Author and Illustrator Spotlight – Page 13

The Coldest Winter I Ever Spent: An Interview with Author Ann Jacobus

Hopeful and compassionate, The Coldest Winter I Ever Spent follows eighteen-year-old Del as she discovers she cannot fully value life without accepting the realities of death. She’s in a healthier place more than a year after a suicide attempt. She’s sober, getting treatment for her depression and anxiety, and volunteering at a suicide-prevention hotline. But […]Read more

Author Interviews

Enly and the Buskin’ Blues: An Interview with Author Jennie Liu

Meet Enly Wu Lewis, aspiring musician. He’s determined to go to band camp, but with his mother working two jobs and saving every penny for his older brother’s college tuition, he’s going to have to earn enough money himself. Enly decides to earn money busking on the streets of Altamont, but a series of misadventures […]Read more

Author Interviews

Stars of the Night: An Interview with Author Caren Stelson

On the eve of World War II, the Czech Kindertransport rescued 669 children from Nazi persecution. The new nonfiction picture book Stars of the Night: The Courageous Children of the Czech Kindertransport by Caren Stelson and illustrated by Selina Alko sensitively tells the powerful true story of the children’s journey to safety from their collective […]Read more

Author Interviews

Finding Family: An Interview with Author Laura Purdie Salas and Illustrator Alexandria Neonakis

In May 2019, researchers on a lake in northern Wisconsin made a strange discovery: a pair of loons seemed to be raising a mallard duckling! Normally loons and mallards are rival species, but somehow these three—two childless parents and an orphaned chick—found each other. Finding Family: The Duckling Raised by Loons, by author Laura Purdie […]Read more

Creating a Buzz: New Read Woke ™ Chapter Books

Read Woke ™ branches out this season to fiction in the new chapter book series Bo at the Buzz! The series follows Bo, whose life is always buzzing. And not just because he lives upstairs from The Buzz, a barbershop. Young readers will love following Bo’s daily life and adventures in these early chapter books. Today […]Read more

What It’s Really Like to Have Your Book Banned as an Author

Today’s guest post comes to us from Lee Wind, author of No Way, They Were Gay? His book, a fascinating look at the hidden lives and secret loves of twelve well-known historical figures, came out in April 2021. Since then, it has been challenged or banned in a number of school districts despite meeting Social […]Read more

A Rawr-Some Valentine’s Day

by Megan Ciskowski, Associate Publicist The winter holidays have come to a close, but that doesn’t mean more aren’t on the way. Lerner has come prepared to give young readers a dino-mite Valentine’s Day with the newest title of the Dino-Holidays series. Read on to find out what our favorite dinosaurs are up to now […]Read more

Author Interviews

Timothy Dinoman Saves the Cat: An Interview with Author and Artist Steve Thueson

Timothy Dinoman Saves the Cat is a colorful middle-grade graphic novel which drops a talking dinosaur into an outrageously funny spy adventure. Some suspected supervillains have stolen a satellite! To learn why, Timothy Dinoman will visit a mountain fortress, a giant blimp, and diner with excellent pancakes—and run into a really cute cat along the […]Read more

Author Interviews

Notes from a Sickbed: An Interview with Author Tessa Brunton

In 2009, Tessa Brunton experienced the first symptoms of myalgic encephalomyelitis (also known as chronic fatigue syndrome). Notes from a Sickbed recalls the next eight years of her life—largely housebound—with honesty, a pointed wit, and a lively visual imagination. Today Tessa joins us to reveal her inspiration for the book, why she doesn’t shy away from dark […]Read more

Best of the blog