Tuesday Kidlit Trivia for December 17, 2024

 Montgomery Ward department store in Chicago put out a coloring book every Christmas, and in 1939 they assigned an ad writer to come up with a character for the book. He chose an animal like the ones his daughter loved at the zoo, but his idea was rejected because his character had a trait associated with alcoholism. When the art department made the animal cute enough, the story was accepted and went on to become a book, song, and animated tv show. The writer was Robert L. May and his red-nosed subject was Rudolf. A legend that he wrote the story to help his daughter get over the loss of her mother turned out not to be true.

Tuesday Kidlit Trivia for December 10, 2024

 This American writer, born in 1779, was primarily a seminary professor and real estated developer in early New York City. He is best known for a poem he wrote--or did he?--which first appeared anonymously in a Troy NY paper in 1823. Some scholars suspect another writer, a relative of his wife, was the true author. At any rate, his poem "A Visit From St. Nicholas" is still a part of holiday traditions today. This is Clement C. Moore, and the title we use now is "The Night Before Christmas."

Come support these book events on Dec. 13th!

FREE BOOKS!

 The Free For All book giveaway will take place on Friday, December 13 at the Glenwood Springs Community Center! Books make great gifts, so come find some treasures at the Free For All! It starts at noon. But on the same day at 11:00, come hear three local authors read their books and sign them at Alpenglo Book Store, 720 Grand Ave. in Glenwood by the bridge. Wendi Silvano from Grand Junction will read and sign her turkey books, and Glenwood authors Nancy Flood and Deborah Williams will read and sign theirs.

Tuesday Kidlit Trivia for November 26, 2024

I must have read this Brooklyn born author's 1983 book Jamberry out loud more than a hundred times through the years--"One berry, two berry, pick me a blueberry,,," He also illustrated the work of other writers, such as the Magic School Bus series by Joanna Cole, the Commander Toad stories by Jane Yolen, and the Jesse Bear books by Nancy White Carlstrom. He worked as an art teacher, a printmaker, and even painted scenery for operas. He wanted to make books for children that could be "funny and beautiful." He and his wife and two sons lived in Connecticut, where he died of pancreatic cancer this month on Nov. 7th, 2024. This was the author/illustrator Bruce Degen.

Tuesday Kidlit Trivia for November 12, 2024

 This Indiana-born writer wrote non-fiction for children, often illustrated with her husband's photographs. She wrote The Weaver's Gift about how wool becomes a child's blanket, and The Puppeteer which explored the crafters' artistic concerns. For her 1990 book Dinosaur Dig she and her husband packed up the kids and moved from Cambridge, MA to the Badlands of Montana. She was greatly interested in history, and her book The Night Journey tells of a Jewish girl and her family's dangerous flight from Czarist Russia. She once said that she didn't care if her readers didn't remember a single fact, as long as they came away with a sense of joy. Her name is Kathryn Lasky, and her husband is Christopher Knight.

Tuesday Kidlit Trivia for October 29, 2024

 When this German-born 12 year-old recieved a diary for her birthday, she never expected her daily entries would one day become a banned book in Florida. Her writings (the original version, not a later graphic novel illustrated version) joined Schindler's List, Maus, The Fixer, along with dictionaries, the Guinness Book of World Records, science books by National Geographic and even thesaureses being removed from school libraries and classrooms in Escambia County, FL in 2024. The book is Diary of a Young Girl by Anne Frank, first published in 1947, and the group wanting it banned due to "sexual content" has ties to the national organization, Moms For Liberty.

Tuesday Kidlit Trivia for October 22, 2024

 Although this author gave up working on her doctorate when she married in 1953, she went on to become a feminist voice in science fiction and fantasy. She wrote the Earthsea trilogy for teens and the Catwings picture books for the youngest readers. Her novel The Left Hand of Darkness took place on a fictional planet where no one had a fixed sex. This book and others for adults led to her becoming the first woman to win the Hugo and Nebula awards. She once said "Hard times are coming...we'll need writers who can remember freedom..." Her words still ring true today. She died in her beloved Portland, Oregon in 2018. This is Ursula K. Le Guin.

October--Lots of Literacy!

  Early in October, author/illustrator Suzanne Bloom arrived in Glenwood from her home in upstate New York, to share her books, in English and Spanish, with children up and down the valley as part of  Raising a Reader. Suzanne and I met ten years ago at a Highlights workshop and it was so fun to see her again! We took a drive through the mountains for barbecue in Redstone, and rode the gondola up to the Adventure Park high above Glenwood Springs. Suzanne was also part of the Arts and Literacy fest at the Glenwood Library on October 12th.

Then on Saturday, October 19th, the Garfield County Libraries held a protest against banning books in Centennial Park downtown at 11:00, and then at 12:00--our town's new book store opened down the street in the King Mall! Welcome, welcome Alpenglow Books and Gifts!  And let's celebrate the love of books and reading among all ages!

Tuesday Kidlit Trivia for October 8, 2024

 This Pennsylvania illustrator loves drawing the natural world and is particularly good with pumpkins. She illustrated one of my favorite non-fiction picture books, Cactus Hotel by Brenda Z. Guiberson, about how a cactus is host to numerous desert creatures even after it collapses. Her beautiful pumpkins appear in Linda White's Too Many Pumpkins from 1996 and aso the preschool Halloween classic, The Little Old Lady Who Was Not Afraid of Anything by Linda Williams from 1988, which was a Publishers Weekly seasonal bestseller for many years. This is the illustrator Megan Lloyd.

Tuesday Kidlit Trivia for September 24, 2026

 Sept. 22-28 is Banned Book Week. My favorite book, Charlotte's Web, was added to the banned list in Kansas in 2006, when a group of parents declared that the idea of talking animals was "blasphemous and unnatural." Can you guess which banned book this quote came from? "Our father is old, and there is no man around here to give us children...let's get our father to drink wine and then sleep with him to preserve our family line..." A.) Beloved by Toni Morrison B.) Grapes of Wrath by John Steinbeck C.) Dracula by Bram Stoker D.) none of the above. The answer is D, because the quote is from the Bible, Genesis 19:30.

Tuesday Kidlit Trivia for September 17, 2024

 Today's trivia celebrates Haitian picture book writers. Carline Smothers is a first generation Haitian who couldn't find books for her young  daughters about Haitian culture, so she wrote some. Two of her titles are Fanmi Mwen (My Family) and Mmmmmm! Soup Joumou, written in English and Haitian Creole. Jinica Dauphin is Haitian/American and an elementary school teacher in Florida. Her book Haitian Flag Day, Fleurina's Way tells about a little girl learning about her heritage as she plans a perfect celebration. Author M.J. Fievre was born in Port-Au-Prince Haiti and now lives in Miami. Her book Haiti A to Z  is "a bilingual book about the Pearl of the Antilles." Preshoolers will learn about Haitian traditions as well as the Creole alphabet sounds. It's always a good idea to learn to appreciate other cultures, but particularly Haitian culture, especially now.

Tuesday Kidlit Trivia for September 10, 2024

 As a child, this Long Island author/illustrator drew on every piece of paper she could find. She enrolled in the Art Students League in New York City at age 18, where she met and married Swedish artist Karl Larsson. Their daughter Hilma's experiences as a child exploring the city led to her 1929 book All Around the Town, and family pets were featured in her series of books about Angus, a curious young dog. While writing Angus and the Ducks she learned about Peking ducks along the Yangtzee River. She chose not to illustrate The Story About Ping and instead asked an artist who had lived in China to create the pictures of the young duck and his adventures. This book is still popular today and remains her greatest contribution to children's literature. This is Marjorie Flack.

Tuesday Kidlit Trivia for August 27, 2024

    We admire authors whose works are still cherished after 100 years. But this man's stories are still being told and they were created in the 6th century B.C.! The creator was a Greek slave, and he probably never set them down in writing himself. Similar tales existed even earlier in Mesopotamia, but Aristophanes, Plato, Herodotus and other prominent Greeks all credit this man with the stories that have stood the test of time. The tales were not originally meant for children, but became part of school curriculums as moral lessons that children enjoyed. These are the fables of Aesop.

Tuesday Kidlit Trivia for August 20, 2024

 Having a bear in my downtown back yard reminded me of this author/illustrator and his Moonbear series of books. He taught at a public school in India, and also in the US at a Montessori school. He was born in New Jersey, lived in Vermont with his family and retired to Hawaii. His heroes growing up were Roy Rogers, Bob Dylan and Maurice Sendak, and Professor Pritchard at art college. This author urges young writers to "have fun putting words on the paper," as he has done in more than 80 books, often sitting under his "thinking tree." This is dog lover Frank Asch, who lived from1946-2022.

Tuesday Kidlit Trivia for August 13, 2024

 This Swedish-born author created a character in her 1950 book that was very unlike the good little girls in school books and tv shows. This girl had no parents, was strong enough to lift up a horse, had an endless supply of gold coins, and decided school was not for her. The author grew up on a farm, and when a teacher suggested she should become a writer, she vowed that would never happen. But later, she made up stories for her daughter and decided to write them down in a book as a gift to her.. She tried sending the book to a publisher, but it was rejected. The next year, though, it won first prize in a contest, got published and became an international succes. The author went on to write over 100 books for children. This is Astrid Lindgren, and her heroine was Pippi Longstocking.

Tuesday Kidlit Trivia for July 30, 2024

This childless cat lady, born in Austria in 1910, studied art and music in Vienna and married an ornithologist in 1935. As Europe became more frightening, her Jewish husband sent her ahead to Kenya to find a safer place to live. But on the ship she met a botanist who became her second husband. As that marriage faded she went on safari and met a game warden whom she married in 1944. When he shot a lioness in self-defense, the couple raised the young cubs and the author wrote about their experiences teaching the smallest cub, Elsa, how to survive in the wild. This book led to more books, a movie and a song. The author was murdered just before she turned 70, stabbed to death by an angry former employee. This was Joy Adamson and her 1960 book was Born Free. Her husband was killed by poachers 9 years later. The Elsa Conservation Trust which the couple founded continues to aid wildlife.

Tuesday KidLit Trivia for July 23, 2024

 My 15 year old dachsund had all his remaining teeth extracted today, which reminded me of the picture book Dr. DeSoto. It's the story of a brave mouse dentist whose patient is a fox, and it's one of several books by this Brooklyn-born author who also created the character Shrek. He worked as a cartoonist before he started writing, to help his family during the Depression, and his drawings appeared often in the New Yorker magazine. He won the Caldecott award for his illustrations in Sylvester and the Magic Pebble in 1970. He died at the age of 95 in 2003. This is William Steig.

Tuesday Kidlit Trivia for July 9, 2024

 Wherever his family moved, this author/illustrator and his scientist dad collaborated on science journals. When he started college he planned to follow in his father's footseps, but he saw that the graphic design majors seemed to be having way more fun than the science students, so he went in that direction. He met his wife artist Robin Page in North Carolina at design school, and they moved to New York City and then to Boulder, Colorado. His carefully detailed torn-and-cut-paper illustrations reflected his love of nature in his books "Actual Size," "Biggest, Strongest, Fastest" and he won the Caldecott award for "What Do You Do With A Tail Like That?" He and his wife collaborated on many of his 80 books, and on raising their three children. Getting kids excited about science was his great joy. He died of an aneurism in 2021 at the age of 69. This was Steve Jenkins.

Tuesday Kidlit Trivia for July 2, 2024

 This California author got his BA at University of the Pacific on a full basketball scholarship. He combined his passions for his Mexican heritage and sports in his 2008 young adult novel, Mexican White Boy, which was banned from classrooms in Tuscon AZ in 2012 because it mentioned "critical race theory." But a court later ruled that this ban violated the rights of Mexican American students. He won the 2016 Newbery Medal for his picture book about a boy and his grandmother's trip through the city on a bus. He currently teaches creative writing at San Diego State University, and his most recent picture book is Milo Imagines the World. This is Matt de la Pena.

Tuesday Kidlit Trivia for June 24, 2024

Tuesday Kidlit Trivia for June 24, 2024 This high school drop out wrote one of the most popular early readers ever, but he began his career as a cartoonist with two comic strips, "Tuffy" and "Laugh It Off." When his young daughter needed therapy for a bad hip. he made her a series of drawings of a boy and a dinosaur to take her mind off her treatment. These were the basis for his 1958 early reader, Danny and the Dinosaur, and many credit this book for sparking kids' interest in dinosaurs. His simple drawings complimented the simple text perfectly, and he went on to create other books for kids learning to read, such as Sammy, the Seal, Julius, and Chester, about a carousel horse. This is Syd Hoff, who was born in New York in 1912, and died in Miami at the age of 91.

Tuesday Kidlit Trivia for June 11, 2024

 This American author, born in 1970, is best known by his pen name. He is also a screenwriter, tv producer, and musician who has played accordian with several bands. His first book for children was rejected several times as being too dark, but he found great success with his series of 13 books, Victorian Gothic in tone, about orphaned siblingsViolet, Klaus and Sunny and the evil Count Olaf, intent on stealing their inheritence. The books have led to a tv series, a movie, and a video game. This is Daniel Handler, better known as Lemony Snicket.

Tuesday Kidlit Trivia for June 4, 2024

 When this author was a child, his mother died and his father disappeared, and he moved from Edinbugh to his grandparents' home in the Berkshire countryside of England, where he fell in love with the creatures there, a rat, a mole, a badger and a toad. As an adult he followed neo-paganism, preferring nature to organized religion. His marriage was unhappy, but his son inspired him to make up stories which led to one of the best loved read-aloud books in the English language. The book is Wind in the Willows, and the author is Kenneth Grahame, 1859-1932.

Tuesday Kidlit Trivia for May 28, 2024

 The 1950's TV show Lassie derived from the 1943 movie (which starred Roddy McDowell and Elizabeth Taylor), which came from the 1940 book Lassie-Come-Home, which began as a story in the Saturday Evening Post in 1938, which was inspired by a short story from 1859 of collie named Lassie who guided adults to two brothers lost in the snow. Another story tells of a collie named Lassie in World War I, who licked the face of a soldier thought to be dead and kept him warm until he stirred and eventually fully recovered. The book Lassie-Come-Home was written by Eric Knight.

Tuesday Kidlit Trivia for May 21, 2024

  This contemporary author/illustrator lives in the country in upstate New York. Her grandfather was a cowboy out west, but she grew up in Queens and attended Cooper Union Art College. On her website she says that while she loves writing stories, "drawing pictures is like dessert." Several of her best-loved books feature a big white bear and his goose friend, but she also has books about pigs and even one that stars a time-travelling trio--an aardvark, an anteater, and an armadillo. I was honored to meet her at a Highlights writing conference in Honesdale, PA where she took me shopping at the Goodwill. This is the wonderful Susanne Bloom, "A Splendid Friend Indeed."

Tuesday Kidlit Trivia for May 7, 2024

 This author lives in Massachusetts and has over 400 published books. In the past she has competed in Madness Poetry, where 64 poets are paired up, each pair is given a word to write about, they submit their poems, and the public votes. One continues, one is out, so the field goes from 64 to 32, to 16, etc. This year I'm one of the 64! Please go to the site so you can vote--the poems are fun. The author from my home state of Massachusetts is Jane Yolen, and the word for my first poem is sangfroid. Aaagh! Voting starts May 7, Tuesday.

Tuesday Kidlit Trivia for April 23, 2024

 This English author/illustrator born in 1886 attended MIT and settled in New York, but in World War I he joined the British army. While serving in Flanders and France, he wrote stories to send back to his children in the US about a kindly veterinarian who could communicate with animals. An author friend convinced him to turn the stories into a book, which became a popular series. As times changed, some of his illustrations and descriptions of Black people were seen to be racist, and later editions were rewritten to eliminate the offending material. His series of books has been made into several movies. This is Hugh Lofting and his series chroinicles the adventures of Dr. Doolittle.

Tuesday Kidlit Trivia for April 9, 2024

 This authhor/illustrator was born April 3, 1953 and grew up as a Quaker in Philadelphia, attending Germantown Friends School and later, Yale. She studied drama at Berkely, and later described her writing as "the culmination of a lifetime spent joyfully squandering an expensive education on producing works of no apparent significance." Her writing and illustrating career began with greeting cards, and her "Hippo Birdies, Two Ewes" birthday card has sold over 10 million copies. She moved on to board books, featuring whimsical hippos, cows, chickens and more, and has turned several of her books into songs. This is Sandra Boynton, and she is currently working on a Christmas album called Cows and Holly which will feature Lyle Lovett, Yo-Yo Ma, and others.

Madness Poetry returns!

 I always love this contest, where the judges are kids and fellow writers. The event is now in it's 11th year, so the application poem had to relate to the number 11. This is my entry:

The One After Ten
The 11th commandment should be maybe...
"Thou shalt not wake a sleeping baby."
"Throweth no shoes over telephone wires,"
"No tissues or crayons in washers or dryers."
Or "Liveth ye not beyond thine means,"
Or "Feedeth not thine chihuahua beans."

Tuesday Kidlit Trivia for April 2, 2024

This Chicago native wrote songs for Johnny Cash ("Boy Named Sue"), Loretta Lynn ("One's On The Way"), Dr. Hook ("Cover of the Rolling Stone") and the Irish Rovers ("The Unicorn"). His cartoons appeared in the military publication Stars and Stripes and also in Playboy. He played guitar, piano, saxophone and trombone, but it was his talent in writing poetry for children that endeared him to elementary school teachers and their students. This was Shel Silverstein, and his most famous collection is called Where the Sidewalk Ends.

Tuesday Kidlit Trivia for March 19, 2024

   Science was a lifelong passion since childhood for this New Jersey author. After getting her psychology degree she worked as a librarian, and it was then, 1n 1971, that she wrote her first children's book, Cockroaches. She is better known for her series of books about a passionate teacher who takes her students on incredible field trips. They become raindrops to study their city's waterworks, and red blood cells to learn about the human body. The books have won nemerous awards for the factual information they provide in a fantasy setting. They are the Magic School Bus books, written by Joanna Cole, 1944-2020.

Tuesday Kidlit Trivia for March 12, 2024

 This creator was born in New Jersey in 1956, the youngest of five chidren, in a family where art supplies were abundant. His love of drawing led him to the Rhode Island School of Design, and a career that began illustrating books by others. But it was his own wordless book Free Fall that won the Caldecott Honor Medal for illustration in 1988. His later Caldecott Medal winner featured frogs floating through a sleepy town, and in another of his books a science project sends up seedlings which fill the sky with giant vegetables.This imaginative, humorous illustrator is David Wiesner.

Tuesday Kidlit Trivia for February 27, 2024

 This elementary school teacher from Michigan used twisted fairy tales to inspire his lessons. This led to  writing picture books, such one about the three little pigs from the wolf's point of view, and one about a  prince who thinks his life may have been better when he was a frog before he kissed the nagging princess. His 1992 collection of stories incudes Little Red Running Shorts and The Princess and the Bowling Ball. This is the very imaginative Jon Scieszka, born in 1954 and living happily ever after.

Tuesday Kidlit Trivia for February 13, 2024

 Born in Los Angeles in 1998, this African American poet said her earliest stories were "very Anne of Green Gables" until she discovered Toni Morrison in high school, and realized that stories could be about people who looked like her. Her children's book Change Sings is perhaps not as well known as the poem she read at President Biden's inaguration, The Hill We Climb. This is Amanda Gorman.

Tuesday Kidlit Trivia for February 6, 2024

 Three loving companions, a Labrador retriever, an old bull terrier, and a Siamese cat, make their way 250 miles through the Canadian wilderness in this book from 1961. It was never intended to be a story for children by it's Scottish-born author, but remains one of the finest examples of realistic animal fiction in all of children's literature. Based on the author's real-life pets, the story has been translated into 20 languages and made into two different Disney movies. This is The Incredible Journey by Sheila Burnford.

Tuesday Kidlit Trivia for January 30, 2024

 This self-taught photographer illustrated his children's books with photographs that were notable for their vivid colors and interesting composition. He grew up in Maine and the tricycle he rescued from the Kinnebunkport dump led to his 1978 book The Remarkable Riderless Runaway Tricycle. While many of his books are set in New England, his 1995 book Nights of the Pufflings takes place on the Islandic island of Heimaey. He enjoys playing with words (he coined the term "pufflings" for young puffins) and two of his books use photos to illustrate pairs of words, such as "wet pet," "play day" and "one sun." This is Bruce McMillan, who taught  writing and illustrating for 40 years at the University of New Hampshire.

Tuesday Kidlit Trivia for January 23, 2024

  Born in 1958 in Washington D.C., this author/illustrator grew up in Spokane WA. He wrote his first book at the age of 5 and illustrated every page with a drawing of himself doing something he shouldn't. He was disruptive in class and his teachers would often let him work on a mural to keep him quiet. His art could be straightforward, as in Hiawatha and the Peacemakers by Robbie Robertson, or wild and wacky, as in his Caldecott-winning picture book about his naughty childhood. This is David Shannon, and the book is No, David!

Tuesday Kidlit Trivia for January 16, 2024

 This Afro-American author/illustrator from Spokane, WA says he didn't realize there were other cultures until he read the encyclopedia, because the books he found in school and at the library made it seem as though the whole world was White. His first book as an author (although not the illustrator) told the story of Bill Taylor, a former slave turned folk artist. He went on to write and illustrate several award-winning books and did the art for "The Cart that Carried Martin," about the cart and the two mules Belle and Ada that carried Martin Luther King Jr.'s body through the streetes of Atlanta to his burial place. This is the wonderful Don Tate, whom I had the honor of meeting at a Highlights Chautauqua workshop many years ago.

Tuesday Kidlit Trivia for January 9, 2024

    This New Jersey children's book editor-turned author created a series for young teens where a group of girls (based on her god-daughters) form a baby-sitting club. The series debuted in 1986, and the girls handled childcare emergencies and made trips to the mall, dealt with family death and divorce all while earning their own spending money. The series was so popular it was translated into 19 languages and even spawned a series for younger readers about the babysitters' little sisters. In 2019 the books began appearing as graphic novels. The author is Ann M. Martin.

Tuesday Kidlit Trivia for january 2, 2024

 This author felt beginning readers needed humor, so she created a literal minded housekeeper. When this character was told to call the roll, she shouts, "Hey, roll!" When asked to "draw the drapes", she sketches them. To "put the lights out" she takes them outside, and to "plant the bulbs" she puts light bulbs in the flowerpots. There is a statue of this character outside the library in Manning, South Carolina, the town where author Peggy Parish was born in 1927.