Children's books

Three authors of middle grade and young adult titles transformed a panel discussion into a master class on how reality finds its way into fiction, during a wide-ranging conversation hosted by Children's Books Boston on March 12 at Simmons University.  Read more

This week, millions of students and teachers are taking part in Read Across America, a national literacy program celebrated annually around the birthday of Theodor Geisel, better known as Dr. Seuss. For over 20 years, teachers and students have donned costumes - often the Cat in the Hat's iconic red and white striped hat - and devoured books like Green Eggs and Ham.

Opening a book for the very first time still fills me with the same excitement and anticipation that it did as a child. Books enable children to discover new worlds, meet new people and learn about the past, but they also have the power to transform lives.  Read more

My fourth-grade fantasy was to have five older brothers and one twin brother; in reality, I had two little sisters. Sometimes in public I would slur my sister Debbie's name so it sounded like "Danny." Boys got to have more adventures and therefore more fun; pretending to have a brother was the closest I could get to both.

The loving and attentive reader of children's books knows that the best of them are not one-dimensional oversimplifications of life but stories that tackle with elegant simplicity such complexities as uncertainty, loneliness, loss, and the cycle of life. And anyone who sits with this awareness for a moment becomes suddenly skeptical of the very notion of a "children's" book.  Read more