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Nancy Hudgins
@nancyhudgins.com
620 followers 960 following 270 posts
🎈Celebrating🎈
Books Good Enough For You: The Storied Life of Ursula Nordstrom, Editor of Extraordinary Children's Books
Pub. Date: 3/24/26 by Abrams BFYR.
Rep’d: Rachel Orr, Prospect Agency
#MG #SCBWI #HighlightsFoundation #InkedVoices #nonfictionkidlit
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nancyhudgins.com
November 13 is the book birthday for🎈🎈WHERE THE WILD THINGS ARE!🎈🎈 In February 1963, #Sendak mentioned to his editor, #UrsulaNordstrom, that he had a book idea about wild horses. She encouraged him to write it. Nine months later it was published. #kidlitnonfiction #kidlit #thegoodolddays #BOOKSGEFY
The book jacket has a Caldecott in the lower left hand corner, partially obscuring the sailboat on the river headed toward one of the Wild Things. The boat is light orange with yellow sails. To the right is a huge Wild Thing, taking up three quarters of the book. His eyes are closed and he's faintly smiling. He's sitting on a small spit of land in the forefront with one hand resting on his knee and his head is resting in his hand. While he has the body of a monster, with gray fur, horns coming out of his head, a pig-like snout and claws on his hand, his feet are human feet. Also in the foreground are two palm trees, their leaves painted a rose color. In the background is the other bank of the river with six varied trees against the blue sky.
November 9, 2025 at 5:17 PM
Reposted by Nancy Hudgins
12x12challenge.bsky.social
November is Native American Heritage Month — a time to honor the stories, traditions, and voices of Indigenous communities. 📚✨

Let’s celebrate the authors and illustrators sharing Native stories with the world.

#kidlit #12x12PB
November 3, 2025 at 6:31 PM
Reposted by Nancy Hudgins
peoplesbooktakoma.com
We are so thankful for this wonderful community. Please consider yourself formally invited to our forthcoming author events!
November 1, 2025 at 10:48 PM
nancyhudgins.com
My #MG recommendations were:

365 DAYS TO ALASKA, by @cathycarrwrites.bsky.social
#kidlit

TWELVE DAYS IN MAY: FREEDOM RIDE, 1961, by Larry Dane Brimner #kidlitnonfiction
It's a colorful cover. The main character is drawn in the center foreground. She's wearing boots, brown sienna pants and a navy blue T-shirt; she has a purple lumberman's shirt tied around her waist. She is facing right, taking a step. from a meadow with a stream beyond and white-capped mountains beyond that, into a paved asphalt road on her right, with two wooden houses painted in neutral yellow-white and the ocean beyond--signifying her journey from Alaska to the Connecticut suburbs. The cover is black. The title and subtitle take up most of it. To the left is the well-deserved Sibert Medal awarded to the author. Underneath it is a picture of a Greyhound bus from 1961. The words in the title are in gray and white, except May, which is in red. The subtitle words are in blue. It's striking.
October 29, 2025 at 2:34 PM
nancyhudgins.com
I'm writing my monthly newsletter and realized I didn't post my recommendations for September.

For #picturebooks, they were:

THE RABBIT LISTENED, written and illus. by Cori Doerrfeld

HOW TO MAKE A BOOK (ABOUT MY DOG), by @bartography.bsky.social l, illus. by @sarahhorne.bsky.social

#kidlit
The cover has a white background. In the upper third is the book's title, in large green-blue letters. In smaller letters underneath it say New York Times bestseller. In the left lower quadrant is the author's name, in smaller light-chocolate letters. In the right lower quadrant is a drawing from the book of a young child in blue and white horizontally striped pajamas hugging a light chocolate colored rabbit. The cover background is shades of orange and it is busy. The book's title takes up most of the cover. On the lower left is the author's name. On the lower right is the illustrators name. Drawings from the book abound, including one of the author and one of his dog. It has a semi-collage feel. The title letters are cleverly different colors and textures. For instance, the K in book is an actual open book with the red cover on a vertical line as the vertical line in the K and the book pages are splayed out into two pieces, making the angular parts of the K.
October 29, 2025 at 2:15 PM
nancyhudgins.com
Last weekend I was at the Prospect Agency client retreat at the Highlights Foundation near Honesdale. So wonderful to be in the midst of such warm and multi-talented creatives. Hung out with old friends, met new ones. And got a sneak peek at upcoming titles--2026 will be a great year for #kidlit!
October 24, 2025 at 7:51 PM
nancyhudgins.com
Go Rose! #USWNT
October 24, 2025 at 12:26 AM
nancyhudgins.com
Worth your time—by my friend @scribemarjie.bsky.social And you get to hear her read it!
October 12, 2025 at 5:00 PM
nancyhudgins.com
@mychal3ts.bsky.social :

“Book bans declare some voices, some stories, don’t deserve to be heard, to be told, and I cannot accept that,” he said. “I refuse to believe that. No voice should ever be silenced. No voice should ever be made to feel invisible.”

I’m with Mychal.
October 12, 2025 at 2:52 PM
nancyhudgins.com
Deborah Caldwell-Stone, Director, ALA Office for Intellectual Freedom, “Behind every book ban is a young reader being denied the chance to read, the chance to find out that literature is a way out to a better life, a better world, a better understanding of themselves, a way to grow and live.”
October 12, 2025 at 2:40 PM
nancyhudgins.com
If you get a chance to hear Maria Corina Machado's reaction on the call from the Nobel committee informing her she had won the Nobel Prize for Peace 2025, I recommend it highly. (Sorry for no link, I found it on Substack.)

That's how normal, humble people do it.
October 11, 2025 at 2:46 PM
nancyhudgins.com
T-shirt du jour.
Royal blue T-shirt. Drawing of 11books on a shelf with plants at each end. Titles include Forever By Judy Blume and A Wrinkle in Time by M. L’Engle. Underneath in capitalized white letters: I’m with the banned.
October 9, 2025 at 3:36 PM
nancyhudgins.com
Levar Burton:

“Literacy is an incubator for empathy, and absent an exposure to a wide variety of literature, you grow up in an echo chamber, in a very narrow silo of information and experience.”

What he said.
October 6, 2025 at 11:43 PM
nancyhudgins.com
Great sign in Portland:

Portland isn’t a war zone.
It’s a bookstore with a city around it.
October 6, 2025 at 11:11 PM
nancyhudgins.com
🎈Happy Book Birthday🎈 to STEVIE, written and illus. by John Steptoe. John was just 16 years old when he took his portfolio into #UrsulaNordstrom. She encouraged him to write a book and use his paintings to illustrate it. Edited by UN. Pub'd in 1969.
#kidlit #kidlitillustration
The cover sports one of Steptoe's drawings. It is white with a color inset, which takes up all but about a 1.5 inch border. The inset is in mostly greens and blues, with a background of a car, and a foreground of a large boy standing, and a smaller boy sitting next to him. The title is at the top, on the white space in blue letters.
October 1, 2025 at 4:49 AM
nancyhudgins.com
Thanks for posting! It's brand new. I'm waiting for my copy today. Congratulations to @suzylevinson.bsky.social !
ajirving.bsky.social A.J. Irving 🩷💜💙 @ajirving.bsky.social · Sep 28
DINOS THAT DRIVE by @suzylevinson.bsky.social & Dustin Harbin is filled with action-packed illustrations and hilarious rhyming text. There are so many fun details in the art! Kiddos and grownups will be obsessed with these dinosaurs and want to read this brilliant picture book again and again!
September 30, 2025 at 7:34 PM
nancyhudgins.com
Well done Reading Rainbow! Congratulations to @mychal3ts.bsky.social 🎈🎈🎈
September 29, 2025 at 9:22 PM
nancyhudgins.com
It’s coming . . .
#kidlit #biography #kidlitnonfiction
A badge or banner that reads: Censorship is so 1984. Read for your rights. Little Free Library- Banned Book Week. Oct. 5-11, 2025. White letters on a black background. Censorship has a bold red line through it. There is a line of rainbow colored stars. The logos for little free library and banned book week also appear.
September 21, 2025 at 2:24 PM
nancyhudgins.com
This made me laugh!
Feeling better about my book buying habits already.
#kidlit #nonfictionkidlit
September 20, 2025 at 9:39 PM
nancyhudgins.com
🎈Happy Book Birthday🎈 to THE PIRATE RABBI, by David Sherrin, illus. by @barbaradilorenzo.bsky.social! The MC, a rabbi, who had always wanted to be a pirate, finally gets his chance. Based on a true story. Cool art! #PB #kidlit
The cover art shows a pirate and his dog standing on the prow of a pirate ship. The background is a cloudy medium blue sky. Beneath is the ocean, depicted by a swath of turquoise blue on top and shadings down to deep blue at the bottom. The ship is sailing from left to right and takes up two-thirds of the cover in a triangular image. The title is in dark blue in the upper right hand portion across the sky. The author's and illustrator's names are in black print on the foresail. The pirate is wearing brown boots, tan breeches to the knee, a white shirt and scarf and mid-length blue jacket. The dog is tan.
September 16, 2025 at 5:11 PM
nancyhudgins.com
@michellemarkel.bsky.social
I like your style
michellemarkel.bsky.social Michelle Markel @michellemarkel.bsky.social · Sep 14
Sundays I'm posting quotes from #nonfiction #picturebooks about #resistance "They ignored the law & refused to leave until they were served. Those kids had a recipe, too. A new brew called integration. It was just as simple: combine black with white to make sweet justice." FROM:
September 14, 2025 at 5:50 PM
nancyhudgins.com
I’m going today!
mychal3ts.bsky.social Mychal Threets @mychal3ts.bsky.social · Sep 14
Here are four ways anyone can support and help their local library:

• Get a library card ⭐️
• Use your library card 🌟
•Visit the library 💫
•Tell everyone to get a library card and support their local library ✨
September 14, 2025 at 5:18 PM
nancyhudgins.com
🎈Today is Else Holmelund Minarik’s birthday.🎈 This first-grade teacher walked into #UrsulaNordstrom’s office with a manuscript written in blue crayon. Ursula saw in it the first book for the I CAN READ! series. LITTLE BEAR, illus. by Maurice Sendak, published in 1957. #kidlit #kidlithistory
The cover, by Maurice Sendak has a dark blue background with light blue vines surrounding an oval with a white background. In the oval, the title is in reddish-brown color; the author and illustrator names are in black. In the center is a mother bear in a chair holding Little Bear on her lap. A scroll saying "A I Can Read Book" is centered underneath the oval. This cover is the current one, not the original.
September 13, 2025 at 2:55 PM
nancyhudgins.com
Happy 100th birthday to Ronni Solbert! #UrsulaNordstrom chose her to illustrate BRONZEVILLE BOYS AND GIRLS, a book of poems by Gwendolyn Brooks, first published in 1956. Solbert used pen and ink. Fifty years later, HarperCollins re-issued the book in color, illus. by Faith Ringgold. #kidlit #poetry
Cover has a light yellow, sandy hue. Title is in black letters at the top, followed by author and illustrator. Below is a tree to the left, whose leafy branches are behind the cover. In the mid-ground is a wooden fence. The foreground has a boy leaning against the tree, two boys playing marbles and two girls walking hand in hand towards the street. On the right in the mid-ground are two boys playing ball in the street. Mostly pen and ink, with light mint green for the leaves and on the girls' dresses and also on some of the fence panels. Other fence panels have an olive green wash. The predominate color is brick red for an urban house of apartment building facing the reader. The steps and the sidewalk are a muted, grayer red. At the top is Bronzeville in bright yellow and Boys and Girls in black below. The Bronzeville is at the top of the cover and really stands out. A woman and child look out of the window on the left. Two girls stand on the stoop facing the street. On the sidewalk, a boy is walking up the steps. In the foreground, a boy on the right is chasing a ball rolling left. On the left is a girl pushing a baby carriage towards the right. Very colorful and fun!
September 7, 2025 at 5:01 PM
nancyhudgins.com
Two iconic children's books, both edited by #UrsulaNordstrom, were published on this day. In 1947, GOODNIGHT MOON, by Margaret Wise Brown, illus. by Clement Hurd. In 1952, A HOLE IS A DIG, by Ruth Krauss, illus. by Maurice Sendak. Like many of the books Ursula edited, each broke new ground. #kidlit
Bold greens and reds are the colors of the room depicted on the cover. The walls are green, the flooring is red. A bright moon and starry sky are seen through a window on the left, with a red and green-striped curtain on the left margin. On the right is a fireplace with a fire burning. On the wall above the fireplace is a picture of a cow jumping over the moon. The title is in big yellow letters on the top half of the cover. The cover is light green. There are two circles with white backgrounds. The smaller one of the top has two Sendak-drawn children, one is giving flowers to the other. The circle on the bottom is oblong and has Sendak-drawn children jumping rope, with a half circle of children, one mom, one cat and one dog are watching. The drawings whet the appetite for what lies inside the book. The title and sublitle are in black letters at the top. Ruth's and Maurice's names are midline. A border of Connecting small geometric shapes, filled in with white, make a border around the cover.
September 3, 2025 at 5:21 PM