Sharing picture books is a great way to grow social-emotional skills like empathy. Reading a story offers a great opportunity to put yourself in another's shoes and understand how they're feeling. Ask questions as you read - how do you think the characters feel? How would you feel? What would you do in the same situation? Here are some great newer titles that I love and that build empathy! THE BOY WITH FLOWERS IN HIS HAIR by Jarvis One of my absolute favorite picture books of

Did you know that learning about shapes helps with learning letters and numbers? It does! Being able to recognize shapes helps with...

Every month I share a booklist to go along with the theme of the program I'm doing at my library that month. This month we're exploring...

The past couple of days, I had the opportunity to work at my library's maker booth at Denver's FanExpo. I've done it several times...

More books for babies! We might be getting a little more complicated here, but not much. But books will start having more of a story arc rather than a series of connected images. Some of my favorites* for this age: *[Check back - I'll put my newest additions at the top!)] ROSA LOVES DINOSAURS by Jessica Spanyol (and all the Rosa and Clive books) Join Rosa, a child with curly hair and glasses, as she plays with her dinosaurs. All of the Rosa and Clive stories are about a child

So, first, I admit, "babies" is a broad category. There is a difference between what a newborn might respond to versus a 9 month old...

*[cross-posted on In The Writer’s Web] I realized recently that two of my manuscripts have unreliable narrators. One is a “voice...

What do toddlers like in picture books? What kinds of books will keep them most engaged? Young toddlers are still developing their eyesight, so super-complicated images with lots of detail might be harder to decipher. They need more information spelled out in the text, and a simpler plot with fewer sentences - one or two per page - as their attention spans are short. VERY short. Toddlers, in general*, love: books with repeated refrains, simple concepts (counting, colors, numb