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.