Grace Lin may not know it yet, but she can heal a tortured heart. This is a power that the best creators of books for children all have, however Ms. Lin’s work, and two books in particular, have stepped in at a moment when help is most needed. The world seems turned upside down, but […]
Recently I traveled almost the length of Cuba on a people to people, educational tour, something only possible recently because I am an American. For nearly fifty years this was forbidden. I learned so much about the people and culture. I brought copies of one of my books as gifts and listened to children playing […]
The American Library Association (ALA) annual conference, a ginormous offering for ALA’s 68,000 member librarians, was held this past weekend in Orlando at the newly refurbished Convention Center. Why should that matter to you? According to the ALA convention website, approximately 16,000 people who are decision makers concerning which books are purchased for their libraries […]
by Joyce Audy Zarins If someone from a school overseas invited you to do an author or artist residency in connection with your picture book what would you do? I said yes even before I knew the particulars. If that would be your reaction, there are a few things you may want to consider to […]
by Joyce Audy Zarins In my small collection of children’s books from around the world, some help explain ways of thinking to the young. The world can be a scary and sometimes puzzling place, so clues are always useful. In Les Mammouths, Les Ogres, Les Extraterrestres, et ma petite soeur, as the title suggests, creatures […]
Check this out! “Sand Dollar, Sand Dollar,” my first picture book of long ago, is now available on Amazon in five languages! French, Spanish, Vietnamese, Portuguese, and Tagalog. All are paperback and all have the English text also. The book is being reissued by a small Boston start-up, Bab’l Books, Inc., whose mission is to […]
This is a review of two books with different target audiences that have one mission: to share some of the treasures and history of the Forbidden City in China with the world. They are voices from the other side of the globe. Can you hear them? Bowls of Happiness: Treasures from China and the Forbidden […]
This post is #4 in a series. The earlier ones are here, here and here. This article also appears on another blog, here on WritersRumpus.com. We see hundreds of excellent children’s books each year published here in the U.S., but what about those published in other countries? The rest of the world is producing books […]
In support of the wave of demands for diversity in children’s books that went viral on social media – #WeNeedDiverseBooks – today, read this Publisher’s Weekly article. It seems so obvious that every person on this planet is a citizen of this world and part of one big, messy, beautiful family. I won’t apologize for […]
This charming book by Werner Holzwarth and Wolf Erlbruch, which I bought in Zurich, cleverly presents its theme on the cover as a title: “Vom kleinen Maulwurf, der wissen wollte, wer ihm auf den Kopf gemacht hatâ€. Egils translates this as “From small Mole, who wanted to know who dropped this thing on his head.†[…]
As part of my research for a historical novel about Gudrid Thorbjarnardottir, we went in search of one of the places she traveled to in the early 1,000s. It was more than intriguing. Leif Eiriksson discovered something big around 1,000 A.D. You can still see the footprints of his longhouses at L’Anse aux Meadows on […]
For a number of years I have been collecting children’s picturebooks from other countries when I travel or friends and relatives do. It is good to be aware of the visual voices from other lands, so now and then I will post images of a few. The first entry in this series was Bookmark
A Very Old Man with Enormous Wings: A Story for Children by Gabriel Garcia Marquez may be more for you and me than for children (at least American ones). But that is an assumption. An unfair one perhaps. But the old man has left behind a scraggly feather on the shore of my memory. It […]
Alas, I have been so busy with life, so you have not heard from me. But here is something intriguing. My sister Norma alerted me to a certain delicate Edinburgh mystery. This NPR article by Robert Krulwich describes a trail of surprise gifts given anonymously to those with eyes, a heart, and a brain. Bookmark
Yes, writers and illustrators in other countries produce wonderful children’s books, as we do. And why shouldn’t we consider those too? A number of years ago I started collecting children’s picture books from other countries I visited. When friends or relatives went somewhere exotic, I sometimes asked them to bring one home for me. I […]