A Country Mile

Patricia Speaks

As a child, Patricia Polacco used to take peanut butter and crackers, a flashlight, and books into a tent made of blankets and sheets and get lost in a world beyond imagination. Now she tells school children to do the same. And even better, she single-handedly provides an abundance of books for children to take […]

Read More

Telling the Truth

Perhaps one of the most important speeches of the Mazza Fall Weekend, Eugene Yelchin shared a childhood that no American child could possibly understand if not for his willingness and ability to share it in words and pictures.  Eugene Yelchin’s Breaking Stalin’s Nose won a Newbery Honor in 2012. The book’s emotional ties to Eugene’s Russian […]

Read More

In an auditorium in Findlay…

John Bemelmans Marciano never met his famous grandfather, but thanks to a treasure trove of family memorabilia, he knows a great deal about the man who gave the world Madeline. With no visual aids, John captivated his Mazza audience with stories for 45 minutes, proving that he is not only an incredibly talented illustrator, but […]

Read More

Rocco’s Mazza Debut

With a background in shellfishing (yes, that would be commercial clam digging) and as a Disney art dircector, John Rocco followed his passion for children’s literature to a successful career as an author and illustrator. John studied art at the Rhode Island School of Design and School of Visual Arts in New York City. He found […]

Read More

Fancy That!

The 2013 Mazza Museum Weekend Conference has begun! A ballet dancer until she was thirty, Robin Preiss Glasser, has spent her entire life expressing her artistic self without words. As the acclaimed illustrator of many books for children, including the beloved Fancy Nancy series, she is still doing just that. In an auditorium crowded with […]

Read More

And the goat has chosen…

Well, folks. Buckeye the doe has spoken. Everyone who commented on the previous blog entry was assigned a random number. And those numbers were placed on sticky notes. At first I thought, “Well, this is going to be easy!” Buckeye was instantly interested! And then just as quickly indifferent. She wandered a bit. She pooped […]

Read More

Celebrating the New School Year, a Wonderful County Fair, and Giving the Old Blog a Kick in the Pants!

It’s mid August.  You know what that means. We just finished with this. And this. And that means it’s almost time for this. And, since this blog is desperately in need of something to breathe life into its poor, neglected soul, I think it’s time for this. Who doesn’t love a great giveaway? So, here’s […]

Read More

X