The Caldecott Panel—Chris Van Allsburg, David Wiesner, Brian Selznick, Jennifer Brown—celebrates Children's Book World's 25th

Today is not just the 25th anniversary of the Fall of the Berlin Wall. It's the 25th anniversary of the remarkable, enduring, smart, and somehow simultaneously huge and intimate Children's Book World of Haverford, PA.

As part of the celebration, CBW hosted The Caldecott Panel at Friends' Central School—the very best of the very best right there on City Line Avenue. Chris Van Allsburg. David Wiesner. Brian Selznick. And Jennifer M. Brown as moderator of what quickly became a wide-ranging conversation about black and white vs. color, visual narratives, filmic translations, the plot power of the artistic media, the certain school of design attended by all three of these great storytellers (RISD), and who taught who, or who might have taught who, or who wished they had taught who.

There they sat on one long couch and two book-ending chairs, surprising each other, while Jenny Brown, who knows this business better than anyone anywhere (our Ambassador of Children's Literature, I've always said), asked her intelligent questions, sat back, and enjoyed the surprises, too.

A packed house. An eager audience. Dozens of hands flying up during the Q and A—half of those hands belonging to children.

You want to celebrate one of the top children's book stores in the country? I can think of no better way.

Congratulations, CBW. The lovely lady with the dark tresses, by the way, is CBW's own Heather Hebert.

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Wonderstruck/Brian Selznick: Celebration

I will confess to this:

Late in the darkened day, dozens of gifts finally wrapped, most of the cards out into the world, the house clean, the boy's room ready for the boy, and the clients happy, I stopped.

For my dear niece Claire, I'd bought a copy of Wonderstruck by the masterful Brian Selznick.  I hadn't wrapped this gift yet.  I'd wanted to take time with it, so that Claire and I could talk about it later.  Those soft yet crystalline pencil drawings.  Those two stories that become one.  That old-time New York City.  That cabinet of wonders.  Meteorites and movie stars.

Six-hundred thirty-five pages of art.  A book dedicated to Maurice Sendak.  A book that, in this late hour, in a time where I've been feeling that brand of holiday rush and sad, felt just right, felt perfect.

Yes.  This was the one.  This was the book for my big-hearted, big-eyed beautiful Claire.  This was the moment that finally ushered in my Christmas.

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The Rise of the Illustrated Young Adult Novel

I had heard so much that was so good about A Monster Calls, the Patrick Ness novel inspired by an idea from Siobhan Dowd, that last night, when my arms were too achy to type a single letter more, I downloaded the book onto my iPad2.

Had I known that this book was so beautifully illustrated, I would have gone out to the store and bought myself a copy instead, so that I could, from time to time, look at these extraordinarily interesting, wildly textured Jim Kay drawings.  A Monster Calls would be a very different book without these images, just as Miss Peregrine's Home for Peculiar Children, the Ransom Riggs books enlivened by surreal old photographs, would not be the book it is had not a publishing house decided that teens, too (and the adults who inevitably read teen books) need, every now and then, to stop and see the world not through words but through images.  Maile Meloy's new historical YA book, The Apothecary, is due out soon—a book that (if the preview pages on Amazon are accurate) features some very beautiful illustrations by Ian Schoenherr.  And let's not forget The Boneshaker by Kate Milford, with its beautiful Andrea Offermann images. (And, of course, there are so many, many more.)

A Monster Calls reminds me, in so many ways, of the great Roald Dahl story The BFG.  Dahl's books, illustrated by Quentin Blake, sit beside The Phantom Tollbooth (Norton Juster, illustrated by Jules Feiffer) on my shelf—books that take me back to some of my favorite mother-son reading days.  We loved the stories.  We loved the illustrations, too.  We loved the entire package.

Maybe we have Brian Selznick to thank for this return to the visual—to ageless picture books.  Maybe it was just plain time.  I only (with absolute surety) know this:  I recently completed a young adult novel amplified by (in my eyes) gorgeous illustrations. I can't wait to see where that project goes, and on what kind of journey it takes me.

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