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Laurie Ann Thompson

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SCBWI Western Washington’s 2011 conference wrap-up: part 2

May 23, 2011 6 Comments

I did­n’t think SCBWI West­ern Wash­ing­ton’s 2011 con­fer­ence could get any bet­ter than it was on Sat­ur­day, but yes, it could! Sun­day start­ed a lit­tle lat­er (thank good­ness, after all that danc­ing!). On Sun­day, April 17, we start­ed out by cel­e­brat­ing our awe­some­ly tal­ent­ed and ded­i­cat­ed advi­so­ry com­mit­tee. And they cel­e­brat­ed us with a great big sur­prise pre­sen­ta­tion! Before we even had

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SCBWI Western Washington conference 2011 wrap-up: part 1

May 22, 2011 6 Comments

Yes, the SCBWI West­ern Wash­ing­ton’s 20th Annu­al Writ­ing & Illus­trat­ing for Chil­dren con­fer­ence was over a month ago. I’m final­ly com­ing down from the high that week­end always leaves me with–and recov­er­ing from the hard work and long hours that go into orga­niz­ing it. So, I thought I’d share some of the high points (for me) here. On Fri­day, April 15, 2011,

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Author Interview with George Sullivan

May 14, 2011 6 Comments

You may remem­ber back in Feb­ru­ary when I reviewed TOM THUMB: THE REMARKABLE TRUE STORY OF A MAN IN MINIATURE by George Sul­li­van. Sul­li­van has writ­ten more than 100 non­fic­tion books for chil­dren and young adults, and he was kind enough to email me direct­ly after the review! Isn’t that sweet? I was so tick­led, I decid­ed to take advan­tage of the sit­u­a­tion to

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Teaching Social Issues in Elementary School

May 9, 2011 2 Comments

In my most recent issue of Social Stud­ies and the Young Learn­er (Vol­ume 23, Num­ber 4, March/April 2011) from the Nation­al Coun­cil for the Social Stud­ies, there’s a brief arti­cle enti­tled “The Uncom­pro­mised Cur­ricu­lum: Videos of Teach­ers Teach­ing Social Jus­tice Issues,” by Deb­bie Sonu. Deb­bie talks a bit about how dif­fi­cult it for today’s teach­ers to include social jus­tice lessons despite nar­row, test-focused cur­ricu­lums. She

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Celebrate Children’s Book Week!

May 3, 2011 No Comments

Chil­dren’s Book Week has been cel­e­brat­ed through the Unit­ed States since 1919 with appear­ances by authors and illus­tra­tors, par­ties, sto­ry­telling, and oth­er book-relat­ed events in schools, libraries, book­stores, etc., and this year it takes place May 2–8! Don’t you just love that poster (above) cre­at­ed by the tal­ent­ed Peter Brown? I do! You can order one for your­self right here.

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Review: Start It Up teen nonfiction

May 2, 2011 No Comments

START IT UP by Ken­rya Rankin is a must-have resource for teen (and even mid­­dle-grade) read­ers who wish to start any kind of busi­ness, whether it be for prof­it, non­prof­it, or mixed. The book is clear­ly writ­ten and easy to under­stand, yet includes a wealth of infor­ma­tion for young entre­pre­neurs. The design is clean and func­tion­al, with pull­outs for quick tips, anec­dotes, quotes, and

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Do good by reading good YA: WHAT YOU WISH FOR

April 26, 2011 No Comments

I just pre-ordered my copy of WHAT YOU WISH FOR: A BOOK FOR DARFUR, and I am so look­ing for­ward to read­ing it. Com­ing from Pen­guin Group’s G.P. Putnam’s Sons in Sep­tem­ber, 2011, the book is a col­lec­tion of YA poet­ry and short sto­ries writ­ten by var­i­ous authors, includ­ing Cor­nelia Funke, Meg Cabot, R. L. Stine, John Green, Ann M. Martin,

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Review: I Am Tama, Lucky Cat

April 25, 2011 No Comments

You’ve prob­a­bly seen the smil­ing cat fig­urine with the wav­ing right front paw, but have you ever won­dered why it’s there? Told from the cat’s point of view, this charm­ing 32-page pic­ture book tells chil­dren one of the pos­si­ble sto­ries behind it with straight­for­ward prose and stun­ning art­work. It can be enjoyed both for the sto­ry itself and as an

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Fans of FARTISTE

March 23, 2011 1 Comment

I’m a huge fan of Kath­leen Krull’s non­fic­tion books for kids, so I was sur­prised and dis­ap­point­ed to read her recent arti­cle in the Horn Book about the dif­fi­cul­ties she and her hus­band have had sell­ing their book FARTISTE! I would’ve thought a pic­ture book biog­ra­phy about a per­former who enter­tained audi­ences with his mas­tery of the art of the

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More thoughts on the speculative nonfiction debate

March 22, 2011 No Comments

Roger Sut­ton put up this post on the Read Roger blog for con­tin­u­ing the dis­cus­sion about Marc Aron­son’s “New Knowl­edge” arti­cle in the Horn Book, in which Marc argues that non­fic­tion authors should be allowed to spec­u­late, draw con­clu­sions, and reveal their points of view in their books. While I found Marc’s ter­mi­nol­o­gy of “new” ver­sus “old” non­fic­tion to be pejorative,

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