Today in 1931, the birthday of Edward Packard, who along with R.A. Montgomery founded a book series that let millions of young readers pick the ending to the story: Choose Your Own Adventure.
Today in 1944, Astrid Lindgren of Stockholm, Sweden fell on ice and sprained her ankle. While stuck in bed, she decided to write down some stories she'd been telling her daughter, stories that would lead to one of the most popular children's book series of all time.
Today's the birthday of a mystery author known to millions of kids, Donald J Sobol. He wrote the Encyclopedia Brown series, about a 10 year old detective who solved cases because he knew, as his nickname suggested, all sorts of unusual and obscure facts in the era way before the internet. Plus: it’s National Taco Day, and here's the story of one of the largest tacos ever made.
Netflix is about to release a show based on The Baby-Sitters Club I used to re-shelve all the time at the public library where I worked. Here's the story of how the series came to life. Plus: if you could use a little beauty in your world right now, check out the photos of Trung Huy Pham, documenting Vietnam's annual water lily harvest.
I grew up reading Choose Your Own Adventure books, some of which had dozens of possible endings. But a new book from a celebrated Sri Lankan children's author had a world record 1,250 endings! Plus: a pilot in Austria does his part for social distancing with a flight path that spells out "STAY HOME."
The New York Public Library released a list of its top 10 all-time most borrowed books. One book you won’t find on the list is “Goodnight Moon.” Despite being one of the most iconic children’s books of its time, the New York Public Library didn’t have a copy for decades, because an influential librarian didn’t like it. Plus: the amazing origins of Silent Record Week!
This three year old likes to read before sleeping.
