The Children's Book Podcast

Daria Peoples-Riley (@dariaspeoples) shares I GOT NEXT. In her sequel to THIS IS IT, Daria explores allyship through a coming-of-age story on a community basketball court where decisions are made in a moment, and where how you play and what space you make for others is on display for all to see. Daria’s beautiful, layered work says volumes on how she sees children, development, activism, and resilience among failure. I hope this conversation resonates with you as it did me. You can access even more information about this book and its author by visiting www.matthewcwinner.com/podcast. Thank you to this week's sponsors: Libro.fm And to the generous support from our Patrons. --- Send in a voice message: https://anchor.fm/childrens-book-podcast/message

Raakhee Mirchandani (@Raakstar) joins the podcast to share SUPER SATYA SAVES THE DAY. When readers meet Satya, the story’s namesake, we have only to take Satya at her word that her beloved cape makes her super. Unfortunately, her cape is still at the dry cleaners and Satya will need to face a day of school without it. Lots of things go wrong for Satya, leading the reader to acknowledge alongside Satya that maybe this cape really does contain some super special powers. Or maybe what we all need is a chance to step back and reframe these circumstances with a fresh perspective. Raakhee has poured a whole lot of love and truth-seeing into her debut and it translates to a story that meets children where they are, makes space for them to feel and believe whatever they choose, and is there to celebrate the child’s affirmation of their inner strength and fortitude. In short, we need a whole lot more people like Raakhee in front of children. Lucky us, we have this beautiful book. You can access even more information about this book and its author by visiting www.matthewcwinner.com/podcast. Thank you to this week's sponsors: Libro.fm And to the generous support from our Patrons. --- Send in a voice message: https://anchor.fm/childrens-book-podcast/message

Ishta Mercurio (@IshtaWrites) and Jen Corace (@corachacha) share SMALL WORLD, their new picture book. The story circles around Nanda, a girl who dreams of space. As Nanda grows, her experience of the world and also her view of the world grows. In that way it’s a story of expanding circle, like tossing a stone into a pond and observing the ripples outward. Ishta talks of searching for those right words that feel good in your mouth. The result is a poetic text that mimics in feeling the patterned and precise and vibrant illustrations Jen created. Jen comments that the work she was doing at the time on the book felt innate and that she had in mind the science and math that surrounds us all the time. What we are left to hold in our hand is a book and a story that resonates out to readers and out through readers. You can access even more information about this book and its author by visiting www.matthewcwinner.com/podcast. Thank you to this week's sponsors: Libro.fm And to the generous support from our Patrons. You can support The Children's Book Podcast through: PayPal (one time donation of support) Patreon (sustaining support) --- Send in a voice message: https://anchor.fm/childrens-book-podcast/message

Kevin Noble Maillard (@noblemaillard) and Juana Martinez-Neal (@juanamartinez) share FRY BREAD, their upcoming picture book. We talk about culture and tradition and family and history. We also talk a lot about Kevin’s Aunt Fannie. There is a story behind the entire nature of fry bread and the way Kevin’s text approaches that story is through affirmation statements of what fry bread is and what it means. The book’s narrator walks the readers from the concrete and tangible into the abstract and ineffable, and the journey is helped along with great care from Juana’s beautiful illustrations. The way this book’s characters are in relation to one another, at times following, or playing, or participating, or listening draws out an intimacy in their togetherness, and it’s in that intimacy that the reader is invited into this experience. Kevin reminds us all in this conversation that there are many different ways that people can be Native, and I think it’s fair to say that this author-illustrator pairing accomplishes that message beautifully. There is also wonderful and robust narrative back matter waiting for readers of any age to explore and expand their knowledge even further. In short, this book has a bounty of goodness to go around and I think you will find yourself quite comforted and cared for and brought into the story, allowing space for you, in turn to comfort and care for and bring closer those cultures and customs of our Indigenous brothers and sisters so that they may be honored and respected. You can access even more information about this book and its author by visiting www.matthewcwinner.com/podcast. Thank you to this week's sponsors: Libro.fm And to the generous support from our Patrons. You can support The Children's Book Podcast through: PayPal (one time donation of support) Patreon (sustaining support) --- Send in a voice message: https://anchor.fm/childrens-book-podcast/message

Illustrator Keith Henry Brown shares BIRTH OF THE COOL, which is written by Kathleen Cornell Berman. This picture book biography of the great jazz legend Miles Davis and his journey to find a sound that was beautifully and uniquely his own. That sound took him places. That sound was the birth of the cool. Keith’s depiction of Miles Davis is art that shouts music, and art that lives and breathes its subject matter. We follow Miles through childhood and into his formative years, through success to the threat of being forgotten to history and back out again on the stage of the Newport Jazz Festival. It’s a story rich with means and desire and the reminder that we all have to face something in this life. You can access even more information about this book and its author by visiting www.matthewcwinner.com/podcast. Thank you to this week's sponsors: Libro.fm And to the generous support from our Patrons. You can support The Children's Book Podcast through: PayPal (one time donation of support) Patreon (sustaining support) --- Send in a voice message: https://anchor.fm/childrens-book-podcast/message

Miranda Paul (@Miranda_Paul) joins to share LITTLE LIBRARIES, BIG HEROES. With more than 75,000 registered Little Free Libraries (LFLs) in eighty-eight countries around the world, there is great chance you’ve passed an LFL in your neighborhood at some point. This simple idea designed to build and support community around reading provides no-cost access to books any time of day and they’ve been popping up in some really unexpected locations, including restaurants, grocery stores, and barbershops as well as those you’ll find nestled into neighborhoods. I was not aware of LFLs’ founders, Todd Bol and Rick Brooks, or that the idea took some time to finally take root.  Reading Miranda’s story feels part love letter to the LFL founders and part reminder that we all have the capacity to be heroes in our neighborhoods. The text in this story is straightforward and empowering, and John Parra’s art brings something more in the form of seamlessly blending together the dreaming and the doing. It’s a book you will want to put in readers’ hands over and over. You can access even more information about this book and its author by visiting www.matthewcwinner.com/podcast. Thank you to this week's sponsors: Libro.fm And to the generous support from our Patrons. You can support The Children's Book Podcast through: PayPal (one time donation of support) Patreon (sustaining support) --- Send in a voice message: https://anchor.fm/childrens-book-podcast/message

Shannon Hale (@haleshannon), Dean Hale (@Halespawn), and LeUyen Pham join to share their bestselling PRINCESS IN BLACK series. There’s a bit of a conference din hovering throughout the background of this recording, but there is also a whole lot of humor and a whole lot of heart. As Shannon shares about making books with Dean, “we coauthor a lot of things, and some are alive”! We were in the middle of a very huge exhibit hall at the American Library Association’s annual conference in Washington DC this past June. We had just recorded a live episode with Cece Bell and Kate DiCamillo on a great big stage in front of a whole bunch of super nice people who got up early in the morning to join us. The exhibit hall was just getting busy with crowds and signing lines and giveaways and sales pitches. And we snuck into some unmarked tabled area behind some big heavy curtains, because that’s how we roll. You can access even more information about this book and its author by visiting www.matthewcwinner.com/podcast. Thank you to this week's sponsors: Candlewick Press And to the generous support from our Patrons. --- Send in a voice message: https://anchor.fm/childrens-book-podcast/message

Theresa Thorn (@theresathorn) and Noah Grigni join to share IT FEELS GOOD TO BE YOURSELF: A BOOK ABOUT GENDER IDENTITY. There are more conversations about gender going on than perhaps ever before, but there are also lots and lots of adults and kids alike who are not quite sure exactly how to talk about gender. In Theresa and Noah’s debut picture book, readers meet four different children who each identify differently from one another in terms of gender. The narrator introduces each child by sharing how that child identifies now and how that may have changed, then the narrator provides language to help describe each of these varying gender identities. As we discuss in the conversation, the narrator is that of a guide and onlooker with us, the readers, but the narrator also uses lots of non-definitive language in order to help communicate the fluidity and varied nature of gender identity.  Theresa puts it best when she says, “We all have a sense of gender that belongs to us”. I hope that you, dear listener, find that there is space for you in this conversation as well. And for your students, your friends, and your family members. You can access even more information about this book and its author by visiting www.matthewcwinner.com/podcast. Thank you to this week's sponsors: Libro.fm Storyteller Academy And to the generous support from our Patrons. --- Send in a voice message: https://anchor.fm/childrens-book-podcast/message

Dallas Hunt (@Dallas_Hunt) shares AWASIS AND THE WORLD-FAMOUS BANNOCK. Awâsis is bringing some of her Kôhkum’s bannock to a relative but she accidentally drops the world-famous bannock off a bridge. She meets several forest relatives on her way back to Kôhkum including a duck,  a rabbit, a frog, an owl, and a bear. And while each is not able to provide bannock, one-by-one the forest relatives offer comfort and generosity in the form of ingredients. Dallas speaks to me about the importance of putting Cree first when writing this story. He also shares a brief and complex history of bannock, an important food to Indigenous people, both now and during historic times of massive and purposeful starvation. There is so much to talk about in this beautiful, beautiful picture book. You can access even more information about this book and its author by visiting www.matthewcwinner.com/podcast. Thank you to this week's sponsors: Libro.fm Storyteller Academy And to the generous support from our Patrons. --- Send in a voice message: https://anchor.fm/childrens-book-podcast/message

Adib Khorram (@adibkhorram) shares DARIUS THE GREAT IS NOT OKAY. In Adib’s debut novel we meet Darius, a nerdy, overweight, Iranian-American boy who you will love deeply from the outset. I was rooting for Darius hour by hour as I listened to this audiobook, and what I was left with each time I paused to step away from the story was the picture of a complex if not broken kid who is seeking the realest connection to those around him, but feels perhaps like he’ll be denied it because he’s not what he thinks others want him to be. But perhaps I’m putting too much of myself onto the story and onto my description here. Because Darius was a character with whom I identified with strongly. The book, as Adib puts it, is a love story of a friendship. You can access even more information about this book and its author by visiting www.matthewcwinner.com/podcast. Thank you to this week's sponsors: Libro.fm Storyteller Academy And to the generous support from our Patrons. --- Send in a voice message: https://anchor.fm/childrens-book-podcast/message