Books

Writing for children can mean writing about a child, writing for a child, or, sometimes, writing like a chid.  April Stevens has written an engaging novel about a singularly charming offbeat character by  thinking like this particular child. Without condescending or resorting to child-speak, she writes about being an 11-year-old girl.  Simple, everyday things happen in this quiet significant middle-grade book. But, for this child and the reader, they are monumental. 

Allen Blagden, a lover of all animals and  prolific painter of the natural world,  says he might have been a feral child. Growing up in Lake­ville he was always happiest out of doors. Blagden’s father, Tom Blagden, was the legendary Hotchkiss art teacher and Blagden says he remembers beginning to draw at about the same time that he learned to walk. The Blagden house was full of crayons, watercolors, paper and paint for the children to use. 

These days it seems as though a frightening number of Americans are absolutely convinced of the reality of one or more things that other Americans realize are patently untrue. From anti-vaxxers to anti-GMOers, from JFK’s assassination to Hillary’s child pornography ring, we no longer live in the same country, or even the same world, as our friends and neighbors.

I’ve been going to New York Comic Con for a number of years. At the 2017 edition this past weekend, I was once again struck by how much of the show is geared toward readers of books rather than of comic books.
Mainstream publishers HarperCollins, Macmillan, Hachette, Simon & Schuster and Penguin Random House all had booths on the Javits Center convention floor. And given the fact that Penguin Random House also owns Crown, Knopf, Doubleday and Del Rey, that adds up to a lot of books — not to mention a lot of author appearances and book signings.