Tanya Konerman’s August 2025 Kidlit Author Newsletter

Summer is in full swing, even if some kids have already started back in school (hello, Midwest!). One way to make summer magical and full is through reading and books. I cover this and more in my latest newsletter!

August 2025 newsletterDownload

May 2025 Tanya Konerman’s Author Newsletter

This is a big and exciting month for me…my debut picture book releases on May 20th! Read on for how you can get a signed copy and enter to win a book bundle!

May 2025 NewsletterDownload

Tanya Konerman’s April 2025 Kidlit Newsletter

No fooling, it’s hard to believe we’ve made it to April…read on for kidlit news and more!

April 2025 NewsletterDownload

March 2025 Author Newsletter

Spring is almost here and books are the answer. Answer to what? Read on to find out more!

March 2025 NewsletterDownload

Tanya Konerman’s February 2025 Author Newsletter

February is a fabulous months for books! Read on to discover ways you can celebrate your love of books this month.

February 2025 NewsletterDownload

Spotlight Review for Build a Sandcastle

Written by Eileen Rajala Meyer and Illustrated by Manica Musil

Available for purchase April 15th, 2025

This playful rhyming picture book by Eileen Rajala Meyer encourages young readers to have a great time building a sandcastle with a friend, with helpful prose sidebars featuring “Five Star Tips” from friendly and adorable Starfish. From finding the perfect spot not too close to the water, to building a solid base, using what’s at hand as tools, and adding lovely ocean-gifted decorations such as shells and sea glass as the finishing touches, each step is shown via delightful felt art illustrations by artist Manica Musil to spotlight creativity, teamwork, and patience. What a fun day at the beach!

Tanya Konerman’s November Author Newsletter

With autumn in full swing and colder weather on the way, it’s a great time to celebrate books! November is a big month in the kidlit world, with Children’s Book Week, Nonfiction November, and other fun events, but I also have big news to celebrate. Read on for all the details!

November 2024 NewsletterDownload

Tanya Konerman’s Author Newsletter April 2024

April is finally here and I’m celebrating National Poetry Month. Read more in this month’s newsletter!

Tanya

april-2024-newsletterDownload

Spotlight Review for Read Your World/Multicultural Children’s Book Day 2024

I’m happy to once again be a book reviewer on Multicultural Children’s Book Day! As part of this annual event, I was gifted a book to review, in order to provide my honest opinion. Read on to discover more. #ReadYourWorld

Food For The Future: Sustainable Farms Around the World

 by Mia Wenjen

Illustrated by Robert Sae-Heng

Published by Barefoot Books 

With an increasing interest in environmentally friendly methods of growing food for a swelling worldwide population, Food for the Future: Sustainable Farms Around the World offers inspiring insights into twelve approaches from around the globe. Using short, rhyming couplets (“Can we feed the world without pollution? Sustainable farms are one solution”), this picture book travels from salt and rooftop farms in the U.S. to vertical farms in Singapore, an oceanic biosphere farm in Italy, circular gardens in Senegal, and other new or time-tested, creative ways to grow food while caring for the earth it comes from, both today and tomorrow. Simple yet vibrantly-colorful digital and hand-drawn art complements each spread’s text, and inset boxes offer definitions of key concepts and terms. Extensive back matter for older readers offers additional information on sustainable farming and food justice, as well as a world map highlighting the featured countries and a deeper dive into each country’s methods.

This timely picture book written by the Pragmaticmom.com blogger Mia Wenjen and illustrated by U.K. artist Robert Sae-Heng will be a nice addition for teachers to lessons about the environment, sustainability, food justice, cultural studies, and food sources. In addition, young readers will find plenty to enjoy as they see how a diverse range of people around the world sustainably grow and harvest their food.

Read Your World is a non-profit whose mission is to raise awareness about children’s books that celebrate diversity and to get more of these books into the hands of readers, parents, and educators. With the alarming increase in children’s books being challenged and banned, it is more important than ever to give kids access to diverse stories.

Learn more HERE: https://linktr.ee/ReadYourWorld #ReadYourWorld #kidlit #McChildsBookDay #picturebooks #reading

Author Newsletter

october-2023-newsletterDownload

THEME: NEW POETRY IN FUN, LYRICAL & TRADITIONAL FORMS THAT SING

Bug on the Rug

by Sophia Gholz

Illustrated by Susan Batori

Filled with a cast of -ug characters adorably brought to life by illustrator Batori, this phonics-full rhyme-fest is both hilarious and sweet. Young listeners and emerging readers will return again and again for the crazy antics, heartfelt friendship, and surprise ending, all while developing vocabulary and reading skills. 

Marshmallow Clouds: Two Poets Play among Figures of Speech

by Ted Kooser and Connie Wanek

Illustrated by Richard Jones

Playful imagery, unexpected metaphor, whimsical wordplay…delightful language and gorgeous, digitally-edited paint illustrations fly together in this must-have collection of thirty poems framed by Fire, Water, Air, and Earth. Focusing on the everyday—July, sleep, marshmallows—and more, Kooser, Wanek, and Jones waken the senses, figuratively and literally.

Serengeti: Plains of Grass

by Leslie Bulion

Illustrated by Becca Stadtlander

During Serengeti monsoons, a great migration of zebras, wildebeest, and more begins. Using a traditional East African Swahili poetry form—the utendi—Bulion showcases the migration’s rhythms while highlighting the ecosystem’s complex web through interconnected verses. Stadtlander’s lush illustrations of gouache and pastels, and extensive back matter, also make this a standout.