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Jolene Gutierrez

Summer Blog Series: Jolene Gutierrez

I thought that by writ­ing about a day that is stress­ful and over­whelm­ing, I would help some read­ers see them­selves in this book and I would help oth­ers under­stand what being over­whelmed feels like.

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Steve Sheinkin

Summer Blog Series: Steve Sheinkin

Peo­ple often say you should “write what you know.” Yeah, maybe. I think it’s more impor­tant to focus on some­thing that fas­ci­nates you, some­thing that real­ly fires your curiosity.

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Ellen Oh

Summer Blog Series: Ellen Oh

Author Ellen Oh shares that the idea for Haru, Zom­bie Dog Hero was inspired because “I love dogs. I have two of my own that I spoil more than my human chil­dren. Kiko is a very sweet gold­en doo­dle and Tok­ki is a grumpy coton.”

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Joseph Bruchac photo by Trish Miller

Summer Blog Series: Joseph Bruchac

There are a num­ber of things about my new, mid­dle grade nov­el, Rez Dogs that make it dif­fer­ent from any book I’ve done before. In fact, before I go any fur­ther, I should point out that, even though I am list­ed as the author, I did not write it. 

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Susan Campbell Bartoletti

Summer Blog Series: Susan Campbell Bartoletti

Where did Susan get the idea for The Boy Who Dared? At the age of 17, Hel­muth Hüben­er was the youngest per­son on death row in Nazi Ger­many. What did Hel­muth do? | Her writ­ing advice: Ask a lot of ques­tions. Read more …

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Avi, photo by Kate Milford

2024 Summer Blog Series: Avi

Where do you get your ideas? Best writ­ing tips? This sum­mer I have asked writer friends and col­leagues to answer these same two ques­tions that I am sure they too are con­stant­ly being asked by young peo­ple — their readers.

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Lost in the Empire City Avi

Where Research Takes Me

When you write his­tor­i­cal fic­tion, such as I do, my research can take me any­where and gen­er­al­ly does. Such search­es are helped by a won­der­ful truth: there seems to be a book, an arti­cle, or a mem­oir about any­thing and everything.

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child on smartphone

“Not Lost in a Book”

All of these fac­tors are rad­i­cal­ly mut­ing the love of free deep read­ing at a cru­cial stage in child devel­op­ment. The lit­er­ary book is not what pub­lish­ers want because, quite sim­ply, they are not selling.

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Treasure Island

The Book That Influenced Me

If I had to pick one book—from my ear­ly reading—the one that most influ­enced the way I think about books and the writ­ing of books, it would be Trea­sure Island, writ­ten by Robert Louis Stevenson.

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