All of us at The Winged Pen stand in solidarity with the Black community and their pursuit of justice. Black Lives Matter. Recent events have taken a toll on all of us. While we will try to continue to post about kidlit, writing, and the writing life, we all felt very strongly that we needed to direct our audience toward those voices that need to … Continue reading Amplifying Black Voices
Welcome to Windows & Mirrors, where we feature books that provide us windows to lives outside our own and mirrors to our shared common human experiences. This week we are featuring ONA JUDGE OUTWITS THE WASHINGTONS by Gwendolyn Hooks and illustrated by Simone Agoussoye. The title is a great description of this new fascinating picture book biography. Ona was an enslaved girl who lived with her … Continue reading Featured: ONA JUDGE OUTWITS THE WASHINGTONS by Gwendolyn Hooks
Welcome to Windows & Mirrors, where we feature books that provide us windows to lives outside our own and mirrors to our shared common human experiences. Today we are featuring OTHER WORDS FOR HOME by Jasmine Warga. When life at home begins to get too dangerous for Jude and her expectant mom, they leave her papa and beloved, but rebellious brother behind in Syria and … Continue reading Featured: OTHER WORDS FOR HOME
Welcome to Windows & Mirrors, where we feature books that provide us windows to lives outside our own and mirrors to our shared common human experiences. Today we are featuring SOME PLACES MORE THAN OTHERS by Renée Watson. With a new baby sister due to arrive in a few weeks and a mom who is still trying to force her to wear dresses, almost twelve-year-old … Continue reading Featured: SOME PLACES MORE THAN OTHERS by Renée Watson
Welcome to Windows & Mirrors, where we feature books that provide us windows to lives outside our own and mirrors to our shared common human experiences. Today we are featuring I’M NOT DYING WITH YOU TONIGHT co-written by debut author Gilly Segal and former bookstore owner/director/screenwriter Kimberly Jones. Campbell and Lena have very little in common other than that they’re both at their high school’s football game. Campbell, … Continue reading Featured: I’M NOT DYING WITH YOU TONIGHT
Welcome to Windows & Mirrors, where we feature books that provide us windows to lives outside our own and mirrors to our shared common human experiences. Today we are featuring FOR BLACK GIRLS LIKE ME by Mariama J. Lockington. Eleven-year-old Makeda is black. The family that adopted her is white. When people see Makeda with her white sister or parents, they look back and forth between … Continue reading Featured: FOR BLACK GIRLS LIKE ME
Welcome to Windows & Mirrors, where we feature books that provide us windows to lives outside our own and mirrors to our shared common human experiences. Today we are featuring MY FATE ACCORDING TO THE BUTTERFLY by debut author Gail D. Villanueva. When a giant black butterfly lands on her, Sab knows her life is over. Black butterflies are an omen of death according to … Continue reading Featured: MY FATE ACCORDING TO THE BUTTERFLY
Welcome to Windows & Mirrors, where we feature books that provide us windows to lives outside our own and mirrors to our shared common human experiences. Today we are featuring THE BRIDGE HOME by Padma Venkatraman. Eleven-year-old Viji and her younger sister Rukku quickly discover how vulnerable they are when they run away from their abusive father and try to make a home for themselves … Continue reading Featured: THE BRIDGE HOME by Padma Venkatraman
Welcome to Windows & Mirrors, where we feature books that provide us windows to lives outside our own and mirrors to our shared common human experiences. Today we are featuring THE LOVE & LIES OF RUKHSANA ALI by Sabina Khan. Seventeen-year-old Rukhsana Ali’s life is nearly perfect. She has great friends, good grades, and she and her very cool girlfriend are headed to Caltech in the … Continue reading Featured: THE LOVE & LIES OF RUKHSANA ALI by Sabina Khan
Welcome to Windows & Mirrors, where we feature books that provide us windows to lives outside our own and mirrors to our shared common human experiences. Today we are featuring BLENDED by Sharon M. Draper. Because her parents are divorced, eleven-year-old Isabella feels like she’s literally torn between two different worlds. Every other week, she’s Isabella who hangs out with her black dad, his girlfriend … Continue reading Window & Mirrors: BLENDED by Sharon M. Draper
Welcome to Windows & Mirrors, where we feature books that provide us windows to lives outside our own and mirrors to our shared common human experiences. Today we are featuring WHAT THE NIGHT SINGS by Vesper Stamper. At the opening of WHAT THE NIGHT SINGS, sixteen-year-old Gerta is skeletally thin and sick with typhus. The Nazi concentration camp where she has been incarcerated has just … Continue reading WHAT THE NIGHT SINGS: A Story About Jewish Identity
Welcome to Windows & Mirrors, where we feature books that provide us windows to lives outside our own and mirrors to our shared common human experiences. Today we are featuring DACTYL HILL SQUAD by Daniel José Older. Dactyl Hill Squad is an action-packed middle-grade alt-history fantasy set smack dab in the middle of Civil War times in 1863 New York *WITH DINOSAURS*! Magdalys, a twelve-year-old … Continue reading DACTYL HILL SQUAD: An action-packed middle-grade alt.-history fantasy set smack dab in the middle of Civil War times.
