Tag Archive for: authors

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Children’s Books by Adult Authors

The Children’s Books of Virginia Woolf, James Joyce, Chinua Achebe & Others

We Too Were Children, Mr. Barrie is a (relatively) new blog devoted to lesser-known, out-of-print children’s books by ‘adult authors’. New finds are uploaded each week by Ariel S. Winter, some of which include picture books by Virginia Woolf, James Joyce, Chinua Achebe and Theo Le Sieg (aka Dr. Seuss – not strictly an adult author per say, but he did use this pseudonym for several books which he wrote but did not illustrate).

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Books: Dickens found joy in ‘A Christmas Carol’

After years of writing feverishly, Charles Dickens desperately needed a break from his demanding schedule and money to finance a year abroad.

England's best-known author hoped "A Christmas Carol," a tale about ghosts haunting the miserly Ebenezer Scrooge, would be his ticket to a yearlong Italian vacation for him, his wife, five children and servants.

"He lived very lavishly. He entertained very lavishly. ... Money was a concern," said Michael Slater, a London-based scholar and author of a new Dickens biography from Yale University Press.

But Dickens also had a nobler motivation. During "the hungry 1840s," rural people crowded into urban tenements and children worked under frightful conditions in factories and mines.

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Novels and novelists quizz

This Friday Brain-Teaser from xrefer tests your knowledge of novels and novelists.  (I filed this away in 2005 and just stumbled on it again now.  It is just as relevant now as it was then)

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Authors boycott schools over sex-offence register

    • Respected British children's authors Anthony Horowitz, Philip Pullman and Michael Morpurgo object to a new government scheme that requires them to register their names on a database in case they pose a danger to children

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Respected British children's authors Anthony Horowitz, Philip Pullman and Michael Morpurgo object to a new government scheme that requires them to register their names on a database in case they pose a danger to children

  • A group of respected British children's authors and illustrators will stop visiting schools from the start of the next academic year, in protest at a new government scheme that requires them to register on a database in case they pose a danger to children.  ... more
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Author throws party to benefit school


Children’s author Cynthea Liu believes in putting her money where her mouth is. And she’s succeeded in encouraging others to put their money down for a good cause. Liu, a native of Oklahoma and author of The Great Call of China, launched her second book for middle-grade readers, Paris Pan Takes the Dare (Putnam, June), with an online "slumber party," featuring an auction to benefit a Title I school in an impoverished and crime-ridden area in Oklahoma City. more » » »

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Like Far Out – Meet Shaun Tan


Award-winning author/illustrator Shaun Tan was already a star in his native Australia before he first gained nationwide attention in the U.S. with his brilliant wordless graphic novel, The Arrival (2007). Tan follows up with 15 extraordinary illustrated stories in Tales from Outer Suburbia (2009, both Scholastic/Arthur A. Levine Bks.).

Were you surprised that The Arrival was such a hit in this country?
I was surprised that people reacted so positively to it because I was expecting it would be a disadvantage, in some ways, with a wordless book. I always worry that my work will seem obscure and that people will not know where to shelve it. But I’ve learned that the key to illustrated books is to let the reader do the work. more » » »

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The Two Worlds of Annie Barrows


Did you know that Annie Barrows, author of the popular Ivy and Bean series of children's books (Chronicle) and Annie Barrows, co-author of the bestselling adult novel The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society, are one and the same person? "Bless the booksellers’ hearts, but you could knock some of them over with a feather when I tell them about the connection,” says Barrows, currently wrapping up a 15-city tour for the paperback release of Guernsey. more » » »

National Black Book Festival Will Attract Wide Audience

Dozens of authors and thousands of readers will converge on Houston’s George R. Brown Convention Center on May 16 and 17 for the National Black Book Festival.

Featured authors will include Roland S. Martin (Speak Brother! A Black Man's View of America), Mary B. Morrison (Noire, Single Husbands) and Persia Walker (Harlem Redux, Darkness and the Devil Behind Me)

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Chapter and verse: Michael Rosen on why it pays to study children’s literature

Michael Rosen tells Michael Prest how studying and teaching creative writing set him on the road to becoming the Children's Laureate   >>>

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Less Equal Than You’d Think

Are women writers underrepresented in our literary landscape? Elaine Showalter, Princeton University Professor Emerita and author of A Jury of Her Peers: American Women Writers from Anne Bradstreet to Annie Proulx (Knopf) certainly thinks so. On a recent On Public Radio International broadcast, Showalter explained her thoughts:

http://adjix.com/39bc