Fauci Fan Club
September 16, 2021 § 2 Comments
“Do you know who that is?” I asked my daughter, as she was unpacking my recent book purchases. Cue tween eye-roll. “Mommy. Ever since the pandemic started, you’ve been all ‘Fauci said this,’ ‘Fauci said that.’ It would be impossible to live in this house and not know who Dr. Fauci is.”
I guess it’s clear I’m a member of the Fauci Fan Club.
COVID-19 may have made Dr. Anthony Fauci a household name, but the scientist’s work and guidance on behalf of the American people predate the pandemic by over fifty years. As director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (NIAID), Dr. Fauci has advised seven US presidents on health issues, including those related to AIDS, West Nile, SARS, Ebola, and now COVID-19. In 2008, he was awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom for his work fighting infectious diseases.
In November 2020, acclaimed children’s writer Kate Messner held a Zoom interview with Dr. Fauci, the contents of which became the basis for Dr. Fauci: How a Boy from Brooklyn Became America’s Doctor (Ages 6-9). Messner hastened—along with illustrator Alexandra Bye and their team at Simon & Schuster—to pull off the impossible. The book was birthed into the world in just seven months, not long after many adults and teens had received their second shots. (The publication timeline for a picture book is typically two-plus years.)
As we now prepare our younger kids to be vaccinated—hopefully sooner rather than later—this book provides an immensely useful place to begin a conversation about the Adult in the Room. Who is Dr. Fauci? How did he become an important voice for science and medicine during some of our country’s most challenging moments? Why can we trust science, and why can we trust him? Finally, what does the doctor have to say to our own aspiring young scientists, to the curious minds of this next generation?
« Read the rest of this entry »Taking Our Cue from Them
June 17, 2021 Comments Off on Taking Our Cue from Them
Is that a naked boy on the cover? Why, yes. Are you mostly just posting about books with neon pink themes this year? Um, maybe.
For me, the biggest challenge of parenting continues to be taking the lead from my kids—and not the other way around. It’s seems simple enough—to guide, not instruct; to support, not push; to listen more and talk less—but it becomes intensely complicated when my own biases, fears, and failures get in the way of seeing my kids for who they are in the moment. Labels are comforting; they help us feel like we’re making sense of the chaos and uncertainty that is our children’s becoming. Look, he’s good at swimming—yes, swimming is his sport! He’s got brains, but she’s got compassion. He’ll never agree to that—he hated it last year. Wait, you want to wear a dress? I thought you hated dresses!
Being a parent can feel a lot like being tied to the end of a yo-yo that someone else is operating, and the whiplash isn’t always pleasant. But when we manage to extricate ourselves from that emotional tether, when we take a step back and observe the messy evolution unfold, we make space for wonder, joy, and acceptance—on both sides.
Upholding traditional gender roles is a trap most of us parents fall into at one time or another (regardless of how many feminist classes we took in college). It starts when our babes are in utero, as we fantasize about the mother-daughter shopping trips or decorate the nursery in a baseball theme, and it continues each time we measure our child against others of the same gender. Shyness in girls is sweet, but shyness in boys might be a sign of weakness. A boy who shows an interest in math confirms what everyone expected, but a girl who shows an interest in math is intriguing—as long as she’s not a dork, because then she’ll struggle socially. It’s OK for her to pick dance as a sport, but he needs a “real” workout. And so the dialogue goes, even if we never utter the words aloud.
And a boy who likes pink? Who wears make-up? What does that imply? What does that signal about the future?
Must it mean anything?
I’m thirteen years into this parenting gig, and the only thing I know for certain is that kids change. They change their minds, their habits, their styles. Sometimes it’s awesome, and sometimes it’s nerve-wracking. Sometimes, it’s along traditional gender lines, and sometimes it’s not. Sometimes it’s a signal of what’s to come, but just as often, it’s not. Most of the time, it has nothing to do with us, though how we react can be everything.
The supremely talented Peter Brown—creator of picture book favorites like Mr. Tiger Goes Wild, My Teacher is a Monster (No, I Am Not), and Creepy Carrots, and author of the equally brilliant chapter series The Wild Robot —has a new picture book out, and it brings the biggest smile to my face every time I read it. It’s also his most personal book to date, based on an incident when Brown was five years old and got into his mother’s make-up drawer. In many ways, it’s a tribute to his mother, whom he credits as being ahead of her time in her ability to validate who he was at every changing moment.
Fred Gets Dressed (Ages 2-6) may be a simple story about self-expression, but its execution is anything but ordinary. Design reigns, characters glow, and nakedness abounds. There’s the supportive mother, joined by a father who plays a small but mighty role. There’s a warm, inviting home, with books, dog, plants, and oversized throw pillows. But at the center of the story, stealing the show, is Fred. Fred is pure exuberance. Fred is that kid whose unbridled enthusiasm you want to bottle. Fred is that kid who prefers to air-dry au naturel (and who doesn’t, really?).
Fred is a boy who, on a whim, dresses up in his mom’s clothes and make-up. And because of his parents’ reaction, there’s no labeling, there’s no foreshadowing, there’s no shame. He’s simply allowed the freedom that comes with non-traditional gender roles. And his beaming smile says it all.
« Read the rest of this entry »Cicada Frenzy (A Father’s Day Post)
June 10, 2021 § 1 Comment
(Past years’ Father’s Day ideas can be found here, here, here, and here.)
The list of things my kids will someday recount to their wide-eyed grandchildren has gotten a lot longer in the past year. First, there was the pandemic. Then, the election (including an insurrection). And now, here in Virginia, we can add the seventeen-year cicada, a rare breed of cicada that hibernates deep underground for seventeen years and then emerges by the billions, filling the air with an incessant, high-pitched siren that could be (if you’re me) initially mistaken for an air raid. These cicadas, living and dead, now line our front steps and cover our shrubs and trees. When they’re not pelting our car windshields or dive-bombing into our hair, their orange-veined wings, protruding red eyes, and undeniable resiliency do inspire something resembling awe.
At least, if you’re my daughter. My teenage son isn’t having any of it. I still shriek every time one lands on me. But my ten-year-old daughter fancies herself something of a Cicada Whisperer. She rescues them from puddles (and my hair). She invites them to crawl on her finger, holds up their two-inch body to her eyes, and examines them closely, reassuring them that she won’t do them harm. As far as I can tell, she spent the last two weeks of the school year setting up hospital wings for cicadas on school grounds and presiding over funerals for the unfortunate ones who didn’t make it.
Not only do I have the perfect new picture book for the budding entomologist in your life, but with Father’s Day around the corner, Ben Brashares and Elizabeth Bergeland’s The Great Whipplethorp Bug Collection (Ages 5-9) does double duty, celebrating a boy, his stay-at-home father, and the globe-trotting grandfathers who came before. It’s a story about summer boredom, the transports of imagination, and the inspiration of backyard bugs. But it’s also a story about a boy questioning his place in a long line of achievers, a boy weighing his own idea of masculinity against that set by traditional gender roles. The writing is pitch perfect, and the art is awesome: quirky and unexpected, a visually enticing combination of tiny pen lines and washes of color that sits somewhere between real life and imagination. Children will love pouring over these pages, and they’ll grow in their understanding of the story’s broader messages with every reading.
« Read the rest of this entry »The Secret to Picking Read-Aloud Chapter Books
May 13, 2021 Comments Off on The Secret to Picking Read-Aloud Chapter Books
How do you choose the chapter books you read to your kids? Maybe you consider whether the subject matter will appeal to them. Maybe you focus on what kind of characters they’ll identify with. Maybe you know they’ll be more likely to sit still for a funny story than one with long descriptive passages. Maybe you reach for a book because it’s one your child has asked you to read, or one you think you should read, or one by an author your child loves.
Whatever your criteria, it’s likely you’re thinking more about the audience than about yourself.
What if I told you your audience doesn’t matter?
OK, that’s not entirely true. Of course, your audience matters. Especially with younger children, there will always be ages and maturity levels to consider. But do you know what matters more than all the things I listed above? What matters the most?
The secret to picking a chapter book your kids will want to hear night after night is to pick one you will enjoy reading.
Your enthusiasm for what you’re reading influences your children’s enjoyment more than anything else. When you’re into a story, your eyes light up. Your voice is more dynamic. You are infinitely more likely to make that story enticing. Suddenly, the dishes in the sink or your buzzing phone fade into the background. Suddenly, there is nothing more important, nothing more exciting, than the mutual experience of immersing yourselves in a fictional world.
It’s tremendously liberating. Don’t enjoy fantasy? Don’t read it. Bored to tears by the likes of Magic Tree House? Save ‘em for your kids to read on their own. By reading aloud to your children, especially after they are reading on their own, you are giving them a precious gift. You’re choosing to prioritize reading in the home. I’m giving you permission to enjoy it as much as your kids do. Heck, I’m telling you your enjoyment will nearly guarantee their enjoyment—and, consequently, all the benefits that come with it.
For me, it always, always comes back to the writing. I’m a sucker for good writing. I love the way beautiful language rolls off the tongue. I love the drama of a perfectly placed sentence. I love smart, funny dialogue. Most of all, I love writing that’s tight. (Ironic, I know, since succinctness is clearly not my own specialty.) If a paragraph starts to drift or ramble, if the pacing of a story wanes, then my attention breaks. I’m no longer present. My heart’s not in it. The magic is broken…for a spell.
In that vein, I enjoyed every moment of Elana K. Arnold’s The House That Wasn’t There (Ages 8-12, younger if reading aloud), which I just finished reading to my ten-year-old daughter. Yes, the story itself has plenty to recommend it—who wouldn’t love middle-school realism with a few teleporting cats thrown in for good measure? But what struck me the entire time I was reading it was how good the writing is. Every sentence is an absolute pleasure to read out loud. It’s tight. It flows beautifully. It filled us with that same warm fuzzies as previous favorites like this, this, and this.
« Read the rest of this entry »Family, Foes, and Frida the Fox
September 17, 2020 § 3 Comments
As my kids have gotten older, reading aloud to both of them together (at the dinner table, because sanity) has largely replaced reading to each one individually. Still, sometimes a book comes along that begs to be read to one and not the other. Natalie Llyod’s The Problim Children series, which recently concluded with Island in the Stars (Ages 8-12), feels as if it were written for my daughter, ever watchful for signs of magic in her own life and fascinated by the dynamics of large families. Lloyd’s plot lines, with their plucky heroines and sinister villains, are evocative of Roald Dahl, another read-aloud favorite, though her writing has a dreamy quality all her own—a perfect match for my daughter’s non-linear brain.
Over the past eighteen months, Emily and I have drawn out reading these books together, savoring them on weekend mornings when her brother wakes up full steam ahead but she’s still content to climb into my bed with her arms full of stuffed sheep, burrowing her sleepy body into mine. When we got to the end of the third and final book, I didn’t tear up just because of the story’s beautiful ending; I know these years of reading together are fleeting.
The fleetingness of childhood is a theme which runs through The Problim Children series, named for the seven siblings at the center of this most memorable family. On the one hand, a series of precipitous events pushes these siblings to grow up in a hurry: in just a few weeks, they must unravel a series of riddles left to them by their late grandfather, rescue their parents from the evil Augustus Snide (nicknamed Cheese Breath), and destroy a fountain of youth without being tempted to drink from it. And yet, even as they tackle these adult problems, the Problim siblings exist in that enticing storybook place outside the realm of the adult world. They march to the beat of their own drum, operating under their own set of rules and decorum. No matter what life deals them, they hold fast to their childlike sense of wonder, their belief in the impossible, and their fierce love for one another.
Love, Pride, and Acceptance
June 30, 2020 § 1 Comment
With Pride parades canceled because of the pandemic, we have to work a little harder to see the rainbows. I didn’t want June to end before I had a chance to raise up one of my favorite recent discoveries (although it came out last year), a book so full of love that when I first got it, I couldn’t stop hugging it to my chest. It’s impossible to read this book without the biggest smile. Not just because the main character is a radiant beam of sunshine in and of himself. Not just because it has some of the most beautiful illustrations I have ever seen (Kaylani Juanita, where have you been all my life?). But because the love these parents shine down on their son is the very best—albeit most difficult—kind of love. It’s a love which sees him, not for who they expect or want him to be, but for who he actually is. It’s a love taught to them by this son—and one echoed in the way he prepares to welcome his new sibling.
It’s a tall order, but the world would be a vastly improved place if we all rose to follow the example of love in this book.
When Aidan Became a Brother (Ages 3-8), written by Kyle Lukoff and illustrated by Kaylani Juanita, is not just another book about welcoming a new sibling. True, in many ways, it’s the “new sibling” book we didn’t realize we were missing. But the book is equally pertinent whether you’re expecting a new family member or not. Aidan doesn’t simply tail his pregnant mom, fantasizing about a new playmate or worrying he’ll suddenly fall to second place. Nope, Aidan’s sets his sights on a larger question: what can he do to ensure his younger sibling feels understood and accepted right out of the gate?
Aidan’s fervent and sometimes nervous desire to become a caring big brother is intimately informed by the struggle he faced in his own first years. “When Aidan was born, everyone thought he was a girl.” The story’s opening spread—a look back into Aidan’s recent past—reveals a pink-decorated room with traditional girl fare: a canopy bed, a dollhouse, and an array of flowery dresses held up by Aidan’s doting mother. Aidan sits before a pink tea set in a pink dress, wearing a look of misery.
Middle-Grade Round Up (Or What I’ve Been Doing on Instagram)
April 4, 2019 § 3 Comments

I’ve been feeling a teensy bit guilty that those of you not on Instagram are missing out on all the mini reviews I’ve been doing over there, particularly of middle-grade books. These books are too good to miss! So, I’ve decided to do occasional “round-up” posts to catch you up. Several of these titles are brand-spanking new; the rest are new within the past year.
« Read the rest of this entry »Keeping the Bails Up
February 14, 2019 § 7 Comments
Desperate times call for desperate measures.
We’ve been doing the eating-dinner-together-as-a-family thing for a long, long time (because bonding! because conversation skills! because better manners!), and let me tell you: I’m not sure it’s all it’s cracked up to be. (Definitely zero improvement on the manners front.) To be brutally honest, right now, in the middle of the worst month of the year, I’m not feeling it, kids. « Read the rest of this entry »