In this multi-layered portrait of one of the most famous African-American performers of the 20th century for Chicago Review Press’s Women of Action series, Peggy Caravantes presents us with Josephine Baker: a flamboyant, difficult woman whose dream of integration and…
Author: J.L. Powers
J.L. Powers is the author of the y.a. novels This Thing Called the Future and The Confessional, and editor the forthcoming anthology That Mad Game: Growing Up in a Warzone.
What Will Your Beautiful Hands Do Today?
The first few times I opened up Kathryn Otoshi and Bret Baumgarten’s recent picture book for kids, Beautiful Hands, and read the opening line, “What will your beautiful hands do today?” I literally shivered with delight….and got goosepimples all over…
In a Village by the Sea by Muon Van
In a Village by the Sea by Muon Van and illustrated by April Chu introduces kids and adults alike to another part of the world through a simple story about a fisherman and his family who live in a small…
Jessica’s Box by Peter Carnavas
Jessica’s starting school in a new place. She takes a box with her. It has something special in it. Will the kids like her surprise? Will she make friends? This is an absolutely delightful picture book about a young girl…
Celebrating “different”: Peas in a Pod
I remember two competing impulses warring inside me when I was a child. The first impulse, perhaps the stronger of the two initially, was the idea that I wanted to be different, special, an individual. I wanted to be noticed…
Skycraping Part II: The Interview
This week, we open with an interview with Cordelia Jensen, author of Skyscraping, a novel in verse (reviewed last week here). 1. The story of HIV-AIDS is an ongoing one. What can we gain by reading about an early 90s…
Introducing Kids to the Words of Freedom
One of the key moments in my childhood was reading a book about Harriet Tubman and realizing the horrible truth about slavery: that people were owned, that people were abused, that people couldn’t escape unless they were willing to risk…
My Three Best Friends and Me, Zulay-Guest Post by Kate Schatz
By Kate Schatz (author of Rad American Women A-Z) I’ve always been a careful curator of my kids’ bookshelves, stocking them with my own childhood favorites alongside treasured classics and new finds that I think are cool/smart/gorgeous/important/not lame/etc. But as…
Nancy Bo Flood: on the place of home and Navajos in her heart and books
Nancy Bo Flood, a contributor to The Pirate Tree, is also the author of several books related to or set in the Navajo Nation. Her most recent picture book, The Hogan that Great-Grandfather Built, takes the structure of “This is…
An interview with Rad American Women A-Z’s Kate Schatz
Kate Schatz’s recent release, Rad American Women A-Z, is an artistic-historic compilation of leftist women whose accomplishments have sometimes been forgotten but who paved the way for women of all kinds to have the rights we have today. What rad…