Why YA?
Curious City spoke with Chris Lenois on WKVT’s Live & Local about “Why YA?” Why is YA (or Young Adult Literature) on the rise amongst non-teen readers and filling movie screens? Listen to the podcast here. In the discussion I touched on the rise of Dystopian fiction and the harrowing fictional issues of war and destruction in these novels being a “first world problem.” I wrote about this topic for the Vermont College of Fine Arts journal Hunger Mountain in an article entitled, “It’s the End of the World as We Know It (And I Feel Fine).”...
Read MoreSeparation in Children’s Lit
Separated by miles and miles, but connected through the power of radio, Curious City spoke with Chris Lenois on WKVT’s Live & Local about Separation in Children’s Literature. Listen here! With the school buses again rolling across our cities and towns and first-day-of-school pictures flooding Facebook, it seemed a good time to talk about how children grow with and grow apart from their parents through reading. Below are some of the books we mentioned and some swell resources! What are your favorite back-to-school books? Books on separation? Books where the parents are...
Read MoreAfrican American Children’s Lit on Live & Local
Once again joined the indomitable Chris Lenois on WKVT’s Live & Local to talk children’s literature. Listen here! This month, the conversation focused on President Obama’s call for America to do some “soul searching” about racial bias. One way to help children grow up with less bias is to feed them a steady diet of multicultural books. In honor of Trayvon Martin, we discussed contemporary African American (and cross-group friendship) books from toddler to teen. These books are a “mirror” for African American children showing them themselves in...
Read MoreAll Hat, No Cattle: Marketing Q&A
Thanks to all the creators that attended Curious City’s “All Hat and No Cattle Children’s Book Marketing in Today’s Wild, Wild West” talk at the SCBWI Wild, Wild Midwest Conference. You had great questions. I hope these are great answers. (For those with website or blog questions, I answered your questions over yonder.) CURIOUS CITY How does Curious City work with new clients? What do you cost? Does Curious City work with unpublished authors and illustrators? Self-published creators? Thanks for asking. That is swell of you. These questions are best answered on...
Read MoreGot Uke
Got Uke? No? No worries, your library does. Portland, Maine library card holders can now check out ukuleles and equally hip young adult books from the Teen Room of the Portland Public Library. Based on a madcap idea by Portland Public Library teen staff member, Michael Whittaker, local businesses Curious City and Moose County Music and Surf teamed up to create a Ukulele Lending Library. Four ukuleles were donated by Moose County and named by Curious City after teen books in the Portland Public Library collection. LEARN more about Curious City’s new program UkeLit! “This is...
Read MorePress Gang Audio
The astounding educators of the Breakwater School are leading their students to piracy! With Scott Nash’s chapter book, The High-Skies Adventures of Blue Jay the Pirate (Candlewick Press) as their piratical press gang, students will be performing a “flash mob” performance of a chapter from the swashbuckling tale. To give the performance the framework and mast of Nash’s written word, Curious City partnered with audiobook producer William Dufris of Mind’s Eye Productions to record Breakwater students reading and acting pieces from the chapter. ...
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