The Lerner Blog

By Carol HinzEditorial Director, Millbrook Press Did you hear about the college basketball player who made a game-winning 70-foot shot earlier this month? If you missed it, here’s it is (keep watching to see the replay): Of course, this isn’t the longest shot ever made. For many years, the NBA record was a 79-foot shot […]Read more "One for the Record Books?"

How much would it cost today, in US dollars, to build the Lighthouse at Alexandria? What academic degrees do funeral directors earn? How do soap bubbles form? What were the exact words Neil Armstrong said when he set foot on the Moon? What’s the name of that figure of speech—like where you call the president […]Read more "Looking for Answers"

January has become Sally Walker month in my office. It’s also, by my declaration, editorial shoe disclosure month (precedent). Just wait and see how the two go together. First, as you might have heard, it’s insanely cold in Minnesota. Your humble blogger recently acquired a pair of Steger Mukluks (yes, that Steger), so he could […]Read more "Sally!"

By Domenica Di Piazza, Editorial Director, TFCB Team physician for the Pittsburgh Steelers. Professor of robotics at Carnegie Mellon University. Software engineer at Google Maps. These are just some of the women scientists interviewed on GirlTalk Radio. The short interviews (roughly five minutes each) are conducted by girls ages 11 to 16, and are made […]Read more "Girls and Science"

By Carol HinzEditorial Director, Millbrook Press I recently heard about the Periodic Table of Videos and had to check it out for myself. Martyn Piliakoff, a research professor at the University of Nottingham, and several other scientists and one brave videographer have put together videos about every element on the periodic table. Here is the […]Read more "Now, where’s that unobtainium?"

By Domenica Di Piazza, Editorial Director, TFCB In recent years, an editor/writer friend and I have started meeting for lunch at the end of December to talk about our resolutions for the coming year. In the past, I’d generally avoided setting New Year’s goals, fearful of failure, I guess. But when this friend and I […]Read more "New Year Resolutions"

By Carol Hinz Editorial Director, Millbrook Press For me the holidays are about spending time with family, and—if I’m lucky—playing a few good games. While I like all kinds of board games, I’m particularly drawn to those that have to do with words and wordplay. I suspect that other editors, writers, and book-lovers in general […]Read more "Playing with Words"

The other day, one of my colleagues mentioned that she saw one of our titles at a knit shop window (below). The title was Silkworms, a nonfiction work we brought in from a Japanese publisher, Akane Shobo. A then on-staff editor, Sylvia Johnson, wrote the text. The awesome photographs by Isao Kishida completed the package. […]Read more "Beautiful Backlist"

By Domenica Di Piazza, Editorial Director, TFCB I don’t do a lot of baking for the holiday season, although I do typically make at least one batch of cookies. This year, I’m going to make espresso shortbread (left) again. It was a huge hit last year. I realize this has almost nothing to do with […]Read more "Holiday Baking"