Jane Yolen

Jane Yolen

Can you tell us how your recent book When Nana Dances came to be? My co-author on this book, Maddison Stemple-Piatt, is my granddaughter. She was ten years old, in ballet…

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We Belong, a Book Recommendation

We Belong

In We Belong, with bright digital illustrations and a bouncy, engaging rhythm, Laura Purdie Salas introduces the reader to the many ways we are different as well as the many ways we all belong.

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Nikki Grimes

Nikki Grimes

When I asked Nikki to take part in my National Poetry Month celebration, I knew the possibilities of books to discuss were many. Nikki writes in poetry and sometimes prose, from picture books to middle grade novels to young adult books.

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Sensory Images and Metaphor

Eagle flying

Working with students in their classroom, after talking about creating sensory images and the use of metaphor, I read one of my favorite poems, “Seven Ways of Looking at Eagles,” written by Tonia Scabby Face, Lakota, a middle-school student at Red Cloud Indian School.

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Wong and Vardell on Poetry

Good Luck Gold & more

Today, in celebration of National Poetry Month, I’d like to share this video from Janet Wong and Sylvia Vardell, talking about the book Good Luck Gold & more by Janet and sharing a poem from Jen Bryant, “Laugh,” in Pomelo Books’ Things We Do.

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April Halprin Wayland

April Halprin Wayland

My friend, poet and teacher April Halprin Wayland, shares one of her poems with us, “Exercising My Voice.”

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Joy Harjo

Joy Harjo

A poem by Joy Harjo, poet, activist, educator, 23rd Poet Laureate of the United States, Mvskoke [Creek] Nation

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Mental Health: The Giver

The Giver

Lois Lowry: “I think it’s something that literature does, that writing does, that speaking about things does. It keeps our hearts from breaking.”

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Writing the Story of Mental Illness for Young Readers

Romancing the Dark in the City of Light

I have been pulled toward the subject of suicide since I was a teen despite its stigma, and worked on my first suicide hotline when I was eighteen. That’s because as an adolescent I struggled not only with depression but with some periods of suicidality, and I understand the dangerous power and seduction of it when one is suffering mental despair.

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