“It should be said: Kevin Henkes is a genius,” wrote Bruce Handy in 2007 at the New York Times. I feel a bit like Handy in writing about Penny and Her Song, Henkes’ upcoming book, to be released by Greenwillow Books at the end of February. read more

From an early age, esteemed prolific novelist Christopher Bram incrementally became aware of the lives and works of influential gay authors. He brings forth this wealth of knowledge in his latest book, Eminent Outlaws, which, decade by decade, charts the rise of gay writers, and how each of them contributed to the education, the enlightenment and the social culture of the American homosexual movement. read more

Counting sheep takes on comical new meaning in Matthew Cordell’s over-the-top thematic twist on the arrival of not one but a dozen new siblings to young Davy’s family of sheep, qualifying this author/illustrator’s latest title, Another Brother, as a candidate for understatement of the year. read more

Coretta Scott King Award–winner Vaunda Micheaux Nelson didn't realize until she was an adult that the crowded Harlem bookstore her great uncle owned was one of the centers of the civil rights movement in New York City. Malcolm X., Muhammad Ali and Maya Angelou all visited it. read more