Separation 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 MoreRaising Readers Selects…
Curious City’s proudest contribution to Raising Readers is preselecting 80-100 children’s books for ages 0-4 for the honorable Raising Readers Book Selection Committee to review. The committee gathers annually to rank and comment on board books and picture books. Four hours of children’s book critique with the doctors, home visiting nurses, early childhood educators, literacy specialists, parents, and others is an experience that always enlightens and surprises me. Out of those conversations and title rankings come the annual Raising Readers book collection...
Read MoreRaising Readers Presents…Launches
Raising Readers Presents…launched on Read Across America Day with an evening of readings and activities associated with John and Ann Hassett’s picture book, Too Many Frogs!. Curious City was delighted to help plan and MC the event at the Children’s Museum and Theatre of Maine. A discussion with pediatrician Dr. Osborne of South Portland Pediatrics about Raising Readers was followed by a reading by the Hassetts and a painting activity that delivered a lesson on the amazing attributes of frogs. Share...
Read MoreHappy Birthday, Raising Readers
With over 1.3 million books given to Maine children, Raising Readers celebrated their 10th Birthday at the Maine Discovery Museum in Bangor, Maine. Almost 300 readers and readers-to-be turned out to tumble through the museum looking for the books, authors, and illustrators that make up the Raising Readers’ latest anthology for 5-year-olds in their program, Books from Maine: A Raising Readers Collection. Children’s Museums are wonderful places to hold book events if you respect the fact that they are places to explore, not places to sit and listen. We choose...
Read MoreBarbara Cooney’s Wee Birds
Took a sweet side trip up to Bowdoin College Museum of Art to see the final days of the Barbara Cooney Exhibit. Oooed and awed my way through the minute details of her work alongside the beatific illustrator, Jamie Hogan. We stood dumbfounded by a group of tiny birds gathered in the gutter in an out-of-the-way corner of Cooney’s picture book, Eleanor. Watch for the attentive, busy animals in almost every single spread she creates. Was also enamored with the lupines painted on Chinese silk for Miss Rumphius. Proud to say, I have worked with Penguin USA and Raising Readers to include...
Read MoreBig Books in the Big Apple
Just back from a swoop through the New York publishing offices on a buying trip for Raising Readers.I have over 237 board and picture books in play (and stacked on my office floor) to select from for the literacy group’s upcoming book selection committee meeting.The group gives 12-15 books to Maine kids from birth to age 5 at their well child doctor visits. The organization has given out 1.2 million books in the last seven years!If under pen point I had to choose the work I love the most, it would be hunting down and narrowing down what books amongst 1000’s published each year,...
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