What better way to inspire and foster a lifelong love of reading than by connecting our younger readers with that perfect book. It seems simple, because it is! Books are transformative, they can take us to faraway places, open our hearts and minds, teach us to see each other, and bring us together. It all starts with a book. Here are 20 essential books (classics new and old) for every […]

n honor of this glorious celebration of our freedom to read what we want, let’s pause for a sec and remember there are people out there still trying to take this freedom away for dumb reasons like not wanting their kids to read the word “nipple.”

It’s Banned Books Week, everyone! So go to your library and hug the printed word, embrace thought-provoking prose, enjoy that which others have said you shouldn’t, and lovingly caress your copy of…Where’s Waldo? When you think of banned books, a few controversial classics come to mind: Lolita, for example, or provocative new fiction like Fifty Shades of Grey. […]

This year, The Very Hungry Caterpillar, Eric Carle’s epic tale of an insect who tries and tries but cannot quench the insatiable hunger that drives him, turns 45, which is coincidentally the number of times I have read it out loud to my two-year-old this week. It’s easy to see why the book has endured. […]

Did your friends all decide to have kids without you? Are you a new parent suddenly finding yourself going to several first birthday parties in a row? (Until I had a son of my own, I admit I dreaded these parties, and spent them talking to the other childless adults in the room about something […]