captures the weirdness, the whimsey, and the beauty. He invites the child auditor to participate with a plethora of rhetorical questions that will give both children and adults lots to think and talk about. I love this book.
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Emily and Carlo
By
Marty Rhodes Figley,
Catherine Stock
Why this book?
There are lots of books out there about Emily Dickinson, but this is my favorite one. Why? Because it challenges the myth of Emily as a lonely recluse. (After all, what child wants to read about a depressed lady who never leaves the house?) Marty Rhodes Figley humanizes Dickinson by focusing on her love for her dog. Children will identify with Emily as someone who needs a companion to help her navigate the big world. They will also love the rambunctious Carlo as much as she did. I did not know about Carlo before I read this book and as an adult reader, I came away with a more nuanced picture of this most mysterious and mercurial of poets.
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Ode to an Onion: Pablo Neruda & His Muse
By
Alexandria Giardino,
Felicita Sala
Why this book?
This biography focuses on one moment, one lunch, and one poem in Neruda’s long and prolific career. And yet it captures so much! Giardino manages to suggest all of the paradoxes in Neruda’s life and work—the sadness and the joy, the grand themes of labor and oppression, and the ordinary sensuous details of daily life. The story arc begins with gloom and the solitary work of writing, but ends with a celebration and a shared meal. The end pages are papery onion skin that the child reader will want to touch. Neruda’s poem, “Ode to an Onion,” is printed in the back in Spanish and English. I can see children being inspired to write their own odes to ordinary objects.
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Jump at the Sun: The True Life Tale of Unstoppable Storycatcher Zora Neale Hurston
By
Alicia Williams,
Jacqueline Alcántara
Why this book?
This picture book biography has energy and voice that will captivate the child reader. Speech balloons contain little tidbits of the stories that Zora Neale Hurston collected, inspiring curiosity and a hunger for more. Yellow, sundrenched pages alternate with blue, and Zora’s stylish hats decorate the end pages. The creativity of the Harlem Renaissance jumps from the pages. This picture book makes me want to jump for joy.
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How to Read a Book
By
Kwame Alexander,
Melissa Sweet
Why this book?
This is not literally a biography of a writer, but an illustrated poem that immerses the reader in the experience of reading. All writers are readers first, and all writers need readers, so that is why I am including it in my list. When I looked at reviews online, many of them complained that the artwork and the script made the book hard to read. I could not disagree more. The writing and the art literally become one in this brilliant mesmerizing book. I love that Alexander references Langston Hughes reading on a stoop at the beginning. Then he proceeds to the central simile:
Once you’re comfy,
Peel its gentle skin,
Like you would
A clementine
The color of
Sunrise.
Melissa Sweet’s orange, yellow, and pink collage literally rises from the page. This is a book to savor slowly, to read again, and again, and again.
