Samantha Balaban

1 week ago | kpbs.org | Samantha Balaban

Matthew Burgess and Doug Salati met on a blind date. "We share the same agent," explains Burgess. "She said, 'You need to meet this client of mine.'" Over coffee in Brooklyn, they discovered that they both love poetry. They clicked. Burgess is an award-winning author and poetry teacher and Salati is a Caledecott Medalist. They now have an illustrated book of poetry called Words with Wings and Magic Things.

1 month ago | kpbs.org | Samantha Balaban

In Cherokee, the word for boy or son is "atsutsa," often shortened to "chooch." In the children's book Chooch Helped, Chooch is a little boy who is just trying to be helpful! Unfortunately, it's driving his older sister crazy. When Edutsi made grape dumplings, Chooch got flour all over the floor. And when Etlogi planted a garden, Chooch pulled the plants out of the ground. Chooch, his sister thinks, gets away with everything. "Chooch Helped is a sibling story," says Andrea L.

1 month ago | wmra.org | Samantha Balaban

In Cherokee, the word for boy or son is "atsutsa," often shortened to "chooch." In the children's book Chooch Helped, Chooch is a little boy who is just trying to be helpful! Unfortunately, it's driving his older sister crazy. When Edutsi made grape dumplings, Chooch got flour all over the floor. And when Etlogi planted a garden, Chooch pulled the plants out of the ground. Chooch, his sister thinks, gets away with everything.

1 month ago | npr.org | Samantha Balaban

A brave hummingbird does what she can to fight a fire in Sascha Alper's new book. It was one of the last projects illustrator Jerry Pinkney worked on before he died. His son Brian finished it for him.

1 month ago | mprnews.org | Samantha Balaban

Birds sing in the trees, monkeys swing from branch to branch, snakes slither below, and a hummingbird has just built her nest when, all of a sudden, fire breaks out. “The Littlest Drop” is Sascha Alper’s debut children's book, based on a parable from the indigenous Quechua people of South America. In Alper’s adaptation, all of the animals flee to the river — except the hummingbird, who goes to get one little drop of water, because that's all she can carry.