Anna Walentynowicz, a powerhouse in the history of the modern Polish labor movement, died on April 10, 2010, in a plane crash in western Russia. The crash also killed Polish president Lech Kaczynski, along with ninety-five other people, many of whom were prominent military and civilian leaders in Poland. The country is in a state […]Read more "Labor Loses a Woman of Iron"

by Carol HinzEditorial Director, Millbrook Press Last night I was listening to Minnesota Public Radio (MPR), and I happened to catch an hour-long conversation between host Kerri Miller and author Colum McCann. I don’t always follow the adult literature world as closely as the children’s book world, so I wasn’t familiar with McCann’s novel Let […]Read more "Finding Inspiration"

By Sara HoffmannSenior Editor I’ve always been fascinated by regional accents. Maybe it’s because, like a lot of editors, I find language inherently interesting. Who knows? But for whatever reason, ever since I was a little kid, I’ve noticed things like the way Southerners sometimes say “pin” to describe the ink-filled thing we use to […]Read more "Speaking Minnesotan"

by Erin Finnegan, NY editorial intern This week I chatted with Der-shing Helmer, the artist behind Manga Math #4, The Kung Fu Puzzle: A Mystery with Time and Temperature. Der-shing has also done several Avatar the Last Airbender comics for Nickelodeon Magazine. Check out some sample pages here. What computer programs and/or what kind of […]Read more "GU Comics Day: Shining a spotlight on: Der-shing Helmer"

By Domenica Di Piazza, Editorial Director, TFCB April is National Poetry Month. This link offers lots of information about all the wonderful events taking place this month to celebrate poetry. You can even sign up for the Poem-a-Day feature, which emails a poem to you every day. The link above gives a sampling of what’s […]Read more "National Poetry Month"

by Carol Hinz Editorial Director, Millbrook Press Welcome to Nonfiction Monday! Please leave a comment that includes the link to your post for Nonfiction Monday, and I’ll add it to the list below. In other nonfiction news, be sure to check out School Library Journal’s Battle of the Books. The Frog Scientist by Pamela S. […]Read more "Nonfiction Monday Is Here"

by Carol Hinz Editorial Director, Millbrook Press For today’s Nonfiction Monday, I thought it might be interesting to talk about where nonfiction books come from. You see, there’s this stork who flies over our building and drops off bundles of bright and shiny books. . . . Well, actually, it has nothing to do with […]Read more "How a Nonfiction Book Is Born"

By Anna Cavallo, Associate Editor Recently, our little corner of the Upper Midwest has been experiencing an incredibly early spring warming—temperatures frequently in the 50s and up into the 70s, and mostly sunny. (Often, March is the snowiest month here, offering no signs that the winter doom will ever melt away. It always does, but […]Read more "Dreaming of Summer (Reading)"

[Note that there is no April Foolery here. If you want that, go to Greenwillow. I couldn’t top it so I won’t try.] The Bologna Book Fair is a hopeful, optimistic fair, and I’ll tell you why. First off, a rather shocking number of young illustrators roam the halls, eager to show anybody their portfolios. […]Read more "Hopeful Bologna"