What happens to the odd bits of knowledge you accumulate while traveling? Unless you write them down, much vanishes. So, here are a few things I learned while traveling in Switzerland, France, and Norway during the past ten days. 1. The Basilisk originates in Basel, Switzerland. You know the basilisk from Harry Potter and the
As you may have heard by now, Remy Charlip has passed away at the age of 83. The author of Fortunately (1964), Arm in Arm (1969), Thirteen (1975) and many others, Charlip was also a dancer, choreographer, and the model for Brian Selznick’s rendition of Georges Méliès in The Invention of Hugo Cabret. He was
Maurice Sendak, Ellen Levine, Jean Craighead George, Leo Dillon, and now Jose Aruego. Â It’s been an all-too-mortal year for children’s books. Â Mr. Aruego died on August 9, his 80th birthday. I never met Mr. Aruego, but he did kindly grant Julia Mickenberg and me permission to use his illustrations for Charlotte Pomerantz’s The Day They
Greetings, faithful readers. I am pleased to report that Crockett Johnson and Ruth Krauss: How an Unlikely Couple Found Love, Dodged the FBI, and Transformed Children’s Literature – a book that was twelve years in the making – now exists in both hardcover and paperback. I received my author copies today, which means that it should
While riding my bike last Tuesday morning, a car hit me. It was 7:45 am, I was cycling uphill and due west. A car coming due east – blinded by the sun, the driver later told me – took a left turn and hit my bicycle on its (and my) left side. Fortunately, neither of us were