The Lerner Blog

[Greg Hunter is back with another intriguing post.] Style is an elusive thing. That’s a cliché, but like a lot of clichés, it’s true. Most writers struggle on the way to developing a distinctive voice. And once the author gets there, the challenge becomes his or her editor’s: to preserve this voice on the way […]Read more "Who Do You Write Like?"

By Connie Goldsmith (Domenica invited Connie Goldsmith, below, to contribute this entry about her new Fall 2010 TFCB single title about malaria.) Bugs fascinate me. I’m not talking about iridescent scarab beetles, Madagascar hissing cockroaches, or the giant praying mantis. I’m talking about the curvy Ebola virus with its twisted tail, the E. coli bacteria […]Read more "Battling Malaria"

By Carol HinzEditorial Director, Millbrook Press The recent news coverage of the Russian spies found living in the United States brought back memories of the Cold War for many people. For me, it also brought back memories of editing Spy Technology by Ron Fridell. This compact book, which is part of our Cool Science series, […]Read more "Spies"

by Anna Cavallo A while back, my colleague Carol Hinz wrote a post demystifying reading level–the evaluation tools we use, some tricks of the trade, and more. As another Lerner editor compelled to ponder/study/grapple with reading level with a significant portion of my time, I realized I could add one more favorite tool to the […]Read more "On Vocabulary"

Two of my favorite Lab Rats have nailed it this week—or maybe I should say others have recognized the fantastic force with which they hit ferrous fasteners. First, Blythe Woolston posted an homage to Harvey Pekar that turned into a post about R. Crumb that became a post about writing better. And it’s still short—like […]Read more "Nailing it."

by Erin Finnegan Melinda Thielbar is the primary author behind Manga Math Mysteries, our series for Grades 3-5 that relates math to everyday life through the eyes of the students at a Kung Fu dojo. Melinda is a statistician who has previously worked as a math teacher “in real life.” What was the first thing […]Read more "GU Comics Day: Figuring it all out with Manga Math (and Tigers)"

I grew up playing soccer. It was my fist organized sport. We played in the spring and fall where I grew up. This was in the 80s, and it was a fairly low-key league. We got a tee-shirt at the the beginning of the season for a uniform, and it seems like I was always […]Read more "In praise of soccer in the age of You Tube"

Over the Fourth of July holiday, I traveled to Chicago by train. The scenery between Minneapolis and Chicago isn’t dramatic or exciting. But gazing out the window as we passed through the small towns and fringes of cities gave me a glimpse of something I don’t see much of anymore—the slow march of summer days. […]Read more "The Heart of Summer"

vs. I’m working on Americanizing  a YA novel from the UK  for our spring 2011 Carolrhoda Lab list. That was a hard sentence for me to write, because I’m somewhat allergic to the idea of Americanization. As a reader, I really enjoy encountering the subtleties of different forms of English usage in fiction. I think […]Read more "Separated by a common language"