When you' re Grades 7 to 9 you're kind of stuck in the middle, in transition. No longer a kid, you’re not yet a teen and being called “tween” just sounds like your nine-year-old little sister.    You want to wear makeup because you’ve seen other girls do it, but your parents say, “No, when you’re older.”  You wish that you could be all popular with the ladies—like that that guy in your class who seemed to have grown three feet since last summer—but you cannot even muster the linguistic skills to say, “Hello,” to that girl you like in homeroom class. You are attracted to your best friend (boy or girl) but you don’t want to say anything because it will ruin the friendship. You have all of the drama of High School but it is all happening for the first time (and in high definition.) Everyone is developing special interests in something but no one will take yours seriously. Everyone is changing physically and emotionally—there is acne and longer arms and short legs and hair that sticks out all over the place--and you feel like you have been left behind. And everyone (including your best friend since kindergarten…

After the success of last year’s bedtime read, Goodnight, Goodnight Construction Site, Sherri Duskey Rinker and Tom Lichtenheldhave teamed up again with the dreamy picture book, Steam Train, Dream Train; one of our featured titles on May’s Best Bedtime Books. It is always kind of fun when you can get both an author and an illustrator to talk about working together and some of their favourite things. From the answers and photos below, it is clear why these two make such great work together, as they both seem to prefer ice cream over pie and popcorn with their favourite bedtime story.  IKB: This is the second book you've worked on together—first one being—what is your favourite thing about collaboration on a project like this one? Tom Lichtenheld (TL): Being handed a great concept like this is a gift, so I enjoy the challenge of adding little things that match the quality of the original idea and add a few grins here and there. And working with Sherri is a blast. She's got great energy and a healthy, child-like sense of humour. Sherri Duskey Rinker (SDR): Working collaboratively with Tom on this book has, I think, yielded the best of our…

Holly Black returns to Middle Grade fiction with her new book, Doll Bones, which is great news for fanst of her widely successful Spiderwick Chronicles series. Written with a timeless feel that appeals to both young and older readers, Doll Bones is the story of three young friends--Zach, Alice, and Poppy--who are on the cusp between kid and teen. It's also about a very special and very creepy antique doll named the Queen. (That's her on the cover. Spooky.) The Queen has lived in the cupboard in Poppy's living room and features in all the stories created by Zach, Alice, and Poppy's games. The three of them have been playing together long enough to explore a vast world populated with characters who are as real to them as each other. When Poppy tells Zach and Alice that the Queen has a mission for them, the lines between fantasy and reality blur as the three friends go on one final adventure to find her bones and put her soul to rest. Reading Doll Bones as an adult fills one with the nostalgia of how big the world is when you're 12. Black's elegant tale provides action, adventure, and the emotional no…

This past weekend, the children’s lit world lost one of its most beloved authors, E.L. Konigsburg (February 10, 1930 – April 19, 2013). She was 83. The two-time Newbery Award winner is probably best known for her story about two children who run away from home to secretly live in the Metropolitan Museum of Art, From the Mixed-Up Files of Mrs. Basil E. Frankweiler (Newbery in 1967). For me, Konigsburg is among a group of children’s authors like Judy Blume, Beverly Cleary, and Madeline L’Engle, that first published in the 1950s, 1960s, and 1970s and continue to resonate with modern audiences because they tap into how it feels to grow up with deep questions, and what it means to be young and confused and feel like a complete outsider. Whether it was historical fiction or the trials of being on a really crappy baseball team coached by your mother, Konigsberg understood the importance of telling authentic children’s stories that didn’t talk down to the reader, but allowed them to think for themselves.    For many of her novels, such as The Outcasts of 19 Schuyler Place and  The Mysterious Edge of the Heroic World, Konigsburg merged mystery with art history…