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Girl Power Picture Books of 2024: A Top Ten Round-up by Roxanne Troup | Nerdy Book Club
The world is full of amazing stories and inspiring people. Stories worth knowing. People worth emulating. But how do we expose kids to these stories when we don’t have immediate access to another culture or can’t travel through time? When a person’s story isn’t yet available through mainstream media? Picture books! Picture books are a great way to introduce young…
What books are your kids loving? by Colby Sharp | Nerdy Book Club
It feels wild to think that we only have 7.5 weeks left in the school year. One of my favorite things about the school year is watching my readers and their preferences evolve over the course of our 180 days together. I'd love to know which books the readers you serve are loving these days.…
A Story of Resilience and Sisterhood in Three Summers by Amra Sabic-El-Rayess PhD | Nerdy Book Club
As a genocide survivor, so much of my life has been defined by my survival of the unimaginable during the Bosnian Genocide, as told in The Cat I Never Named. While the physical scars of hate, including the Serb military’s bombing of my home on my birthday, starvation, and isolation of living under the siege…
Black Girl Joy and the Science of Belonging as Explained by Second Graders by Carmen Bogan | Nerdy Book Club
When I first walk through the doors of a new elementary school, the atmosphere is palpable. The place is humming with laughter, chatter, a random teacher’s elevated voice. Somebody is racewalking to the bathroom or dragging to the school office. Learning. It smells like recess sweat. A burst of colorful crayon art depicting friends’ faces…
Bless Our Pets Cover Reveal by Lita Judge | Nerdy Book Club
It was a honor to illustrate this collection of poems curated by Lee Bennet Hopkins. First, because I’ve been a great fan of his work for as long as I can remember. Long after I began reading his poems, I met him at an ALA conference and our conversation is a cherished memory. Second, because…
Author Candy J. Cooper and Editor Susan Dobinick on Shackled: A Tale of Wronged Kids, Rogue Judges, and a Town that Looked Away | Nerdy Book Club
Written by award-winning journalist and Pulitzer Prize finalist Candy J. Cooper, SHACKLED: A Tale of Wronged Kids, Rogue Judges, and a Town that Looked Away (Calkins Creek/Astra Books for Young Readers, April 2, 2023) is the explosive story of the Kids for Cash scandal in Pennsylvania, a judicial justice miscarriage that sent more than 2,500…
The Little Challenge Sleeping Inside Me by Maria Mazas | Nerdy Book Club
FROM CHILDREN’S BOOK EDITOR TO AUTHOR I’d been working as a freelance editor for children’s book publishing houses … and dreaming about writing my own stories. At least, trying to write my own stories! I’d written different beginnings, but few endings. It’s easy to begin a story, much more difficult to finish! So, there was this little challenge sleeping…
The Little Challenge Sleeping Inside Me by Maria Mazas | Nerdy Book Club
FROM CHILDREN’S BOOK EDITOR TO AUTHOR I’d been working as a freelance editor for children’s book publishing houses … and dreaming about writing my own stories. At least, trying to write my own stories! I’d written different beginnings, but few endings. It’s easy to begin a story, much more difficult to finish! So, there was this little challenge sleeping…
Thanks Jon, Mac and Ruth: Inspiration for THIS IS A WINDOW by Lauren Paige Conrad | Nerdy Book Club
For years, I had been ruminating on boundaries to give myself as an illustrator-aspiring author. There were too many open-ended possibilities, and from my perspective just too many other books already. I needed parameters, or maybe a mantra, that guided my book-making, and one that honored the picture book form. To me, that meant intentionally…
Because Everyone Has a Story…by Kate Messner | Nerdy Book Club
There’s nothing quite like the first day of school. That excited-nervous, jittery-joyful anticipation of new classmates, and maybe new friends. Turns out, it’s the same feeling you get when you embark on a huge collaborative project with sixteen other authors whose work you’ve always loved and admired. And it’s also the feeling you get when…
Where Butterfly Came From by Adam Pottle | Nerdy Book Club
Like many Deaf people, I grew up in a hearing family. Sign Language didn’t exist in our house, so I had to do things my family’s way, which meant wearing hearing aids and enduring speech therapy. Because I couldn’t hear myself speak, I’d sometimes mumble or mispronounce something and be chastised for it. My brother’s nickname for me was “freak.” I never believed there was a place for me in the world, because I…
What If…What If…What If by Deborah Freedman | Nerdy Book Club
What is that worm doing, underfoot? That bird flying overhead? Where did the parts of my house come from? Could a character be too shy to appear in its own book? What if… what if… what if…* They usually begin with a question, the books I write, their ideas springing from wonder. Ideas are all…
A Recipe for Book Joy: Collaborative School & Public Library Author Visits by Eti Berland, Emily Day, Kelli Pilmer, Muffy Pinney & Alicia Wiechert | Nerdy Book Club
In Grace Lin’s best-selling nonfiction book, Chinese Menu: The History, Myths, and Legends Behind Your Favorite Foods, she shares that “every mouthful you eat from a Chinese take-out box was born of centuries of ingenuity, myths, and legend” (257). This groundbreaking book urges readers to recognize that our favorite dishes have fascinating and powerful origin…
Time Traveling in Across So Many Seas by Ruth Behar | Nerdy Book Club
When you’re a child it’s so difficult to imagine that all the elders around you were ever children like you. You have the sense that they’ve always been old. That they were brought into the world old. As you grow up, maybe you see a photo of a relative in their youth, and you have…
From the Library to the Page by Uma Menon, Author of My Mother’s Tongues | Nerdy Book Club
Like many other readers and writers, my love of books was born in the library. As a child, I visited the Winter Park Public Library often with my parents, attending story time and browsing through bookshelves. I remember the first book I ever checked out by myself was Chrysanthemum by Kevin Henkes, a book that…
The Joy of Laughter by Sharon G. Flake | Nerdy Book Club
Years ago, in the middle of the night, my older brother Gregory said something so silly it made me laugh until my belly hurt. He and I were young then and not alone in our shenanigans that evening. In my room slept my sister Daphne. Greg shared the middle room with my two brothers, Regenald…
Childhood Adventures in our Age of Surveillance by Amy Noelle Parks | Nerdy Book Club
As a child, I loved E.L. Konigsburg’s book about a brother and sister running away for a week to live in New York City’s Metropolitan Museum of Art. Growing up in the Midwest, I had never seen anything like the automat where Claudia and Jamie could buy everything from pie to baked beans, and sleeping…
We Can be Heroes by Alan Gratz | Nerdy Book Club
With great power comes great responsibility. If you’re a fan of superhero comics or movies, you’ve heard this before. It’s Spider-Man’s motto: With great power comes great responsibility. It’s a lesson Spider-Man learns the hard way. You know the story: Spider-Man is bitten by a radioactive spider that gives him super-strength, and the ability to…
Top Ten Picture Books that Teach Cause and Effect by Abi Cushman | Nerdy Book Club
Using picture books is a fun way to teach children about cause and effect. Understanding cause and effect helps kids develop critical thinking, literacy, and science skills. Here are my favorite picture books that use cause and effect in an engaging way. These books also provide a great model so kids can create their own…
Patterns and Structure, and Surprises by Elana K. Arnold | Nerdy Book Club
I love patterns and structure. This manifests in a variety of ways: at home, I like to eat the same foods, on rotation, at the same times of the day. When I take a walk, I like to trace my way up and down and through the neighborhood in a route that feels pleasing to…
Looking for Shiny Objects: Beginning a Nonfiction Picture Book by Emma Bland Smith | Nerdy Book Club
A writing friend of mine recently told me about a method she uses to begin a narrative nonfiction book. She refers to it as collecting shiny objects, like a crow. She thinks up all the shiny objects about her topic--the anecdotes and facts that attract her, that she finds irresistible--and writes them down. There could…
Ten Informational Picture Books to Learn Something New by Bridgitte Rodguez | Nerdy Book Club
I love to learn! And I love to learn without realizing that I’m learning! Thus, informational picture books are right up my alley. There are many, many informational picture books out there where you can learn something new! Everything from places, people, culture, animals, experiences, emotions, words, languages, you name it. It’s a happy reading…
How Reviewing Books Saves Me From My Terrible Memory . . . Sometimes by Phoebe Sinclair | Nerdy Book Club
I’ve been talking to other people about books for as long as I can remember, but I didn’t start penning my own reviews until around high school. There’s a story I’ve told so many times about how I came to begin reviewing books for my own enjoyment, it’s become self-mythology. Goes like this: I was…
Writing and Grieving through Chinese Food by E. L. Shen | Nerdy Book Club
My father never really cooked Chinese food. Even though he grew up with Cantonese immigrant parents who managed to whip up Peking duck, pork chive dumplings, cha siu bao, and scallion pancakes in a cramped kitchen in Flushing, Queens, the only Chinese dish my dad regularly made was fried rice. Still, he’d brag about how…
JUMPING FOR JOY BUT STILL LOOKING FOR MY DOG by Karen Gray Ruelle | Nerdy Book Club
I love dogs. Ask any of my friends and they’ll tell you. One friend made a rule for whenever we’re together: I’m only allowed to say hello to five dogs per outing. Another friend gave me a t-shirt that says, “Sorry I’m late. I saw a dog.” When I meet my neighbors, I sometimes forget…
Books That Make A Difference by Lorraine Radice, PhD | Nerdy Book Club
When the two big “new year” markers come around - a new school year in September and a new calendar year in January - I like to pause and reflect on the books that have made a difference in my heart and mind over the course of the year. Much like special people or meaningful…
Everywhere Beauty Is Harlem: The Soul of Roy DeCarava by Gary Golio | Nerdy Book Club
In November of 2018, my wife and I checked into a hotel in Brooklyn, not far from Prospect Park. We were there to attend a wedding for our beloved nephew, but with a few hours to roam free, we decided to visit the Brooklyn Museum. It was a decision that would open my eyes, mind,…
Holiday Stories that Resonate: Ramadan, Eid-al-Fitr, and Eid al-Adha by M.O. Yuksel | Nerdy Book Club
Traveling and immersing ourselves in different cultures has the power to transform us, serving as one of the most effective ways to unite people across different backgrounds, and challenging preconceived notions. But when we can’t travel in person, the next best alternative is to travel vicariously through the pages of books. This was my intention…
ON HAUNTINGS by Anne Ursu | Nerdy Book Club
When I was a senior in high school, I came down with the strangest illness. I couldn’t stand without getting severely lightheaded, and I was so exhausted that I could barely move around the house. I missed two weeks of school, and then just as suddenly as the illness came on, it disappeared. But it…
The 2023 Nerdies: Young Adult Fiction Day Two Announced by a Convention of Nerds | Nerdy Book Club
Today marks the last day of the 2023 Nerdy Book Club Awards’ announcements. There are so many fantastic books for young readers. Thank you for everything you do all year to get engaging and relevant books into kids' hands. ! Our final Nerdies’ post shares the second half of the Young Adult Fiction winners. Thank…
The 2023 Nerdies: Young Adult Fiction Day One Announced by a Chapter of Nerds | Nerdy Book Club
Recommendations like the Nerdy Book Club Awards lists, collected from experienced readers and educators, can be useful as one resource when identifying and evaluating titles to include in library collections or offer for independent reading. Nominations for the Nerdy Book Club awards come from scholars, teachers, librarians, authors, illustrators, editors, families and other readers of…
The 2023 Nerdies: Middle Grade Fiction announced by Colby Sharp | Nerdy Book Club
One of my favorite Christmas gifts each year is an email from Doanlyn Miller that contains the winners of the Nerdy Book Club's Middle Grade Fiction winners. She's sent me the list each year for more than a decade, so that I can put together this post. The first thing I do is count how…
The 2023 Nerdies: Longform Nonfiction Announced by Donalyn Miller | Nerdy Book Club
I didn't coin the term "longform nonfiction," but I cannot recall where I learned the term. Probably Teri Lesesne. Longform nonfiction includes various types of nonfiction presented in a format that is NOT poetry, a graphic novel or a picture book. Check out more nonfiction titles in other formats on the Nerdies lists that have…
The 2023 Nerdies: Poetry and Novels in Verse Announced by Donalyn Miller | Nerdy Book Club
In my middle school and upper elementary classrooms, poetry was the licorice of the classroom library. No one was neutral about poetry. Everyone had feelings about it. Many of my students loved to read and write poetry. Others expressed how much they disliked poetry or didn't understand it. As with any sort of reading my…
The 2023 Nerdies: Early Readers and Chapter Books Announced by Alyson Beecher | Nerdy Book Club
Have you ever tried to guess what books would make it to the Nerdies in a particular category? It can be hard. For the Early Readers and Chapter Book category, there was a time that would be very easy to guess possible titles. It seemed like the same authors and the same series were being…
The 2023 Nerdies: Graphic Novels Announced by Katherine Sokolowski | Nerdy Book Club
One of my favorite parts of my winter break from school is when I see the email in my inbox from Donalyn Miller sharing the winners for this year’s Nerdies in the Graphic Novel category. I love to pour over the list, thinking which titles my students are already devouring, which ones I need to…
The 2023 Nerdies: Nonfiction Picture Books Announced by Donalyn Miller | Nerdy Book Club
I love nonfiction picture books. When I taught social studies, I shared biographies and books about geography, history, and culture with my students. My students built their background knowledge about the world and encountered the stories of many people who were unknown to them. I did, too! The best nonfiction picture books feed the joy…
THE 2023 NERDIES: FICTION PICTURE BOOKS ANNOUNCED BY JOHN SCHU | Nerdy Book Club
Happy, happy Tuesday! I’m honored to kick off the thirteenth annual Nerdy Book Club Awards. First up is fiction picture books! A HUGE thank-you to everyone who nominated titles. Congratulations to this year’s winners! A Walk in the Woods by Nikki Grimes; illustrated by Jerry Pinkney and Brian Pinkney “This is my way of showing…
Ask Nerdy: Nawal Qarooni Talks Family Engagement | Nerdy Book Club
In the latest episode of Ask Nerdy, Donalyn Miller and Colby Sharp interview Nawal Qarooni about her work and her new book Nourishing Caregiver Collaborations: Elevating Home Experiences and Classroom Practices for Collective Care. https://open.spotify.com/episode/3mKklMFNYUzFVWoFkdw5aA?si=6D7LDWiETcSIPPu0gJ3Cow You can also watch the interview in the YouTube video below. https://youtu.be/Ria6le892YM?si=dyCWgBlo6ZMS3NWh Nawal Qarooni is a Jersey-City based educator and…
Nominate Your 2023 Favorites for the 13th Annual Nerdies! by Donalyn Miller | Nerdy Book Club
In November, Goodreads, the well-known social media site for readers, opened voting for its annual Goodreads Choice Awards. Many members noticed some disappointing changes. Children’s and middle grade, poetry, and graphic novels were removed from the voting categories. In other words, Dan Santat’s lauded graphic memoir, A First Time for Everything, won the National Book…