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Literary agent Robert Lescher has passed away. He was 83-years-old.

Lescher established his career in the publishing industry as an editor. He climbed his way up and obtained the title of editor-in-chief at Henry Holt & Company. During his tenure at Holt, he edited the works of legendary poet Robert Frost, short story writer Wolcott Gibbs and memoirist Alice B. Toklas.

Here’s more from The New York Times: “When Mr. Lescher began his literary agency in 1965, his reputation for aesthetic insight and painstaking attentiveness to writers made him highly sought after…[Lescher's] clients included Frances FitzGerald, Benjamin Spock, Paula Fox, Madeleine L’Engle, Andrew Wyeth and Georgia O’Keeffe. Isaac Bashevis Singer, having served as his own agent for many years, hired Mr. Lescher in 1972, six years before Singer would receive the Nobel Prize in Literature.” (via Shelf Awareness)

New Career Opportunities Daily: The best jobs in media.

By Nicki Richesin, The Children’s Book Review
Published: May 24, 2012

I love the nostalgia of rediscovering books with my daughter I had nearly forgotten from my childhood. I remember her exact expressions (of laughter or surprise) as I read about Ferdinand as he’s stung by a bee; baby ducks strut across a busy Boston street in Make Way for Ducklings; and when Madeline proudly displays her appendix scar to her friends and poor Miss Clavel.  I think you’ll find these classic books recently reissued will enchant the next generation of kids too.

Taka-Chan and I

As told to Betty Jean Lifton (photographs by Eikoh Hosoe)

This is kind of a cuckoo idea for a book: a dog named Runcible digs a hole in Cape Cod that tunnels to a Japanese beach where he meets an adorable little girl named Taka-Chan. An evil sea dragon agrees to free Taka-Chan if they can find the most loyal creature in all of Japan and place a white flower at his feet. Hosoe’s breathtaking black and white photographs blend seamlessly with Lifton’s compelling story. The heroic duo’s devotion, friendship, and determination make this book one you’ll treasure always.

Ages 5-9 | Publisher: New York Review Books| April 3, 2012

The Little House 70^th Anniversary Edition

By Virginia Lee Burton

This little house is not on the prairie, but resides in a peaceful setting with green fields full of daisies, apple trees, and happy critters all around. That is, until the builders and town starts to slowly encroach upon the little house’s surroundings. Winner of the 1942 Caldecott Medal, this is a sweet testament about how to appreciate the slower pace of life in the verdant countryside. The new edition comes with a bonus audio CD. For more details on Burton and her award-winning books, check out this film about her life and work.

Ages 4-8 | Publisher: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt | April 17, 2012

Andrew Henry’s Meadow

By Doris Burn

As a child, I first fell in love with Burn’s detailed illustrations. Then, of course, her story inspired such a sense of creativity as Andrew resourcefully takes care of himself and builds his own village of houses and nutty inventions. It gave me an inkling of life’s possibilities

Farrar Straus and Giroux brings another great new cover for a Madeleine L'Engle book.

This time, it's And Both Were Young.

It's about Flip (aka Phillipa) who is sent to a Swiss boarding school. The way, you know, girls are, at least, girls in L'Engle's early books. It was published in 1949.

Flip doesn't get her own grown up book; but she, and her art, are mentioned in A Severed Wasp: A Novel, the 1982 sequel to 1945's The Small Rain.

L'Engle fans understand exactly what I'm talking about, and how fun it is to have characters pop up again and again.



By the way, last year, Camilla was reissued with a sweet new cover.

Because I'm showing off, I'll remind you that the sequel to this 1951 novel is A Live Coal In The Sea, published in 1996.














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© Elizabeth Burns of

“. . . one thing I’ve learned is that you don’t have to understand things for them to be.”

– Madeleine L’Engle, A Wrinkle In Time.

When I was a kid, growing up in the 60’s, I didn’t read many children’s books. P.D. Eastman, of course, whom I liked better than Suess, some of the Little Golden Books, and later, the Hardy Boys. Frank and Joe, I think their names were. I have no memory of either of my parents reading to me, ever. It may have happened, must have happened, but I can’t recall it. I was the youngest of seven, born in 1961, and bed time wasn’t the hour-long ritual it’s become for so many kids today, with reading and talking and snuggling and sharing, etc. When I was a kid, it was more like, “Good night. And don’t forget to brush your teeth.”

The words that formed my reading habit came from the sports pages of The New York Daily News and The Long Island Press. I still maintain that my writing style, such as it is, was probably more influenced by Dick Young than anybody else: I faithfully read his column for many (formative) years. I also remember, as I reached my middle grade period, talking to my older brothers and sisters about books. They were readers, all of them, and loved Bradbury and Vonnegut and Brautigan and Robbins, so I picked up those books. I have a vivid recollection of writing a book report in 7th grade on any book I wanted. I chose Anthem by Ayn Rand, probably because it was a slendest paperback on the family bookshelf.

I also read sports biographies, being an ex-boy, and still hold a special fondness for Go Up for Glory Bill Russell. It hit me like a thunderbolt, and for a time I was determined to grow into a very tall black man who’d willingly pass up a shot in order to set a fierce pick and roll into the paint, looking for the put-back.

Anyway, I basically missed the entire canon of children’s literature. I didn’t read Where the Wild Things Are until I worked at Scholastic as a junior copywriter in 1985, hauling in $12,500 a year, thank you very much. These days I still try to fill in the holes, though I’ll admit it: I love adult literature. After all, I’m an adult. Those are the books that lit my fuse. I am not giving up my grown-up books.

Now, about A Wrinkle In Time. I liked it. Some parts — the first few chapters, especially — I really, really admired. Other parts — after the tessering, and into the full-blown fantasy — I didn’t care for as much. It reminded me of the original Star Trek series (my brothers loved Star Trek and we watched it religiously). In sum: Dated, kind of corny, a little obvious, but entertaining and fast-paced and intelligent and provocative, too. There’s a quality to the book, a be

So I’m at a lovely Little Brown librarian preview earlier this week and the first special guest star of the day turns out to be none other than Daniel Handler a.k.a. Lemony Snicket.  A resident of San Francisco, I wasn’t sure why he was in town.  Turns out, he was on Rachel Maddow’s show talking about his recent Occupy Wall Street piece that had been making the internet rounds.  Maddow says that he’s a “cultural hero of mine” and then later that she is “dorking out” being in his presence.  The interview is great in and of itself, plus you get this fun bit at the start about what you do when the police have confiscated your generators.

Of course if I’d known he was in town I would have tried to hook him into saying hello at the 90-Second Newbery Film Festival festivities.  Hosted in my library I’ll be blogging about it rather soon.  It was rather epic, I have to say.  Everything from a children’s musical about the birth of the Newbery Award to kids singing the plot of The Westing Game to Katie Perry’s “Firework” (a song that seems to haunt Mr. Kennedy wherever he may go).  Of course we ran out of time so we never got to show this final video.  I present it to you now because it’s rather brilliant.  As Ira Glass imitations go, this has gotta be up there:

This next link is here only because Travis at 100 Scope Notes spotted it first.  According to Reuters, the Japanese have brought The Magic Tree House books to life on the screen.  Apparently Mary Pope Osborne has always resisted film adaptations but the filmmakers so wowed her that she gave them the rights.  The result pairs nicely with that recent Borrowers adaptation, also out of Japan:

In other news, Newbery Honor winner Kathi Appelt recently interviewed Caldecott Award winner Eric Rohmann about his latest hugely lauded Halloween tale Bone Dog.  Perhaps I should have posted this before Hal