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Godine Bio Sheds New Light on Arthur Ransome
Best known for his Swallows and Amazons series of lighthearted adventures for children, penned in the 1930s and ’40s, Arthur Ransome is thought by many to have been a mild-mannered Englishman who lived a placid life in the Lake District. Roland Chambers offers a vastly different portrayal of the author in The Last Englishman: The Double Life of Arthur Ransome, due from David R. Godine on April 22.
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The Publishing Veteran Behind Debut Novel 'Wonder'
Workman Publishing creative director Raquel Jaramillo is celebrating as her debut middle-grade novel, Wonder (Knopf), published under the pseudonym R.J. Palacio, just hit the New York Times chapter-book list.
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Obituary: Thomas Locker
Author and artist Thomas Locker, who illustrated more than 30 children’s books, died in Albany, N.Y. on Friday, March 9. He was 74.
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Fat Kid Rules the Cinema?
There was plenty of buzz at last week’s opening of the SXSW Film Festival about the film adaptation of K.L. Going’s Fat Kid Rules the World, a 2004 Printz Honor book. Going attended two screenings, including the premiere, but gave up her seat at the third…
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Author Kate Messner to Give TED Talk
Kate Messner has been selected as the only children’s book author to give a TED Talk this year; she’s one of nine speakers at her session, chosen from more than 800 applicants to the non profit foundation's 2012 Full Spectrum conference.
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Q & A with Jane O'Connor
Speaking to Bookshelf from her office at Penguin Books for Young Readers, where she is editor-at-large, Jane O’Connor discussed Fancy Nancy’s success and new incarnation as a Nancy Drew wannabe in a chapter book, Jane O’Connor’s Nancy Clancy, Super Sleuth,illustrated by Robin Preiss Glasser.
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Obituary: Jan Berenstain
Jan Berenstain, co-creator of the Berenstain Bears series, died on February 24 at the age of 88, after a stroke.
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Illustrator Magoon Runs for Charity
Meet Scott Magoon, art director at Houghton Mifflin Books for Children who has launched his Book It to Beat Cancer campaign, to raise money for the Dana Farber Cancer Institute, qualify for the Boston marathon, and raise awareness for his books.
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Can Jon Klassen Top 'Hat'?
A lot of things astonished Jon Klassen about the reception given his first picture book, I Want My Hat Back: hearing Daniel Pinkwater read it aloud on NPR, being invited to talk about it with Martha Stewart on TV, learning it had become an Internet meme.
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Q & A with Natalie Babbitt
Bookshelf talked with author Natalie Babbitt, whose new novel, The Moon Over High Street, is due from Scholastic’s Michael di Capua Books in March.
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Obituary: Bill Wallace
Children’s author Bill Wallace died on January 30 at his home in Chickasa, Okla., after a battle with cancer. He was 64.
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Gantos, Raschka, Whaley: Where They Were When the Award Call Came
Three lucky authors got phone calls from the Newbery, Caldecott, and Printz committees, letting each of them know they had won the top prize.
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Swamped by Offers, Self-Pubbed YA Author Gets Agent and More
Since PW published a story about Brittany Geragotelis's novel Life's a Witch, the self-published author has been overwhelmed with inquiries from publishers, foreign rights agents and TV and film producers.
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John Green Moves to UTA for Film
YA novelist John Green, whose latest effort, The Fault in Our Stars, hit shelves on hit shelves on January 10, has moved from William Morris Endeavor to UTA for his Hollywood business.
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Fall 2011 Flying Starts: Marie Lu
Neither first-timer nerves nor the Santa Ana winds that brought massive power outages across Southern California could keep Pasadena resident Marie Lu from her very first signing as a published author—at Mysterious Galaxy Bookstore in Redondo Beach on December 1. “A dream come true,” says the author—a dream that was a long time coming.
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Fall 2011 Flying Starts: Robison Wells
Robison Wells did not aspire to be an author. In fact, as a teen, he hated English class and hated books. “I never wanted anything to do with writing,” he says now with a laugh. “Unlike so many of my colleagues, I was not born with a pencil in my hand.”
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Fall 2011 Flying Starts: Rae Carson
Rae Carson grew up reading fantasy, but as time passed, the genre conventions that once resonated began to feel, well, conventional. When she sat down to write her own fantasy novel, she says, “I wanted to subvert those tropes and focus on what a princess is not versus the tropes of what she is. I wanted an epic quest like Lord of the Rings, but less Aragorn and more Ugly Betty.”
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Fall 2011 Flying Starts: Wendy Wunder
In 2008, the first of a series of serendipitous events led then struggling writer Wendy Wunder (no, not a pseudonym) to a new career in YA literature. “I had been trying to write this adult novel that was semiautobiographical,” she says. Wunder wrote while her daughter was in preschool and diligently applied for grant funding to finish. “But I was starting to think maybe I should do something else with my life.”
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Fall 2011 Flying Starts: Christopher Silas Neal
For a graphic artist who has done posters, covers, and spot illustrations, illustrating a book should be a piece of cake, right? Not necessarily. “When I do a cover or a poster, it’s often a big figure or object that’s centered on the page,” Christopher Silas Neal says.
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Fall 2011 Flying Starts
For our semi-annual Flying Starts feature, we turn the spotlight on five new talents on the children's book scene.
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