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AF and I met up the other day at our grad school alma mater, Mills College, to speak to the graduate and undergraduate writers in Kathryn Reiss's YA writing course. It was a lot of fun, but it was an afternoon class, and it was a fairly warm... Read the rest of this post

If you’ve read The Great Gatsby, Lolita, or Wuthering Heights, you may recognize the phrase. It’s used to describe a narrator who isn’t telling you or can’t tell you the whole story. They could be naïve or they could be intentionally... Read the rest of this post

Welcome to another session of Turning Pages! Synopsis: Privileged and perfect is how life could be described for fifteen-year-old Kambili and her brother, Jaja. In Nigeria, where so many deal with fuel shortages, power outages, strikes at hospitals... Read the rest of this post

This year AF and I were on the same judging panel - which has never happened before! There were some really interesting finalists this year; do stay tuned to find out what we - and the rest of our hep cat crew - chose for the YA Speculative Fiction... Read the rest of this post

I'm told the candy does NOT, in fact, taste like peas or carrots. Bummer. People expecting copies of PEAS AND CARROTS, those are going out this week. People who want a chance to win a copy, along with a lunch bag and a little magnet -- please stay... Read the rest of this post

The Toymaker's Apprentice!...which just arrived at my house via late UPS delivery. Thank you after 6 p.m. people!Honestly? I'm not a huge fan of the whole Nutcracker thing... in part because (Shhhh!) I've never seen the ballet. I also don't really... Read the rest of this post

Happy Monday! We're back again today with the final installment in our interview with the wonderfully articulate and interesting Ashley Hope Pérez, who has stopped by on her blog tour for her forthcoming novel Out of Darkness. The story is based on... Read the rest of this post

Welcome back to our conversation with author Ashley Hope Pérez, author of the forthcoming YA historical novel OUT OF DARKNESS, which is based on real-life events of the March 1937 gas leak which caused a massive explosion and killed almost 300... Read the rest of this post

Welcome to Part 1 of our 3-part interview (we just couldn't stop chatting!) with Ashley Hope Perez, author of the forthcoming YA historical novel Out of Darkness, which is based on real-life events (and which we reviewed here).Not only was this a... Read the rest of this post

Happy Friday!Welcome to another edition of In Tandem, the dual read-and-review blog series where both A.F. and I give our on-the-spot commentary as we read and team blog a book. (You can feel free to guess which of us is the yellow owl and which of... Read the rest of this post

Okay, so Rapunzel might be a leeetle over-honest -- I mean, come on, if you'd lived by yourself in a tower and had people climbing your hair all the time, you might be apt to blurt and duck more often than not, no? And Alice... well... she gives new... Read the rest of this post

Hello! I have lost time this week - I've been a day behind for the entire time, and I'm like, "It's Friday? Really?" This is the sad, sad result of going to meetings all week for various wonderful institutions - somehow this is the year of the... Read the rest of this post

Click to embiggen. Happy Weekend! Enjoy The Forever Girls, a little tale by graphic novelist and cartoonist (& Melissa Wiley's beau) Scott Peterson, with artwork by artist and animator Monica Bruenjes. So much to love here: Snow White is seriously... Read the rest of this post

Happy Thursday and welcome back to In Tandem, the read-and-review blog series where both Tanita and I give our opinions, back and forth, conversation-like. Come join our book talk! Today we're discussing Pinned, by Sharon G. Flake. Pinned is a... Read the rest of this post

Welcome to another edition of In Tandem, the read-and-review blog series where both A.F. and I give our two cents at the same time. (You can feel free to guess which of us is the yellow owl and which of us is the purple owl...we're not telling!)... Read the rest of this post

Yes, I am the big nerd who occasionally has themed bookshelves. In my house. Because, apparently I am a pretend librarian. Happy Friday, kids! I'm here because I'm procrastinating. Knowing that, I'm going to keep this short... but I did want to pop... Read the rest of this post

Blog note: In light of the scary fact that no one has actually spoken to Harper Lee from HarperCollins in person... we've taken down our happy piece on her new novel. Slate has a lot to say about whether or not the project should go forward, and... Read the rest of this post

Oh, my word, THANK YOU, Ms. Harper Lee, for holding onto your work, despite your editor telling you to rewrite Scout's story a different way. This is a literary boon for those of us who have read and reread our copies of TO KILL A MOCKINGBIRD until... Read the rest of this post

Publishing and the kidlitosphere tends to slow down around Thanksgiving, and it tends to take awhile to get back up to speed... it seems like we slowed down a little at the Wonderland treehouse as well. There will be a little more slowing from my... Read the rest of this post