I’d been reading picture books to my kids for years before writing my own. I’d always taken pleasure in them but never really considered what a deep art form the genre is. It took creating Libba to figure that out.First, let’s take the words. Like in a song or poem, I wanted to get them just right. …
Over the Thanksgiving holiday, I was in downtown Seattle with visiting family and walked by the former location of the Seattle Mystery Bookshop, which closed a little over a year ago after 27 years of helping readers find great mysteries. If you understand my sadness at that empty storefront, then you probably also understand my …
This week, booksellers from around the country with a specific interest in children’s books gathered in New Orleans for the American Booksellers Association’s annual Children’s Institute, an annual educational conference that was hosted last year in Portland. I attended in my role as children’s book buyer for Queen Anne Book Company in Seattle, but I …
It’s not only kids who get first-day jitters, as we see in School’s First Day of School written by Adam Rex and illustrated by Christian Robinson. This charming picture book introduces a freshly built school who is wondering how the students will like him! He worries about making a good first impression and not everything …
Celebrate all the ways children get ready for the first day of kindergarten in The Class written by Boni Ashburn and illustrated by Kimberly Gee. It’s a cute and chaotic romp of a rhyming book which follows twenty different kids as they prepare for their first day of school! –Green Bean Books, Portland, OR School is …
Last week, booksellers from all around the country converged on Portland, OR for a conference on children’s books and bookselling, hosted by the American Booksellers Association. Some lucky participants registered for half-day and full-day bus tours of Portland area independent bookstores, hopping from neighborhood to neighborhood for 20-30 minute drop-ins (Woefully short!). Here are some …
The holidays are a little brighter for nine Pacific Northwest independent booksellers chosen as recipients of author James Patterson’s bookseller holiday bonuses. Congratulations to: Charnee Rose of Grass Roots Books & Music, Corvallis, OR Earl Dizon of Green Bean Books, Portland, OR Carol Easter and Kevin Sampsell of Powell’s Books, Portland, OR Joan Terselich of Village Books, …
Summer is coming, and if you have kids, that means summer break is coming… What to do, besides sign up for every summer reading program you can find and stock up on books from your local independent bookstore? If you’re in the Portland area, children’s bookstore Green Bean Books is offering two half-day camps. …
We’ve recently featured a couple of Halloween lead-up posts featuring Bigfoot and Zombies, both scarily good. We’ve shown Green Bean Books’ extremely rare, real and actual, big hairy foot! We’ve recapped Queen Anne Book Company’s “Bigfoot Double Feature,” replete with Sasquatch poopcorn, howling and footprint casting. And we introduced a collection of Bigfoot books. We …
Have you heard more howling than usual in your neighborhood? Are kids examining the ground for tracks and unusual scat? Bigfoot/Sasquatch Fever seems to be catching in the Pacific Northwest, in large part due to the creativity and stamina of Martha Brockenbrough and Suzanne Selfors, Washington authors who are promoting their books about elusive, large, …
