Vaunda Micheaux Nelson’s novel No Crystal Stair  is the last book standing in SLJ’s annual Battle of the Books. I could not be prouder—especially given the stunning quality of the finalists and indeed of the whole bracket. NCS (because it was an all-acronym finals this year) seems to have been something of a surprise winner, […]Read more "The Underdog"

Wow. Social media was abuzz last week with the same-sex marriage cases before the Supreme Court of the United States (SCOTUS). It’s front page leading news in traditional media too, and the coverage sent me back to our Same-Sex Marriage book (cover above) from last year for good background reading. I had to chuckle when […]Read more "SCOTUS and "Skim Milk Marriage""

Let’s have a round of applause for Cindy Reyes! You’ve won a copy of Miracle Mud: Lena Blackburne and the Secret Mud That Changed Baseball from Millbrook Press. Email us at publicityinfo@lernerbooks.com with the subject line “Free Book Friday”, your mailing address, and any other expressions of enthusiasm you’d like to share, and we’ll send you your prize forthwith. We trust […]Read more "It’s Not Opening Day Yet, But it IS Free Book Friday!"

Have you ever had one of those moments when your life comes full circle? I recently had just such a moment when a colleague pointed me toward longtime Lerner author Candice Ransom as the perfect candidate to write some books I’d been developing. The second I heard Candice’s name, I got deliriously excited. See, not […]Read more "Candice Ransom, Lerner, and Me—Or How My Job Connected Me with a Childhood Idol"

What happens in Italy doesn’t necessarily stay in Italy, at least if what’s happening is the Bologna Children’s Book Fair. The Lerner folks who are in Bologna right now will doubtless return with many new nuggets of wisdom–and for those of us who couldn’t make it (sigh, so many other commitments), dispatches from the front […]Read more "A Load of Bologna: Digital Publishing in "an Ecosystem of Storytelling""

Congratulations to KEVIN MEYER! You’ve won our free copy of Quicksilver by R. J. Anderson. To claim your spoils, just inform us of your mailing address by emailing us at publicityinfo@lernerbooks.com, so that we can ship your book to you as…you saw this coming…quickly as possible. No one ever looks at the back cover. UNTIL NOW. Miracle Mud: Lena […]Read more "Fastballs, Free Books, and Fridays"

I did a lot of research for this post. By that, I mean I started by skimming through my usual go-to sites and blogs–the bibles of “digital potpourri’ creator and guiding light Adriano Fruzzetti. Then I followed certain leads to other websites, published studies, and interviews with digital publishing insiders/gurus. Then I took notes on […]Read more "I’ll Just Garble That: Thoughts on Digital Literacy"

Happy Free Book Friday to all our fans out there–especially Kerri Quinn! You’ve won a free copy of Hoop Genius: How a Desperate Teacher and a Rowdy Gym Class Invented Basketball from Carolrhoda Books. Now we just need to know your mailing address. Email it to us at publicityinfo@lernerbooks.com so that we can send you your prize. “Look! We’re inventing basketball. […]Read more "Follow that Free Book!"

I’d like to welcome production editor Heidi Hogg to the Lerner blog today. Not only is Heidi a whiz at book layout and design, but she’s a grammar maven too! Here’s Heidi on what she cleverly dubs “zombie grammar rules.” It seems like zombies are everywhere. There’s the romantic comedy film Warm Bodies. AMC’s television […]Read more "Zombie Grammar"