Padma Venkatraman’s middle-grade debut, The Bridge Home, is a powerful story about four homeless children in India. Touching on sisterhood, friendship, homelessness, poverty, and, most importantly, hope, this story should be in every middle-grade collection. Read more
Back in 2016, when my first audiobook was being produced, I jumped at the chance to narrate it. After all, this seemed like the perfect opportunity to dust off my rusty theatre degree and show my dad that four years of studying Brecht and Vogel had been totally worth it. Read more
During my eight years as a special education teacher, I frequently worked with high school students who struggled to be independent readers, due to disabilities and weak decoding and fluency skills. For them, reading meant devoting their energy to decoding the text, leaving no room for expressive reading. Read more
Darius Kellner has never fit in. His mom is Iranian. His dad is white. He doesn’t really speak Farsi, but his little sister, Laleh, does. He’s into Star Trek, Lord of the Rings, and tea. Not many people at his high school in Portland, Oregon, share those interests. He also has depression, which doesn’t make anything easier. Read more
This BOT Contributor is Keir Graff. He is the author of The Phantom Tower. Read more