Articles & Opinion
There’s a brief mention of the pandemic in Throwback, my latest YA novel, about a Korean American girl who travels back to 1995 and meets her mother as a teen. It’s handled with an almost perceptively self-conscious breeziness — making a joke out of my protagonist’s anxiety spiral as she...
It all started when I was a baby. For my 돌 Dol, a traditional Korean first birthday ceremony, I sat in front of several objects. I grabbed a pen, which meant I would become a writer. That prediction came true. I started off as a newspaper and magazine reporter. Now...
"In 2018, the Horn Book published Kekla's article 'The Un-Hero's Journey,' which celebrated the quietly heroic moments that are possible even when we feel our most ordinary. That message is more relevant now than ever, in a time when librarians are fighting to keep books on the shelves, teachers are...
How did I end up in the picture-book world? It was all because of Nicole Rubel, the brilliant illustrator of the Rotten Ralph books, among many others. I was a creative writing student at Emerson College, and I was still on parole after an unsuccessful attempt to smuggle a ton...
A picture book is a dance that begins with a solitary dancer, whose success depends on sharing the stage with future partners. In truth, it is a company of dancers: author and illustrator, editor, designer, and art director. And only together will the dance flourish. But as Patrick Swayze famously...
Early on the morning of August 1, 2022, I joined a group of hikers at the gates of what was once the Auschwitz-Birkenau concentration camp, and we set off on a six-day, 140-kilometer trek across southern Poland. Within a couple of hours, it became clear that I was in for...
Duncan in third grade. Photo courtesy of Alice Faye Duncan. When I consider my thirty years writing picture books and poetry that honor Black achievement, I know that the template for this life began in 1975 while I read crisp new library books about Harriet, Rosa, and Martin. I know...
In improv comedy there is a hard and fast rule: whatever your scene partner asks you to do, no matter how ridiculous or outrageous, you always answer, “Yes, and…” Saying no ends the scene and cuts off all possibilities. Saying yes continues the scene and provides infinite opportunities. It’s a...
The author, age eight, in an Easter bonnet, hunting for eggs in her yard. Photo courtesy of Laurel Snyder. We talk a lot lately about representation in children’s literature, about the need for all kids to see themselves in the books they read. And, of course, this has been a...
25 articles
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