The Lerner Blog

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"

By Carol HinzEditorial Director, Millbrook Press Deck the halls with children’s authors,Fa la la la la, la la la la.Brian Cleary, Sally Walker,Fa la la la la, la la la la. Keep your clever rhymes a-goin’,Fa la la, la la la, la la la.Trudy Harris and Anne Bowen,Fa la la la la, la la la […]Read more "A New Holiday Song"

By Sara HoffmannSenior Editor As some of my fellow bloggers have mentioned, one of the benefits of being an editor is that you’re always learning something new. I recently had the opportunity to help develop an upcoming Spring 2010 series called Is That a Fact? (cover pictured). This group of books explores whether there’s any […]Read more "Oh, The Things I’ve Learned"

Actually, I suppose it’s a “why-haven’t-I-seen-this-in-a-novel-yet post. The town I grew up in had a fairly serious extra-curricular boy choir. I was not in it, but I had several friends who were. It was an uncomfortable social balancing act for these pre-adolescent boys. On the one had: dorky robes, practice, and high voices. On the […]Read more "A Christmas post, sort of"