Breaking the Rules (But Learning Them First)

Contained within Jaclyn Moriarty’s A Corner of White are rules for writing a fantasy novel. Madeleine, a girl living in the recognizable world of Cambridge, England, informs her correspondent, Elliot, a boy living in the fantasy kingdom of Cello (whom she doesn't quite believe in), that, “You've got to get your science figured out up front!” and “You're way too hokey and sweet. You need an edge.” Then she worries that maybe he plans “to rip off Philip Pullman's Northern Lights.”

“Fantasy was a new genre for me and I was very conscious of giving ...

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Naming the Monster

When novelist Meg Medina talks about her own experiences with bullying, the pain in her voice is still acute. “There's a shame to it,” she says, quietly. “You start to wonder if there really is something wrong with you.”

The title and first line of Medina's new book, Yaqui Delgado Wants to Kick Your Ass, is taken nearly word for word from a threat Medina received as a teenager. “Someone approached me and said, 'So and so is going to kick your ass.' And I had no idea who that person was, no clue why I was targeted ...

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Future Past Perfect

Karen Healey's vision of the future in her third book for young adult readers, When We Wake, is a pretty depressing one. Houses built half underground, strict water rationing, the collection of human feces for compost (humanure) – these are all realities for the population of Australia in 2128. As is strident immigration control and rampant xenophobia. Habitable land is shrinking and people are anxious to maintain their share.

This is the world 16-year-old Tegan Oglietti wakes up to after 100 years of cryonic sleep. “I wanted to write a modern sleeping beauty story,” Healey says from her home in ...

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John Green on the 'Intractable Injustice of the Human Condition'

The first time Hazel meets Augustus she riffs about the inevitability of human oblivion; Augustus happens to be the kind of guy who likes that sort of thing. It’s also on both their minds. They're smart, curious, well-read kids who happen to have cancer and who happen to fall in love. The Fault in Our Stars has sparked deep reactions in both teens and adults; John Green talked to us about why.

There are many references to poems, books and movies in your book, including the title. Did you know what you were going to use before you ...

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Kindness and ‘Wonder’

Wonder’s August Pullman is just your average 10-year-old boy, except that he’s never gone to school before, and his face doesn’t look like other kids’. When his parents decide that fifth grade might be a good starting point for his public education, Auggie is both excited and horrified. Nothing prepares him, though, for the relationships—both good and bad—he finds there, and the intensity he experiences just being a face in the crowd. Here, R.J. Palacio talks about the little girl at the ice-cream shop who started it all.

Find more of the Best Children ...

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‘Don’t Turn Around’: Michelle Gagnon’s First Thriller for Teens

When Noa wakes up on a hospital table at the beginning of Don’t Turn Around, she has no idea where she is or why she is there. Her instincts tell her to run and—after living for years on her own or in foster homes—she knows to trust them. Luckily, she soon meets up with Peter, who has problems of his own: He's managed to attract the attention of men involved in illegal activities, leading him to run away from home. The two of them team up to find out who kidnapped Noa, who stole Peter's ...

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Kekla Magoon: "Your Little Part Can Help"

In Fire in the Streets, Maxie wants more than anything in the world to be a Black Panther. Stuffing envelopes and making phone calls at the local Black Panther office isn't her idea of fighting for civil rights. But when the movement starts affecting the people she loves the most, she discovers that being a Black Panther isn't the end of her hard work—it's the beginning of even harder work.

Author Kekla Magoon discusses how, in any fight for social change, every small role matters, even if history never knows their names.

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Rebecca Stead's Post-Newbery Stunner 'Liar & Spy’

In Liar & Spy, after Georges' family moves into a new apartment, he spends a lot of time watching America's Funniest Home Videos with nobody but a print by Seurat (his namesake) for company. His dad is trying hard to build up a clientele, and his mom is working double shifts at the hospital to keep the family afloat.

But when Safer, the boy who lives upstairs, starts giving him spying lessons, Georges finds more than he expected in his new home. Rebecca Stead talks about families, names and the writing life after the Newbery.

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‘Moonbird’: The Poster Boy for Shorebirds

Rufa red knot B95 is no stranger to long commutes. Every year he makes a trip from Argentina to the Canadian Arctic and back, and he's been doing this for at least 20 years, even as his species suffers a dramatic decline in numbers.

While the rufa red knots face extinction, birders and casual onlookers alike cheer on this amazing creature. Phillip Hoose, author of the sublime The Race to Save the Lord God Bird and a longtime conservationist, follows the trek of B95, otherwise known as the titular Moonbird, to experience for himself the wonder of something so ...

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Laura Powell: Crafting a Modern Magical Thriller

When Lucas discovers that he's a witch of superior powers, he's not pleased. His family has long been on the other side of the law, managing witches and persecuting those who stray across the criminal and civil boundaries.

But when he meets someone just as new to witchcraft as he is, they form a team that makes him think he might still have a role to play in his father's world. In Burn Mark, Laura Powell blends historical solutions with a modern-day vision to create a world that is both suspenseful and eerie.

Find more urban fantasy ...

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Catch ‘Fenway Fever’

Season tickets have belonged to Stats' family for a couple of generations, so Stats gets to see a lot of baseball games. But in Fenway Fever, the 2012 season is gearing up to be a rough one—the Red Sox are playing badly, and the Fenway crowds are treating them even worse.

Is the losing streak going to last all season? Can a young boy with family problems and health issues help the team find their stride? Perhaps magic really can happen on the famous field even after the professionals have gone home. John Ritter shares his love of the ...

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East Collides with West in ‘Ichiro’

In the new graphic novel Ichiro, when the title character travels to Japan with his mother, he has mixed feelings about staying with his grandfather in a country he's never known before.

A visit to the Hiroshima Peace Memorial Museum brings Ichiro’s feelings of confusion and displacement into even sharper relief. When he accidentally slips into another world and meets the legendary creatures of Japan's folk history, he learns more about himself and the real world than he ever considered.

Find more books for teens in which East meets West.

Here Ryan Inzana talks about the importance ...

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Celebrating Friendships Among Boys

In Boy21, two teenage boys come together because of tragedy and stay together out of necessity. As friends, Finley and Russ, both basketball players, have a better chance of overcoming the odds against them in their rough town.

Matthew Quick discusses the relationship between his two characters and the importance of all the different teams on which we find ourselves.

Find more books about basketball for teens.

Why do you think books about friendships among teenage boys are important?

One of things I noticed when I was teaching high school is that teenage boys find that they really rely on ...

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Nat Love, Cowboy Extraordinaire

Mother-and-son writing team Patricia C. and Fredrick L. McKissack Jr. take on the legendary figure of Nat Love, a black man who fled tedious conditions in the post-war South to become a famous cowboy known for his bravery and skill with both horse and gun.

Distinctively illustrated by Randy Duburke, Best Shot in the West: The Adventures of Nat Love bursts from the pages with a vibrancy this dramatic character would've appreciated.

Find more books about African-Americans in the Old West.

One thing I love about Nat Love is that he's not perfect. He's a great horseman ...

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The Birmingham Children's March: A Story That Needed to Be Told

When we listen to President Barack Obama deliver a speech, some of us may recall the sacrifices required to get to this place in history, but others have forgotten—or never knew—the whole story of the civil rights movement in America.

Cynthia Levinson has found that many adults have never heard of the Children's March that happened in Birmingham, Ala., in 1963, in which hundreds of children were jailed after marching for civil rights. With We've Got a Job, she hopes to inform both children and adults. Here, Levinson discusses her everyday heroes and why their stories ...

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Writing is More Than Making Money

In The Amazing Adventures of John Smith, Jr., aka Houdini, when the protagonist decides to write a book, it's not to gain insight on his character or bring a sense of logic to his life. It's to make money.

Find more books about kids who write.

After all, his parents are both exhausted from working too hard, and his older brother is fighting in Iraq—his family could use some extra income. But Houdini discovers more than a get-rich-quick scheme between the pages of his notebook. He learns about his friends, his parents, his brother, even himself. Peter ...

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'Little Bunny Foo Foo' Redux

Preschool children all over the world are familiar with the cautionary tale of Little Bunny Foo Foo. But what grudge did that rabbit harbor against the field mice?

Read more new and notable children's books.

Perhaps they weren't as innocent as we've all been led to assume. Cori Doerrfeld examines the other side of the story in her new picture book, Little Bunny Foo Foo: The Real Story—see who you're cheering for at the end. Here she talks about how she came up with idea of turning an old story on its head, and what ...

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Joseph Monninger: Teens, Horses and Road Trips

Horse fever strikes most girls at some point, but perhaps not as irrevocably as it does Hattie, who, along with her friend Delores, kidnaps a horse bound for euthanasia and drives him out West in hopes of giving him the chance of being a wild horse, if only for the short time he has left.

But an ailing horse isn't the only reason to escape from their small New Hampshire town in Joseph Monninger's Finding Somewhere. As they put the miles between themselves and their families, both girls begin to realize that life is a series of beginnings ...

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Magic on the Lower East Side

New York City in the early 20th century was filled with street vendors, chimney sweeps and...magicians? At least according to Chris Moriarty, author of The Inquisitor's Apprentice. Sacha Kessler and Lily Astral navigate the complex world of magic, confronting spookily familiar figures like James Morgaunt and Harry Houdini. The first in a new series, The Inquisitor's Apprentice offers entertainment plus an important perspective on immigration.

Find more great fantasy & science fiction among our 2011 Best Books for Children.

It's interesting to read about historic immigration in the midst of the contemporary news about the same subject ...

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A Conversation with Colin Meloy & Maile Meloy

Prue and Janie will probably never meet since they live between different covers. But they’d like each other. They’re both smart, resourceful, open to possibility and willing to try their best at saving their respective imagined worlds, even at risk to their own lives. Maybe they’d get along because their creators—Colin Meloy and Maile Meloy—are brother and sister who share an early history of reading lists and family discussions about ideas. Here Colin, the leader of the band the Decemberists, and Maile, a writer of award-winning adult fiction, discuss their debut children’s novels and ...

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