In May, the Association of American Publishers celebrates Get Caught Reading Month—publicity for the event includes posters of famous people each absorbed in a good book. Certainly, any book featured on the Almanac over the past year would be great to be caught reading. But I’d like to showcase a series that not only engages […]
Adventure, Dystopia, SurvivalOn April 16, 1922, John Christopher was born as Samuel Youd in Lancashire, England. Leaving school at sixteen, Christopher began writing adult science fiction novels, but then a British publisher asked Christopher if he would try his hand at a science fiction novel for young readers. Quite naively Christopher believed that writing a book for […]
Adventure, Dystopia, QuestMarch has been designated Write a Letter of Appreciation Month. I always say that the Children’s Book-A-Day Almanac is my daily love letter to an author. So today I want to write an almanac letter of appreciation to Jeanne DuPrau for her magnificent novel, The City of Ember. At the beginning of The City of […]
Adventure, Dystopia“It was almost December, and Jonas was beginning to be frightened.” With these words Lois Lowry opens the best novel for children of the 1990s and one of the greatest science fiction works of all time—The Giver. In the early ’90s Lowry found herself a frequent visitor at a nursing home. There her mother, going […]
Adventure, Award Winning, Dystopia, Newbery