By Domenica Di Piazza, Editorial Director, TFCB When I was a young person, I read books one at a time, from start to finish. I thought doing otherwise was not allowed. One of the benefits of age is that you get to approach your leisure reading in the full awareness that there are no laws […]Read more "Reading List"

by Laurie Friedman (Author of the Mallory series; I’m Not Afraid of This Haunted House; Love, Ruby Valentine; and Thanksgiving Rules) As an author of children’s books, I feel very lucky. I get to spend every day doing what I love most . . . writing books for kids and connecting with readers. But some […]Read more "Valentine’s Day Cheer Inspired by Books"

By Carol HinzEditorial Director, Millbrook Press One of the Super Bowl commercials that caught my eye last week involved two rather wimpy-looking guys with cell phones facing two sumo wrestlers. The guys had to use their phones, which had internet connections, to figure out how to say “I surrender” in Japanese.One guy tried to look […]Read more "I Surrender/Akirameru"

[Here’s Anna Cavallo, back with another interesting post on the ever-changing world of learning and content.] On Wednesday, one of the Publishers Weekly blogs, Shelftalker, led me to a YouTube video that I can’t get enough of: Scholar Ladies (Get an A on It). <img src="http://lh3.ggpht.com/_O5xmTWZ5QaY/S3VXV8wSyJI/AAAAAAAAAIU/BPlgq5qifGI/video5bb0fa1c4535%5B4%5D.jpg?imgmax=800" style="border-style: none;" galleryimg="no" onload="var downlevelDiv = document.getElementById('38001ebb-da76-4f5a-bc32-89888305b110'); downlevelDiv.innerHTML = […]Read more "Growing Up in the YouTube Age"

There were a couple interesting stories in the news this week that caught my attention. First, as I understand it, Asperger’s syndrome is no longer something doctor’s will diagnose. It’s now part of the autism spectrum, at least as far as the DSM is concerned. You can hear more about it in this NPR piece.  […]Read more "Science and Stigma"

I have one of the most beautiful aromatic bouquets of flowers in my office—an early Valentine’s Day present. As we cozy up to this holiday, I became intrigued by its origins. They start in the Roman period and became associated with martyred Christians. The “love connection” didn’t get going until many centuries later. Young men […]Read more "Love Connection"

<img style="border-style: none;" alt="" src="http://lh3.ggpht.com/_lqHsy2xLVmU/S2C07GlG7ZI/AAAAAAAAAH8/d8_AQcPpI1k/video47be8a21603a%5B3%5D.jpg?imgmax=800" onload="var downlevelDiv = document.getElementById('e9426b72-98ca-46da-8e67-63f85cd3ab52'); downlevelDiv.innerHTML = " http://hl= By Domenica Di Piazza, Editorial Director, TFCB Andrew, my office neighbor and editorial colleague, sends me links to wonderfully ingenious videos. This latest one is a rap video in which twentieth-century economic gurus John Maynard Keynes (played by Billy Scarfuri) and F. […]Read more "Econ 101 Goes Rap"

By Carol HinzEditorial Director, Millbrook Press I’m posting this a day early in honor of the Super Bowl. I may not be the world’s biggest sports fan, but I can honestly say I’ve at least read our biography of Peyton Manning. As a kid, I found sporting events were best enjoyed with a pencil and […]Read more "Ready, Set, Super Bowl!"

By Sara HoffmannSenior Editor Like a lot of editors, I enjoy wordplay. And not just the sophisticated kind of wordplay most editors would be proud to say they liked. I also like wordplay that’s just plain silly. In fact, one of my favorite things are mondegreens. Monde-what, you may ask? Mondegreens. They’re those goofy words […]Read more "Mondegreens"