Book News & Features

In Dan Santat's The Adventures of Beekle, an imaginary friend sets out to find a child who needs him.

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'Adventures Of Beekle' Wins Caldecott; Newbery Goes To 'The Crossover'

11:39am February 04, 2015

by Lynn Neary

The American Library Association awarded its top medals to Dan Santat's tale of an imaginary friend on a mission and Kwame Alexander's story of basketball-playing twins.

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Harper Lee, seen here receiving the Presidential Medal of Freedom in 2007, actually wrote Go Set a Watchman first. But she set it aside when her editor suggested focusing on Scout's flashbacks instead — and she did, in what became To Kill a Mockingbird.

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Harper Lee Plans To Publish A New Novel Featuring 'Mockingbird' Hero

5:47pm February 03, 2015

by Colin Dwyer

More than 50 years after the release of her classic — and only — novel, To Kill a Mockingbird, Lee plans to publish a second. The newly unearthed book, Go Set a Watchman, will be published in July.

Laura Ingalls Wilder entertained generations of children with her Little House series, which was loosely based on her family's pioneering life. Her memoir, Pioneer Girl, was published in 2014.

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'Little House,' Big Demand: Never Underestimate Laura Ingalls Wilder

10:23am February 03, 2015

by NPR Staff

Wilder's memoir reveals that she witnessed more violence than you'd ever know from her children's books. The South Dakota State Historical Society can barely keep up with demand for the autobiography.

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Excerpted from A Dance Like Starlight: One Ballerina's Dream by Kristy Dempsey, illustrated by Floyd Cooper. Text copyright 2014 by Kristy Dempsey. Illustrations copyright 2014 by Floyd Cooper. Excerpted by permission of Philomel Books.

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8 Picture Books You Don't Have To Be A Kid To Love

1:12pm February 02, 2015

by Nicole Cohen

Here at NPR Books, we may be grown-ups, but we still enjoy channeling our inner 7-year-old. And this week, we have the perfect excuse: Monday's Caldecott Medal announcement for picture book artistry.

Colleen McCullough at home on Australia's remote Norfolk Island in 1990 — she told an interviewer she moved there to escape her difficult family.

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Remembering 'Thorn Birds' Author Colleen McCullough

1:20pm January 31, 2015

by Lynn Neary

Australian writer Colleen McCullough has died at 77; she was best known for her doomed Outback romance saga The Thorn Birds, famously adapted for TV with Richard Chamberlain as a passionate priest.

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Rod McKuen, The Cheeseburger To Poetry's Haute Cuisine

1:14pm January 31, 2015

by Scott Simon

Poet Rod McKuen was loved by millions but mocked by literary critics. He died this week at age 81.

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Singer-songwriter Rod McKuen poses for the media before presenting actress-songwriter Dolly Parton the "Johnny Mercer Songwriter Award" at the 2007 Songwriters Hall of Fame ceremonies held in New York in 2007.

Songwriter, Poet Rod McKuen Dies At 81

8:54am January 30, 2015

by Doreen McCallister

Rod McKuen is credited with more than 200 albums and more than 30 collections of poetry. He died on Thursday after a lengthy illness.

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In Winter, Keeping Warm With Beloved Books

9:36am January 26, 2015

by Juan Vidal

Critic Juan Vidal says winter is a time for turning inward and warding off the chill with your favorite books, the ones you return to over and over again when the days get shorter and snow closes in.

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Resurrections, Do-Overs, And Second Lives: A 2015 Poetry Preview

3:23pm January 20, 2015

After the troubles of 2014, critic Craig Morgan Teicher offers up a full shelf of poetry for a brand new year — offering no solutions, but full of ambivalence and precision, balm and fire.

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Exclusive First Read: Scott McCloud's 'The Sculptor'

2:35pm January 20, 2015

by NPR Staff

Understanding Comics creator Scott McCloud is sometimes called the "Aristotle of comics" for his analysis of the medium. The Sculptor, a meditation on love, art and death, is his first graphic novel.