By Any Means Necessary: Malcolm X’s Early Years as an Audiobook Download
Celebrate Malcolm X’s 90th Birthday with a Spoken Word Performance of His Teen Years! Meet Malcolm X Before He Knew He Was Destined to Fight for #BlackLivesMatter! FREE MP3 SPOKEN WORD On 5/21/15 a free MP3 audiobook download of the acclaimed young adult novel X: A Novel will be available for one week. Readers who grab that file between 5/21/15 (8 AM EST) and 5/27/15 will be able to keep the spoken word performance of Malcolm X’s teenage years indefinitely. SIGN UP VIA TEXT You can sign-up on the spot to get a...
read moreBooks to Pull Spring Out of Hiding
Let’s admit it. This Winter is a guest that has stayed far too long. We stand in our lawns waiting for him to pack up, shake hands with us and head down the road in a big rusty snowplow. He is supposed to be gone by Easter (if not sooner). But here we are at Easter weekend and we have not seen more than a glimpse of Spring. She is being shy this year. Spring does not want to come into New England until Winter he’s reeved up his old truck and started backing out of the driveway. It is time to start dropping some serious...
read moreAsking, But Why?: Girls and Economic and Social Justice
Naima asks, “But why?” when reminded she cannot drive her father’s rickshaw to help her family because she is a girl. Gender inequality in labor is just one of the beautifully handled international issues in Mitali Perkin’s slim novel, Rickshaw Girl. Days after the 2015 International Women’s Day rallying cry of, “”Empowering Women, Empowering Humanity: Picture it!,” Curious City features five books where girls asked, “but why?” when faced with economic and social injustices. Curious...
read moreReaping Frustration: YA Novels & Diversity in Awards Season
A children’s book award season that began in November with a racist joke by National Book Award host Daniel Handler (aka Lemony Snicket, author of A Series of Unfortunate Events) minutes after Jacqueline Woodson accepted her National Book Award for Brown Girl Dreaming ended with resounding support for diverse books at the 2015 ALA Youth Media Awards on February 2nd. Daniel Handler’s tasteless remarks were followed by a tasteful donation of $10,000 to We Need Diverse books and a pledge to match donations up to $100,000. Before the...
read moreCurious City Partners with Erin Murphy Literary Agency
The Erin Murphy Literary Agency, Inc. (EMLA) marked their 15th year anniversary by announcing both a new partnership and a new concept in how literary agents can invest in the future of their clients’ books. EMLA agents and clients will now receive ongoing children’s book marketing consultation from Kirsten Cappy of Curious City. EMLA clients will also be able to charge individual marketing projects with Curious City against EMLA royalty payments. On EMLA’s behalf, Curious City will work alongside publishers’ publicity and marketing...
read morePeaceful & Proud Inside: Muslim Families in KidLit
With the headlines screaming “Muslim Extremists” and “Muslim Terrorists” in wake of attacks in Paris, it is good time to feed your children a good diet of books featuring Muslim families from around the world and from our very own neighborhoods. After 9/11, many looked to the bookshelves in the United States and found them bereft of stories about Muslim children and families. Children’s book authors, illustrators and publishers sought to quickly fill the gap in our literature. We still have so far to go, but...
read moreGet Your Extraordinary On
Congratulations to Sarah Dillard! Her Extraordinary Warren: A Super Chicken is a Finalist for the Cybils! The Extraordinary Sarah reached out to Curious City looking for ways to get the word out about her two forthcoming picture book/early reader/comic book chicken-hero releases. As with each new client, we started with a brainstorm, That brainstorm looked like this… Makes perfect sense right? The result of the brainstorm was the decision to create a Story Hour Kit where readers could become “extraordinary”...
read moreSearching for Silverheels Giveaway
In celebration of the release of the novel and the companion Book Club Kit, Curious City DPW, author Jeannie Mobley and Margaret K. McElderry Books gave away 20 copies of the novel Searching for Silverheels to these ever so fine Book Club leaders and librarians: Aurora Academy Charter School (Aurora, CO) Pasadena Public Library( Pasadena,CA) San Pedro Library (San Antonio, TX) SUNY New Paltz (New Paltz, NY) Attwood School (Lansing, Michigan) Rockford Road Library (Crystal, MN) Deerfield Public Library (Deerfield, IL) Hancock County Library...
read moreThe 2014 Curious City Besties
What book will be a child’s “bestie”? What 2014 book will be your child’s favorite companion? Everyone in the book review press is lining up to declare the Best Children’s Books of 2014. They are, indeed, astounding reads all. If you are buying books for children, though, the best route is to approach a bookseller or librarian and describe your young reader by personality and (if you know) by their favorite books. Those booksellers and librarians are magic at making book matches. Let them give you a unique...
read moreUninvited
What would you think if your school visit was canceled a few days before your arrival? Scheduling error? Budget cut? Bad weather? What if the school told you it was a scheduling error but refused to reschedule you? What if all the book orders were canceled? What would you think then? Young Adult author e.E. Charlton-Trujillo suspected she was canceled because of the content of her novel Fat Angie or her documentary At-Risk Summer. But if no one tells you that is the case, is it Censorship? Curious City joined a league of clever people...
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