Montesquieu said, “We get three educations, one from our parents, one from school, and one from the world. And the third education contradicts the first two.” If that’s even close to being true—and I believe it is—it raises an intriguing question: What is the...

NOTE: I’m on vacation for the next three weeks and won’t be sending out any posts again until late September. So just for fun, I’ll send you off with a little poem by A. A. Milne of Winnie The Pooh fame. It’s called The Emperor’s Rhyme. The King of Peru (Who was...

I’d like to put in a plug for Adam Gidwitz’s middle grade novel, A Tale Dark & Grimm (along with his two sequels, In A Glass Grimmly, and The Grimm Conclusion). The first book is an entertaining retelling of the Hansel and Gretel story like you’ve never heard it...

I want to share three studies I’ve read about kids. Study #1: Researchers found that about 80% of children in kindergarten have healthy self-esteem. For 12thgraders, only 5% have healthy self-esteem. Study #2: Researchers gave a number of essays to a large number of...

You probably know Shel Silverstein, but in case you haven’t read his classic, Where The Sidewalk Ends, let me give you a taste. This book is one of my grandchildren’s favorites, and it’s easy to see why. It’s full of unique, whimsical, playful verse accompanied by the...

Last week we looked at The Tale of Despereaux by Kate DiCamillo—one of my favorite children’s book authors. Her first middle-grade novel, Because Of Winn-Dixie, is the charming story of ten-year-old India Opal Buloni who has just moved to Florida with her dad, whom...

Today, let’s take a peek at Kate DiCamillo’s charming book about the adventures of a mouse, The Tale of Despereaux. One of the reasons I love this book is the way it deals with the struggle to be one’s own unique self—a struggle every child experiences. Despereaux is...

How do you measure the impact of good children’s literature on kids? How do you know when a light comes on? When the imagination is stirred? When a fire is lit? We can’t always know, of course. But I recently read something that got me thinking about this. It’s the...

We’ve been thinking about the role of “wonder” in the lives of children. Today, I want to share these lines from Kahlil Gibran, author of The Prophet.  And a woman who held a babe against her bosom said, Speak to us of Children. And he said: Your children are not your...

While I’m on the subject of the role of wonder in kids’ lives, we should talk about one of the threats to that sense of wonder today: screens—TV, cell phones and internet. Tish Harrison Warren recently had an article in the New York Times titled, “Parents can help...

Children see the world through the eyes of wonder—it’s one of the things that makes them delightful. But I am especially interested in experiences that cause a child to see himself or herself with a sense of wonder—when he is amazed at something he does or when she...

I would like to say a little more about the importance of awe and wonder in the lives of children—starting with a poem from Rumi. Rumi (1207-1273) was a Sufi poet who lived in what is now Turkey. Some say he is the most widely read poet today. The poem I want to share...

Dr. Dacher Keltner, psychologist at U. C. Berkeley, believes that cultivating “awe” and “wonder” can help you be healthier and happier. That’s the premise of his book, Awe: The New Science of Everyday Wonder and How It Can Transform Your Life. That got me to thinking...

I love stories. I think there’s a little bit of magic that happens when someone tells a story: you’re drawn into the world of the story and that brings a certain delight. So I want to make a BIG PLUG for telling stories—any kind of stories—at dinner time. Yes, I said...

Why do kids love stories so much? Is it just entertainment, a frill? I think there’s more to it than that. I think the love of stories is innate; it’s part of our human software. In fact, human life is a story, and reading good stories to kids helps them make sense of...

In this week’s post I’m going to do something I don’t often do: plug a kids’ TV show. The show is Wishbone, an American half-hour live-action children's show produced from 1995 to 1997. It was originally broadcast on PBS and won four Daytime Emmys, a Peabody Award,...

As we’re deep into Spring, I want to share one of my favorite passages from The Wind in the Willows, by Kenneth Grahame, published in 1908. At the beginning of the story, Mole has been working hard all morning cleaning his little underground home. But Spring is moving...

Continuing my research into the world of children… Bettie B. Youngs, author of How To Develop Self-Esteem In Your Child, talks with a lot of kids and she’s collected their responses to the question, “What do you want from your parents?” Hint: they don’t say more toys...

My four-year-old granddaughter Mirabel came into my office and announced, “I want to make a book!” (She had seen her older sister do this and wanted in on the action.) We folded some sheets of paper together, stapled them, and numbered the pages. Then I asked her,...

Here’s another insight into the minds of children from Patricia Berne’s great book, Building Self-esteem In Children. Berne believes that “Nothing is as effective in building children’s self-esteem as success…Self-esteem cannot grow healthily without some success to...

Last week I mentioned the classic book, Building Self-Esteem In Children by Patricia H. Berne, an elementary teacher, children’s therapist, writer, and mother. Berne did her writing at home and was often interrupted by her girls who wanted to share their schoolgirl...

In her wise and wonderful book, Building Self-Esteem in Children, Patricia H. Berne (with her co-writer and husband Louis M. Savary) tells about receiving a letter from her daughter that included these words: “This may sound awful, but it’s nice to have people worry...

“Why do I have to do this?” “It’s so boring!” “I’ll never need to know this!” We’ve all heard the complaints from kids—and we’ve probably made them. Children’s therapist Eileen Kennedy-Moore, PhD, believes it’s important to explain to kids the value of doing such “no...

Somewhere I read a study which found that 80% of five-year-olds have a healthy self-image. By the time they’ve reached twelfth grade, only 5% do. So what happens? Eileen Kennedy-Moore, PhD, has written a book that helps us think about that. It’s titled, Kid...

I think there are times when we would all like to be able to get inside the heads of the children we know, to better remember and understand what it’s like to be them. There are plenty of middle grade and young adult novels that help us with that, as well a number of...

As background research for my next middle-grade novel, I’m reading some books on issues related to adolescent development and self-esteem in kids. I thought I would share some of the tidbits I find. For example, in How To Develop Self-Esteem In Your Child: 6 Vital...

I just read a new collection from the late C. S. Lewis (of Chronicles of Narnia fame) entitled, On Writing (and Writers). I wanted to share some things he says about children’s literature. He starts: “I am almost inclined to set it up as a canon that a children’s...

I want to give a plug for E. L. Konigsburg’s charming, insightful children’s novel, From The Mixed-Up Files Of Mrs. Basil E. Frankweiler. It’s a gem. Claudia Kincaid is “one month under twelve” when she decides to run away from home. Here is how the story begins:...

I just wanted to send out a quick note about the amazing boxed set of Roald Dahl books now available on Amazon—just in case any of you don’t know about this The set includes 16 of Dahl’s magical stories including his greatest hits: Charlie and the Chocolate Factory,...

One of my favorite children’s book authors is Kate DiCamillo. You may know her from Because Of Winn-Dixieor The Tale of Desperaux, both delightful. But today I want to recommend her book, The Miraculous Journey of Edward Tulane, which begins: “Once, in a house on...

I’d like to start the year by giving a plug for one of my very favorite young adult novels: Marcelo In The Real World, by Francisco X. Stork. If you want something to recommend to a young adult reader, or if you’re looking for a read that will inspire you for the New...

As a kind of holiday/new year greeting I would like to share an excerpt from my kids’ novel, The Tale of Hodgepodge. Hodgepodge was a baby hippo, abandoned at birth in the jungle, then found and adopted by Moxie the elephant. When he grew up and realized he was a...

I’d like to give a plug for Shel Silverstein’s book, Where The Sidewalk Ends, in case you haven’t read it. It’s a delightfully witty and inventive collection of humorous poems and drawings by the celebrated author of The Giving Tree, A Light In The Attic, and many...

In his book, Myth As Fairy Tale, Jack Zipes discusses why classical fairy tales have endured. He says: “The classical fairy tale makes it appear that we are all part of a shared community with shared values and norms, that we are all striving for the same happiness.”...

  In the last chapter of his book, Feeling Like A Kid, Jerry Griswold points out that one big difference between adult literature and children’s literature is that in books for kids, everything is often alive—from the White Rabbit in Alice in Wonderland to...

  We’ve been following Jerry Griswold’s book, Feeling Like A Kid. In Chapter Four he introduces another major theme in children’s literature: lightness vs. heaviness. We see the love of “lightness” in the way kids are dazzled by kites and helium balloons, zoom on...

Children are fascinated with smallness, says Jerry Griswold in his book, Feeling Like A Kid. So it’s no surprise that littleness is a frequent topic in children’s literature: Alice shrinking, Dorothy among the Munchkins, Stuart Little in his little car, Little Red...

  We grownups are sometimes tempted to imagine childhood as sweet and innocent. (No wonder many children’s stories are sentimental and saccharine.) But the truth is, being a kid is scary—says Jerry Griswold in his book, Thinking Like A Kid. Remember the terror of...

Kids love snug places. They like to play underneath tables or make tents from blankets and chairs or find secret hideaways. In his book, Feeling Like A Kid, Jerry Griswold shows that Snugness is a big theme in children’s literature—from Badger’s cozy underground home...

What does it actually feel like to be a kid? Jerry Griswold, director of the National Center for the Study of Children’s Literature, has written an insightful little book that helps us with that. It’s called Feeling Like A Kid. Griswold says there are five themes that...