By
Vicky Smith
on
January 20, 2017
Writer Sherri Winston
Over the past several months I’ve become a connoisseur of character descriptions in kids’ books. The main character of Patrice Kindl’s Don’t You Trust Me? describes herself as “white-bread-white,” which I found winningly forthright. Less forthright are the many, many books that still assume a white default and give white characters elaborate descriptions of everything but their skin—long, curly red hair and freckles; a short, brown bob and green eyes; a blond crew cut and blue eyes—while relegating their ...
Interviewed by
Jessie Grearson
on
January 11, 2017
Interviewed by
Megan Labrise
on
January 6, 2017
Nikki Grimes photographed by Aaron Lemen.
When the opportunity to read aloud arises, acclaimed poet Nikki Grimes shines.
“Oh, I love to read, whether it’s to a single person or an audience,” says Grimes, who spoke with Kirkus by phone from her home in Corona, California. “I’ve found that we really don’t grow out of the love of being read to—I have friends who occasionally call to ask me to read them something.”
In the course of the interview, she offers to read aloud ...
Interviewed by
Alex Heimbach
on
January 3, 2017
Jerry Spinelli photographed by Elmore DeMott.
Jerry Spinelli first met Ellen Adams 15 years ago in his hometown of Norristown, Pennsylvania. She introduced herself and explained that she too had grown up in town, in fact, just about a mile from where they were standing, in the county jail. Her father had been the warden, so his family had lived in quarters right above the main entrance to the prison.
Over the ensuing years the two became friends, trading emails and Christmas cards and even the ...
By
Vicky Smith
on
January 2, 2017
In this issue’s review of Aaron Blabey’s The Bad Guys in Mission Unpluckable, a very funny book about a quartet of reformed villains, is a callout of “language devaluing of mental diversity (‘freak out,’ ‘loco,’ etc.) that may turn some readers off.” The rather clunky “language devaluing of mental diversity” had originally been phrased “ableist language,” which sent me into a brown study.
I am more or less familiar with the concept of ableism, most ...
By
Vicky Smith
on
November 29, 2016
The Best Middle-Grade Books of 2016: Trusting Kids with the Tough Stuff
The best middle-grade books through time are those that trust their young readers with big stuff. Think of Charlotte’s Web, which trusted readers with the simple brutality of life on a farm, or M.C. Higgins the Great, which trusted them with layers of symbolism and meaning. That’s what the Best Middle-Grade Books of 2016 do too, each in its own way.
Some ask readers to grapple with ...
Interviewed by
Poornima Apte
on
November 25, 2016
Andrea Davis Pinkney photographed by Christine Simmons.
Long before “We Need Diverse Books” gained momentum as a movement towards inclusivity in children’s literature, writer and illustrator Ezra Jack Keats made history. Peter, the star of his groundbreaking picture book, The Snowy Day, was black.
Children’s book author Andrea Davis Pinkney reminds us what a big deal this was in 1962 when the book was first published. The Snowy Day won the Caldecott in 1963, the same year that Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. delivered his historic “I ...
Interviewed by
Megan Labrise
on
November 23, 2016
Javaka Steptoe photographed by Gregg Richards.
“Radiant, wild, a genius child” are just some of the words people use to describe Jean-Michel Basquiat.
“There’s this narrative where people speak about Basquiat—he’s primitive, he’s a wild child,” says Javaka Steptoe, the author and illustrator of Radiant Child: The Story of Young Artist Jean-Michel Basquiat.
But that narrative belies the intention behind the postmodernist painter’s bold, brilliant art, he says: “It’s because of the drugs, it’s because he has a mental illness—it’s everything but him. No one ...