There is a lot to learn and love in the text of this book, if you can tear yourself away from the fascinating illustrations by Michele Wood. Each page is like a separate painting in an exhibit, each a small…
Author: petermarino
Peter is an English professor at SUNY Adirondack in Queensbury, New York where he teaches writing, speech, and the occasional literature class. He won the SUNY Chancellor's Award in 2006 for Excellence in Scholarship and Creative Activity. His first young adult novel, Dough Boy, about a fat and self-conscious but very funny high school sophomore, was published by Holiday House in October 2005 and is now available in paperback. It was nominated for the American Library Association’s Best Books for Young Adults in 2006. His latest young adult novel, also with Holiday House, is Magic and Misery, about a teenage girl trying to balance her life with her best gay friend and her new boyfriend. It has been nominated for the American Library Association’s Best Books for Young Adults in 2009 and is on Booklist’s Top 10 Romance Fiction for Youth and was placed on the ALA Round Table Rainbow Books Bibliography.. He is finishing up three (yes three) new novels for young readers. Peter’s full-length play, The Grandma Show, co-authored with Tom Ecobelli, has had productions all over the country. His ten-minute play “Ralph Smith of Schenectady, New York...” has been produced in the 9th Annual New York City 15 Minute Play Festival, the Samuel French 2003 Short Play Festival, and SlamBoston! 2005. Another one-act, “The Good Samaritan,” won first place in SlamBoston! 2006.
Clarina Nichols: Frontier Crusader for Women’s Rights by Diane Eickhoff
I very enthusiastically endorse this detailed and exacting biography. It does not focus on a particularly well-known women’s rights advocate (I had never heard of her…) and as such makes for a rounded reading of history. There are photographs…
Guest Blog by Frieda Toth, author of Help Wanted, for Women’s History Month
Seven years or so ago, I wrote a picture book called Help Wanted. It was in answer to the annoying revisionism among political conservatives, who would have us believe that a woman working outside the home is a new phenomenon.…
When the Sun Shines on Antarctica And Other Poems about the Frozen Continent
Irene Latham has given us a little treat in When the Sun Shines on Antarctica And Other Poems about the Frozen Continent. It’s both poetically entertaining and informative non fiction. Each poem is followed by an explanation of the…
Nothing in the Word: Versions of Aztec Poetry
This book is quite a relic (1972), though it is still available from online sources. The late poet, Stephen Berg, founder of the American Poetry Review, translated these 50 poems from the indigenous Nahuatl Indians of Central Mexico. A friend…
Elephant Man by Mariangela Di Fiore, illustrated by Hilde Hodnefjeld
From our favorite Annick Press, another winner to read, if you can keep your heart from breaking. I don’t know how I missed this biography of Joseph Merrick in my e-stack. I was fascinated by the movies (The Elephant Man…
Fall Roundup of Annick Press Titles
DNA Detective by Tanya Lloyd Kyi is not only a lot of fun to read, it’s amazingly, densely informative. This could easily be used as part of a science curriculum for fifth or sixth graders (although I myself will…
Jars of Hope: How One Woman Helped Save 2,500 Children During the Holocaust
I remember my mom telling me something her mother used to say to her about racial issues:There are two kinds of people in this world: good and bad. I’m not so sure that sentiment is as facile as it may…
Papa Gave Me a Stick by Janice Levy
This book reminded me of the hundred times I pleaded with my parents for some toy or game or electronic that I had to have or I was going to sink into a deep depression. And it reminded me of…
Child Soldier
There is an ironic page in Child Soldier showing the narrator/protagonist, Michel Chikwanine, riding his Canadian school bus, living in two worlds at one time. The students around him are complaining about things privileged Western kids complain about: parents, phones,…