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ENTRY TYPE: new
WORK TITLE: HUMMINGBIRD SEASON
WORK NOTES:
PSEUDONYM(S):
BIRTHDATE:
WEBSITE: https://www.stephanielucianovic.com
CITY: San Francisco
STATE:
COUNTRY: United States
NATIONALITY: American
LAST VOLUME:
RESEARCHER NOTES:
PERSONAL
Married; children: yes.
EDUCATION:Earned degree.
ADDRESS
CAREER
Writer and editor. KQED, San Francisco, CA, “Check, Please! Bay Area” web editor. Has also worked on television cooking programs.
WRITINGS
Author of the “Bay Area Bites” column for KQED; contributor of articles to CNN.com, MSNBC.com, Popular Science, the New York Times, Washington Post, and Boston Globe; has contributed to a line of cookbooks for William-Sonoma; contributor to the Grub Report blog.
SIDELIGHTS
Stephanie V.W. Lucianovic is a writer and editor based in the San Francisco Bay Area. She uses her background in culinary arts to write for KQED’s “Bay Area Bites” column and also serves as the web editor for the station’s Emmy-winning program, “Check, Please! Bay Area.” She has worked on television cooking programs and contributed articles to CNN.com, MSNBC.com, Popular Science, the New York Times, Washington Post, and Boston Globe.
The End of Something Wonderful: A Practical Guide to a Backyard Funeral offers guidance for young readers on coping with the loss of a pet. Lucianovic insists that the tragedy of dealing with the death of a beloved pet can be turned into an engaging activity for those wanting to properly bury and mourn them. The book offers step-by-step instructions of a backyard burial with some humorous tips and the promise that “something wonderful” lies ahead.
Writing in School Library Journal, Steven Engelfried called it “a mostly successful blend of satirical humor within a solid story of friendship.” A Kirkus Reviews contributor suggested that the “flippant tone of the second-person text is not helpful to either prepare a child for an impending death or deal with the emotions following a loss.” Booklist contributor Julia Smith observed that “this frank but tender guide offers consolation and hope to children as they cope with loss and move forward.”
In Hello, Star, a young girl tries to learn all she can about the bright supernova star in the night sky. She talks to it daily and goes on to study astronomy at university as an adult. As an astronaut, she witnesses the star fade away before exploding into new stars. Booklist contributor Lucinda Whitehurst opined that the stars “and the now-grown girl will illuminate a path for future curious children.” A Kirkus Reviews contributor stated: “Though not based entirely on scientific facts, this book will stand up as an introduction to space and stars for very young readers.”
With The League of Picky Eaters, young Minerva struggles with eating healthily. At St. Julia Child Elementary and Middle School, she is placed in a class for remedial eaters for making poor food choices. With her classmates, they form the League of Picky Eaters to embrace their pickiness and come up with clever ways to avoid foods they don’t like. Booklist contributor John Peters noticed “a roux of sophistication in some of the culinary humor that the story’s characters and conflicts lack.” Writing in School Library Journal, Steven Engelfried found it to be “a mostly successful blend of satirical humor within a solid story of friendship.”
What Is Hope? uses rhyming text to illustrate common experiences that help life people when they are feeling down, including the thrills of learning how to ride a bike to chasing the ice cream truck down the street. A Kirkus Reviews contributor remarked that “the conclusion, which sees a large, loving family sitting down to a meal … brings the tale to a warm conclusion” in this “sweet but puzzling” picture book. In a review in School Library Journal, Suzanne Costner suggested that this would be “the perfect book to read with someone who is feeling discouraged.”
In Hummingbird Season, Lucianovic details life for a young boy who is trying to make sense of the Covid -19 global pandemic and, more immediately, why he can’t go outside and play with the other kids. He misses the connections he once had with others. In the meantime, he watches the hummingbirds outside his window seemingly enjoying their time together.
Writing in School Library Journal, Ashley Larsen remarked that “this beautifully written novel in verse offers a sensitive reflection on the pandemic and its emotional toll.” A Kirkus Reviews contributor insisted that “readers will gasp in wonder and empathy, cry and sometimes laugh, cheer at the upbeat conclusion, and feel every emotion that’s so powerfully expressed.” In a review in Horn Book, Dean Schneider opined that “Lucianovic portrays Archie’s interior world in straightforward first-person verse that effectively captures the voice of an elementary school boy.”
BIOCRIT
PERIODICALS
Booklist, August 1, 2019, Julia Smith, review of The End of Something Wonderful: A Practical Guide to a Backyard Funeral, p. 66; September 15, 2021, Lucinda Whitehurst, review of Hello, Star, p. 55; October 1, 2021, John Peters, review of The League of Picky Eaters, p. 40; February 19, 2024, “The Shelf Care Interview: Stephanie V.W. Lucianovic.”
Horn Book, January 1, 2024, Dean Schneider, review of Hummingbird Season, p. 99.
Kirkus Reviews, July 1, 2019, review of The End of Something Wonderful; August 15, 2021, review of Hello, Star; July 15, 2023, review of What Is Hope?; December 1, 2023, review of Hummingbird Season.
School Library Journal, October 1, 2021, Steven Engelfried, review of The League of Picky Eaters, p. 84; October 5, 2021, Betsy Bird, “Hello, Star: A Talk with Stephanie V.W. Lucianovic;” September 15, 2023, Suzanne Costner, review of What Is Hope?, p. 1; January 1, 2024, Ashley Larsen, review of Hummingbird Season; February 22, 2024, Betsy Bird, author interview.
ONLINE
KidLit 411, https://www.kidlit411.com/ (August 30, 2019), author interview.
KQED website, https://www.kqed.org/ (June 1, 2024), author profile.
Stephanie V.W. Lucianovic website, https://www.stephanielucianovic.com (June 1, 2024).
Young Adult Books Central, https://www.yabookscentral.com/ (September 6, 2023), Connie Reid, author interview.
About Stephanie
"Highly original and charmingly weird." -Dinah Stevenson, editor Clarion Books
Stephanie V.W. Lucianovic writes books in the San Francisco Bay Area surrounded by a few kids, a few cats, and one husband.
She is the author of SUFFERING SUCCOTASH: A PICKY EATER'S QUEST TO UNDERSTAND WHY WE HATE THE FOODS WE HATE (2012); THE END OF SOMETHING WONDERFUL (PB 2019); HELLO, STAR (PB 2021); THE LEAGUE OF PICKY EATERS (MG 2021); WHAT IS HOPE (PB 2023); HUMMINGBIRD SEASON (MG 2024), TOUCH THE SKY (PB 2024), ZOMBIE AND BRAIN ARE FRIENDS (PB 2025) and WHEN BREATHING IS TOO LOUD (PB 2025).
Stephanie still sleeps with the teddy bear she had as a baby, she has a bellybutton phobia, and she was born with six wisdom teeth. She doesn't think this makes her any wiser than the average chewer but it does give her a biting sense of humor. Her favorite words are "knelt" and "cloak."
She is is represented by Jennifer Laughran at the Andrea Brown Literary Agency. You can email Stephanie directly at SVWL22 at gmail dot com.
Photo by Jerrold Connors
Novels
The League of Picky Eaters (2021)
Hummingbird Season (2024)
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Picture Books hide
Hello, Star (2021)
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Non fiction hide
Suffering Succotash (2012)
The End of Something Wonderful (2019)
Stephanie Lucianovic
A former picky eater, Stephanie V.W. Lucianovic is a writer, editor, and lapsed cheesemonger in the San Francisco Bay Area. A culinary school grad with an English lit degree, she has written for CNN.com, MSNBC.com, Popular Science, The New York Times, The Washington Post, and The Boston Globe. Additionally, she has been writing for KQED's Bay Area Bites since its inception and is the website editor for KQED's Emmy-award winning show "Check, Please! Bay Area." Stephanie was an original recapper at Television Without Pity and worked on a line of cookbooks for William-Sonoma as well as in the back kitchen of a Jacques Pépin cooking show. Her first book, SUFFERING SUCCOTASH: A Picky Eater's Quest To Understand Why We Hate the Foods We Hate (Perigee Books, 2012) is a non-fiction narrative and a heartfelt and humorous exposé on the inner lives of picky eaters that Scientific American called "hilarious" and "the perfect popular science book for a reader that doesn't think he or she wants to read a popular science book." Stephanie lives in Menlo Park with her husband, three-year-old son, assorted cats, and has been blogging at The Grub Report for over a decade. Follow her on Twitter at @grubreport
About the author
Stephanie has done a few things in life.
She has sold women shoes and frozen yogurt as well as smelly, expensive body lotion and smellier, even more expensive cheese. She has worked on a Jacques Pepin cooking show and been a cookbook editor.
She has written about books, food, parenting, TV, vampire dating habits, cocktail trivia, and picky eating.
She has attended a swank ball at University of Cambridge with Prince Charles (not that he was her date or anything just that he was also invited) and rebuilt trails with the Golden Gate National Parks Conservancy.
She has lived in Washington, D.C., Minneapolis, Ann Arbor, England, Boston, and San Francisco.
Now she writes children's books surrounded by a few kids, a few cats, and one husband. She loves reading books and watching television shows in equal number, hates running but does it anyway, and she believes everyone over twenty-one should try pairing Reese's Peanut Butter Cups with bourbon.
Fun facts: Stephanie once sent picture books to Golden State Warriors Coach Steve Kerr when he was sick, she still sleeps with the teddy bear she had as a baby, and she was born with six wisdom teeth.
AUTHOR SPOTLIGHT: STEPHANIE V.W. LUCIANOVIC
August 30, 2019
Today we are excited to feature author Stephanie V.W. Lucianovic and her debut picture book, THE END OF SOMETHING WONDERFUL: A PRACTICAL GUIDE TO A BACKYARD FUNERAL, illustrated by George Ermos (Sterling Childrens Sept. 2019). Enter to win a copy!
Tell us about your background and how you came to write for children.
I have been a writer for nearly two decades but writing children’s books is something I’ve only been doing in the past five years. Before children’s books, I wrote about TV, pop culture, food, cheese, and picky eating for a variety of outlets, including for newspapers, magazines, and online sites. In 2012 I published my first book with Tarcher-Perigee — Suffering Succotash: A Picky Eater’s Quest to Understand Why We Hate the Foods We Hate — and figured I was done writing books. I had proved I could write one and I didn’t need to do it again. I also sort of didn’t want to do it again because, for me, that entire process was so stressful and I was constantly filled with self-doubt and fear.
But after my second son was born, I discovered more and more picture books that were brand new to me and I was utterly enchanted by how different they were from the ones I had grown up with. When I read Julie Fogliano’s AND THEN IT'S SPRING, I fell head over hells in love with the writing. It was unlike any other picture book I had ever read. After that, I wondered if I too could write myself into the world of picture books. And so I did.
Congrats on your debut picture book, THE END OF SOMETHING WONDERFUL: A PRACTICAL GUIDE TO A BACKYARD FUNERAL. Tell us about it and what inspired it.
Thank you! My book is a set of practical advice, instructions, and empathy that walk children through the grieving process after the loss of a pet. It came about because I had been trying to capture a pet death story that was personal to my family at the time. But I was also trying to find a way to tell it in a way that hadn’t yet been done.
After many failed attempts, I finally cast myself back into my own childhood to remember what was important to me and my older sister when a pet died. Back then, our family cats weren’t cremated. Instead, they were buried in my parents’ backyard and my sister and I had funerals for them. I realized that in cremating our family cats now, we had taken that part of the grieving process away from our own two kids and it was something I wanted to explain to them.
You have another forthcoming picture book too. Tell us about it.
My next book is called HELLO, STAR and it’s with Vashti Harrison and being published by Little Brown Books for Young Readers in Spring 2021. That book is about what happens when a young girl learns a star is dying (going supernova) before her very eyes and how it propels her on a path that will define her life’s work.
The idea for that book was 100% straight from my oldest son’s heart. When he was about six, he was obsessed with the solar system and reading everything he could about it. One night he came to me and said, “Do you know that stars die? Isn’t that sad?” And I was so touched by his emotion, it made me wonder what a child would do with that sort of empathy for a ball of gas millions of miles away. That same night I sat down and wrote the first draft of HELLO, STAR from start to finish.
Was your road to publication long and winding, short and sweet, or something in between?
It can definitely feel long and winding at times I think relatively speaking in terms of children’s publishing specifically it wasn’t. Maybe short and winding?
You see, I had initially signed with an agent for another picture book but it didn’t sell and the agent wasn’t really connecting with anything else I had shown her, so we parted ways. This was pretty devastating for me because I didn’t realize agents and clients leaving one another was pretty common. I was so embarrassed and I thought something was really wrong with me for that to happen.
Immediately after that ways parting, I wrote THE END OF SOMETHING WONDERFUL along with other stories and started querying agents again. But I really felt so strongly about SOMETHING WONDERFUL that in addition to querying agents, I sent it to the few publishers that accept unsolicited submissions. However, it was only after I signed with my current agency nine months later for a totally different book that I got contacted by an editor at Sterling. The editor had pulled my manuscript from the slush pile and was wild about it. So while I started to write Picture Books in 2015, the road to publication for SOMETHING WONDERFUL specifically hasn’t been all that long, honestly.
I do want to say that I know full well there are authors out there who have been hacking away at children’s writing longer than me and don’t have books published yet. I also know there are published children’s authors who had a very long road before their first children’s book was published. But again, part of my journey as a children’s author has to include all the years I was writing before I took up picture books. That’s nearly twenty years where I was learning how to write and every new piece I wrote —whether is was about wedding trends in Boston or tearing apart episodes of Star Trek: Enterprise — got me closer and closer to this moment.
So, depending how you look at it, it either took 4 years to get my first picture book published or it took twenty.
What projects are you working on now?
I’m always polishing new picture book manuscripts and filling my agent’s inbox up with them. But she has also encouraged me to write something longer, so I’m currently working on a middle grade that and feeling my way through a chapter book series to see if I can get something going there as well.
What are the 1-2 best things you did for your career? What advice would you give to aspiring authors?
1. I broke the rules: both my upcoming picture books clocked in at 1000 words and both sold to editors. The final versions maaaaaybe came in around 900. But nothing close to the vaunted 500 everyone hammers into your head. I’m not saying every book should be 1000 words, mind you. What I am saying is that sometimes your writing can transcend the rules so don’t let them constrain you.
2. I never gave up. It’s true that my path from starting to write children’s books to publishing my first children’s book seems short but as I mentioned above, the road to this point in my life has been quite long. In the last five years, I have experienced hundreds of rejections, great swathes of despondency, and metric tons of frustration. There were so many moments that, feeling as though I was failing, I could have walked away. And I almost did. I almost gave up. But I knew that if I did, that would truly cement my failure. If I gave up, I would never get a children’s book published. Ever. So instead of giving up, I took breaks. I walked away. I let myself heal but I did keep going and it’s only because I kept going that I got my first of many future books published.
What is one thing most people don't know about you?
I think what most people specifically in the kid lit community don’t know about me is that I used to be a cheesemonger for Cowgirl Creamery in San Francisco. Not only did I sell a lot of delicious, stinky cheese, but I also researched and wrote up descriptions for 300+ cheeses for the company. It now resides on Cowgirl Creamery’s website and is known as the Library of Cheese. If you poke around in there, you’ll find a cheese with a Don Quixote reference in its entry.
Where can people find you online?
I’m mostly on Twitter @grubreport. My Instagram handle is the same (@grubreport), but I’m still trying to figure out what one does on Instagram, honestly. I’m much better with the words, not the images. I also have a website going way back to the early 2000s at www.grubreport.com and will be launching a new author site soon.
Stephanie V.W. Lucianovic has dug many holes, cried lots of tears, and laid an entire garden’s worth of flowers on small and not-so-small graves. And she has never ever dug her Something Dead up. She the author of Suffering Succotash: A Picky Eater's Quest to Understand Why We Hate the Foods We Hate. The End of Something Wonderful is her debut picture book. Stephanie lives in Menlo Park, CA, with her two sons, two cats, and one husband.
Hello, Star. A Talk With Stephanie V.W. Lucianovic
October 5, 2021 by Betsy Bird Leave a Comment
It isn’t enough that today’s my book birthday. I want to talk about other books as well! Books like the newest picture book to come via Stephanie V.W. Lucianovic. She’s a longtime fan of my podcast Fuse 8 n’ Kate and I’m a longtime fan of her books, like The End of Something Wonderful, which is possibly my favorite dead pet book out there. Her latest, Hello, Star, is best described by the publisher this way:
Stunningly illustrated by #1 New York Times bestselling artist Vashti Harrison, Hello, Star (written by Stephanie V.W. Lucianovic) is an inspiring story about a love of science and the importance of empathy.
When a young girl learns that a bright light in the sky is coming from a dying star, she promises to keep it company until the light goes out. Every night the girl reassures her friend that she is still there.
As the years pass, the girl learns everything she can about planets, space, and the universe, inspired by her dimming friend&;until she realizes she needs to do something more.
This touching tribute to stars, space, and science celebrates how a small act of compassion can flourish into a life full of meaning and wonder.
And since Stephanie’s one of my favorite people to talk with, this interview was pure gravy:
Betsy Bird: Stephanie, hello hello! It’s so good to talk to you again! I’ve so many questions for you, I don’t quite know when to start. Let’s try it this way: How did HELLO, STAR come about? And was it created before the pandemic or during it?
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Stephanie V.W. Lucianovic
Stephanie V.W. Lucianovic: Hi Betsy! It’s so nice to be back on your lovely blog!
While I do have some books I wrote and sold during the pandemic coming out in a few years, HELLO, STAR is not one of them. I wrote the first draft of HELLO, STAR back in 2015 before I even had an agent. I sent it around to the few publishers that accepted slush pile submissions and I got some interest, but nothing solid, so I put it away and kept querying agents with other manuscripts.
By the time I was offered representation by New Leaf Literary in 2017, I no longer really considered HELLO, STAR a viable manuscript. However, I decided to show it to my agent in a, “I don’t know if there’s anything here” sort of way. To my surprise, my agent immediately loved it and wanted to send it out on submission. She sold it to Little, Brown in early 2018.
BB: Ah, the long lead time of publishing. I know it well. Now when an adult hands a child a fact about the universe that’s as big as the one in this book (the girl discovers that the star she sees in the sky is dying) that grown-up has probably long since forgotten how immediate these facts feel to young people. But a child reading this book will instantly understand why the girl in the story feels as though she needs to comfort a dying star. The million dollar question here is, how do you tap into the immediacy of that kid’s feelings? How do you remember how raw childhood emotions can feel?
SVWL: My answer to this actually ties into your first question above: “How did HELLO, STAR come about?” This book truly came about because my sensitive older son, who was in first grade at the time, was obsessed with all things space. One night, he asked me, “Did you know that stars die? Isn’t that sad?”
Being sad over a star going supernova was something that had never occurred to me. However, being sad or feeling great love for inanimate objects is deeply tied to my own childhood. I still sleep with the teddy bear that was given to me as a baby. (And I would be distraught to lose him.)
So I tied the two together and I asked myself: “What would a child do with that sadness, that empathy for a dying star?” And the answer was, “They’d want to take care of it.” So next I asked, “How would they take care of it?” and I started writing.
Having kids or being kid-adjacent can really help you connect to and remember exactly how certain moments felt in your own childhood. I think it’s really important to our lasting humanity that no adult ever loses that connection. Reading children’s literature — even if they don’t have children — can keep adults connected to their childhood in a way that fosters empathy and understanding.
For me, in addition to constantly reading children’s literature, I’m also lucky to have two amazing kids, and I listen very intently to them. I listen to what they find hilarious and what upsets them deeply.
Sitting next to my youngest during his endless months of distance learning and seeing all his pain and frustration caused me to write a young middle grade novel-in-verse about the distance learning experience. I poured all his anger over masks and glitchy technology into poems that also captured his quarantine interest in hummingbirds. I also captured his experience of feeling alone and unseen even when in the middle of your own family.
Specifically listening to how kids talk and writing it down, word-for-word, is another really excellent way into a child’s mind. There’s a funny little brother character in my upcoming middle grade and pretty much everything he says is in the book is verbatim what one of my kids has said at some point.
BB: School Library Journal recently featured an article called “The Truth is In There” about “blended nonfiction”. Which is to say, fiction that blends nonfiction elements into the storyline. Would you typify HELLO STAR in this way? Or would you call it purely fictional?
SVWL: Yes, I would call it “blended nonfiction.” I specifically wanted this to be a book that contained fascinating facts about space wrapped up in a touchstone story about love and death, about being a parent and being a child, about inspiration and dedication. And if I could show how gorgeous and wonderful science could be, I would be able to honor my inspiration: my son. See, I was never interested in space until Henry came along with his sweet heart and his burning-with-questions brain and showed me how gorgeous and wonderful space truly is.
In that sense, he is my star.
BB: One of the most interesting things about your book is that it follows a girl from childhood to adulthood. A lot of picture books stay squarely in childhood. Why was it important to allow the girl to grow up?
SVWL: I know there are “rules” about picture books not featuring adults. But I also know there are plenty of well-known books that break that rule. As an unknown, unpublished author, I was well aware that, in having the girl grow up, I could be damning the story to never see the light of day. But I didn’t want this to be a purely fantastical story where we see the child build herself a rocket out of pillows and blankets and go to her star. That was too easy and too predictable — both for the girl in the story and for a picture book. I wanted this story to show that achieving your dreams isn’t always so easy and that working toward something — even if it takes years or a lifetime — has rewards grounded in just how difficult it can be to get there.
BB: If given the chance, would you travel to space like the girl? Would you take her journey?
SVWL: No way. While both my husband and my older son have wanted to be astronauts at some point in their lives, I have never wanted that for me. In the first place, I get severely motion sick and it’s only gotten worse as I’ve gotten older for some reason. I just can’t imagine functioning through that level of nausea. And in the second place, the vast darkness of space terrifies me on an existential level. I find it hard to get my head around its never-endingness. The vastness freaks me out.
However, while I would never make the journey myself, I’m more than happy to stand here on Earth and help others get there if I can.
BB: Yeah, I’m with you at that one. I think reading Ray Bradbury as a kid sort of ruined me for space travel forever. So was there anything you wish you could have included? Did anything end up on the cutting room floor, so to speak?
SVWL: I did have an alternate ending that differed only because of the type of neutron star I decided to portray. To explain: after a star goes supernova, it leaves behind a lot of material, like stardust and even newborn stars. (There are areas in space that are known as “stellar nurseries” and I really wish I could have worked that in because I find the idea of baby stars wriggling around in some sparkling nursery beautiful and adorable.) Something else that is also left behind post-supernova is a neutron star. There are different types of neutron stars and one is called a pulsar star. A pulsar star produces beams of light that swoop around like a searchlight as the star itself spins around. The sweeping of the radiation beam makes it look like the star is blinking on and off, or pulsing and beating, like a heart.
So, if I had gone with the idea of the supernova resulting in a pulsar star, the ending would have been:
“Far far far away in the quietest depths of space, the tired supernova sighed and cracked into a pulsing star, its heart beating young and new and bright and strong.”
I also had a bunch of backmatter that I carefully researched and wrote up to provide more information about the space-y things mentioned in the book. I talk about gravity, the distance to the moon, how no woman has walked on the moon (yet), how many stars we can see and how many more are out there, etc.
One particular bit that I was very sorry to lose was about the space probe Juno, which was launched in 2011 on a mission to Jupiter. Juno arrived at Jupiter in 2016 and was due to end her mission in 2018. Writing about the end of Juno’s mission had me in tears (empathy for an inanimate object again!):
“At the end of its fact-gathering mission, Juno will not journey back to the scientists who launched it from Earth. Instead, on February 20, 2018, Juno will slow itself down and tumble deep into Jupiter’s high-density atmosphere where the space probe will burn up and be destroyed. However, while Juno’s mission must end, the knowledge gained from that mission never will, as we continue to ask questions and seek answers.”
Fun fact: Juno’s mission has been extended to 2025, so she’s still out there gathering information for us.
But we didn’t have room to include all of that, so I created a downloadable teaching resource and put it on my website.
BB: Well I don’t know about you, but I know that some authors make little lists of the illustrators they wish they could have and others just block out everything and take whatever illustrators the publishers pair them with passively. You seem to consistently luck out in the whole illustrator department. What was your reaction when you found out that your book would be illustrated by Vashti Harrison?
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SVWL: Yes, I have long had it hammered into my author brain that we should expect to have precious little say over the choice of illustrators. However, I have also been really lucky to work with editors who have asked for my input, and the illustrator search is one of my favorite parts of publishing picture books.
When my editor at Little Brown asked me if I had illustrator ideas, I gave her a list of women whose work I adored. Number one on that list was Vashti Harrison. I had been following her on Twitter for a few years and I was gobsmacked by the way she portrayed reflecting light, stars, and dark skies. Her work was just so gorgeous that I couldn’t help but think of her when I was subbing HELLO, STAR all those years ago. And when Deirdre called me from Little Brown to tell me Vashti was on board, I was shaking and in tears.
BB: I love it when a plan comes together. Finally, what do you have coming out next?
SVWL: “Next” is so relative in these supply chain-challenged days! A month ago, I would have said that my debut middle grade with Clarion — THE LEAGUE OF PICKY EATERS — was next but it’s going to turn out that HELLO, STAR will pub the week *after* that book instead of the month before!
However, beyond the novel, I have a picture book with Nancy Paulsen and illustrator Kelsey Buzzell coming out in 2023. I also have another picture book coming in 2024 that hasn’t been announced yet and what I can say is that it’s about a playground rite of passage that all of us — big and small — will instantly connect to. It’s an achievement you never, ever forget.
Intriguing!
Many thanks to Stephanie for answering my questions in such lovely detail and to Sydney Tillman and the folks at Little, Brown
Hello, Star is on bookshelves everywhere October 19th!
The Shelf Care Interview: Stephanie V. W. Lucianovic
First published February 19, 2024 (Booklist Online).
Welcome to another installment of the Shelf Care Interview, an occasional podcast series in which Booklist editors get to talk to book people. This Shelf Care interview is sponsored by Lerner Publishing Group.
In this episode of Shelf Care Interview, Sarah Hunter talks with Stephanie V. W. Lucianovic about her latest picture book, Touch the Sky, which goes on sale in May. You can listen to this interview here.
Stephanie V. W. Lucianovic writes books in the San Francisco Bay Area surrounded by a few kids, a few cats, and one husband. Her work includes The End of Something Wonderful, Hello Star, and The League of Picky Eaters.
Sarah Hunter: Tell us a little bit about Touch the Sky, and your inspiration for it.
Stephanie Lucianovic: Touch the Sky is about that very important moment in a kid’s life when they finally figure out how to put their body and motion coordination together and they learn how to pump on a swing, which means they can self-propel themselves without being constantly pushed.
And my inspiration came, because at the time I started writing this in 2019, my youngest son, who’s now a fifth grader, was taking a little bit longer than my oldest son to get all that coordination together. And I was on the playground with him trying to teach it, and it’s so difficult to teach all the parts that have to go together and flow. And I started thinking about how there are so many picture books about these very important, small but large moments in a child’s life—jumping off a diving board, riding a bike and staying upright—and I kind of figured that with everything I’d seen, I hadn’t seen this yet, and I wondered, “Can I make this a book? Is this too strange?”
And I was sitting on my bed trying to write it and trying to mimic the motions of swinging, like everything you need to do when you stretch your legs out and you pull your arms back in and everything that is reflected in the book, but it was kind of a hysterical way of working out how to describe pumping.
To an adult, swinging is mundane and something we probably all take for granted, but to Vern, the character in your story, it means so much. And I’m curious about what draws you to stories about kids finding joy or triumph in these small everyday experiences.
As an adult, I wish my life was still filled by these “smaller moments” in childhood that had the ability to bring huge joy to my life when I was younger. And I think it’s very important, as well as being a nice trip down memory lane, that we as adults continue to remember and celebrate these moments, either with our own children or with the children in our lives, or just remembering that that was a big deal, because once you learn something, it’s kind of hard to go back to remembering what it was like not to know it. It almost feels like it was just always there.
I also think that remembering these moments as adults connects us to our childhoods. And that connection I truly believe fosters empathy. And it’s also why I believe 100%, not just as a kidlit writer, that all adults should be reading kidlit, to remember what it was like at that age again.
The illustrations in the book are so bright and buoyant. Did Chris Park’s artwork help you see anything about your story in a new way?
I’ve long stopped having images in my head of how everything needs to be, because I know that as the text-only contributor, that’s not my place. So I let that go a while ago, but I’m always, always surprised by what an illustrator does with the words I’ve written. So while in my head, I might have been picturing the playground near our house when I wrote this, down to the wood chips that are used, Chris having it set in a park that’s probably near him definitely just gives me a different perspective.
And the other thing that I only, I’m embarrassed to say, recently realized that Chris might be doing in this book, I haven’t confirmed it with him, is that there’s a superhero vibe happening, from the sparkles to the way the book is designed to look almost like a comic book with the panels, to Gretchen wearing what looked like Wonder Woman boots. And then if you look at the case cover and the end papers, the action words of swing, hop, pump, all of that recalls those superhero sounds of pow, wham, blammo. So that is something I just suddenly was like, “I think that’s what Chris was trying to do.”
What’s the most gratifying thing for you about writing books for children?
I think the most simple answer is because I’m allowed to do it. I get to do this for a job, and with each book that I get signed up for, I get to keep doing it. But on a deeper level, what really gets to me is when a parent reaches out to me, or sometimes a kid themselves, to tell me how much something I wrote meant to their child or to them. My reaction is almost always ... I feel like I’m writing into the void, and so when I actually hear directly from readers or from parents of readers, I get that moment of like, “Oh, right. People really are reading these books.” And for some of my books that might be in a little bit more of a serious topic, like my first book, which was about how to mourn a dead pet, to even hear that it meant something deeper and helped them in a way, that I find kind of humbling and gratifying. And I’m so grateful when I hear from people on that level.
This is a podcast that primarily librarians listen to, and it’s always nice to hear about what role libraries have played in your reading or writing life.
Well, I loved being able to go to the library. My mother taking us to this very specific, I’ll never forget, library that was called the underground library, because it’s a very weird modern building in Minneapolis, that they sunk down below street level. And I just remember summer reading lists. And back then, it was all about just measuring the books you read. You didn’t really get prizes. It was just fun to have a chart. And loading up on books for the summer and going through them on our various vacations. All of that.
But as an adult, I’m embarrassed to say I actually didn’t have a library card when I first started living in San Francisco about 20 years ago. The libraries, they weren’t far, but they were a couple of bus rides away.
But then we moved south of San Francisco to have children. And we’re lucky to live literal blocks away from one of our branches, and one of the first things I did when we moved down here was to get a library card, and just go a lot. And even today, I’m going every day to drop off or to pick up for myself, for my children. And I just really appreciate what libraries even do beyond the books. All these cool things that you can do there, or classes you can attend, or events that they put on both during the pandemic and currently, events for teenagers. Our library does Dungeons and Dragons nights. They do wine and trivia nights for adults.
When the pandemic hit and everything shut down, our library very quickly got back on its feet to find a way, with a plexiglass door and a slot, and masks required, of course, and appointments having to be made, to make sure we could all go back and be getting our books again. Every time I walked up to that plexiglass window, I would get teary-eyed over what had happened and what we were going through, and also just the feeling of being so grateful that our library system was working so hard to make sure that we could get our loans again.
Well, that is about all the time we have for today. So thank you again to Stephanie for joining us. And special thanks to Lerner Publishing Group for making this podcast possible. Hope you have something excellent to read next.
Review of the Day: Touch The Sky by Stephanie V.W. Lucianovic WITH Bonus Q&A
February 22, 2024 by Betsy Bird 6 comments
I never do this, but sometimes a book is so good that you’ve just gotta double dip. Today I am engaged in the particularly rare twofer: A review AND Q&A with Stephanie V.W. Lucianovic about her upcoming picture book. And you know I don’t do that with just anybody. So here’s how it’s gonna go down.
First, I will review the book.
Second, I will talk to Stephanie about the book.
Now sit back and enjoy one heckuva great title:
Touch the Sky
By Stephanie V.W. Lucianovic
Illustrated by Chris Park
Carolrhoda Books (an imprint of Lerner)
$18.99
ISBN: 9781728460451
On shelves May 7th
“How do you like to go up in a swing, / Up in the air so blue? / Oh, I do think it is the pleasantest thing / Ever a child can do!”
Robert Louis Stevenson, The Swing
Two opposite things can be true at the same time, when it comes to children’s books. For example, I often tell people that a truly great children’s author can take a subject that’s been done to death a million times before and bring to it something new and striking that’s never been seen before. You can make a truly great book for kids out of the overly familiar. That said, it is also true that sometimes the best titles for children are the ones that suss out a topic or truth about being a kid that has never been captured on the page before. Touch the Sky belongs firmly in the latter category, and for good reason. If you were to approach a children’s librarian, knowledgeable in the field, and ask for the quintessential swing-related picture book on their shelves, what would they hand you? Had you asked me, prior to seeing Ms. Lucianovic’s latest, I would have recommended the board book edition of Robert Louis Stevenson’s The Swing as illustrated by Julie Morstad (long before she became the Kate DiCamillo-illustrating wonder we all know and love today). That book is good, great even, but sedate and serene. Its lyrical read mimics the effects of going up and down on a swing, completely ignoring the complementary thrill and rush. And the difficulty of learning how to pump? Forgettaboutit! For that, you’re going to need Touch the Sky and you’re going to need it stat. A book that truly exemplifies one of those key moments in a child’s life, fated to be forgotten.
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For Vern, the park is the place he tends to go almost every day. Kids all have their favorite places to go in a playground, but for Vern there’s no competition. He’s a swing kid through and through. Usually the most he can do is fling himself onto a swing, belly first, or twist it up and then let go until he’s dizzy. Why? Because Vern doesn’t know how to pump his legs. And unless you know how to do that, you’re grounded. Then one day a girl named Gretchen gives Vern a couple pointers. What follows isn’t instantaneous success or fast learning. Vern wants to give up more than once, but he keeps at it and slowly, slowly, slowly it all starts to come together. Just Vern, the swing, and the sky.
Children are the sole occupants of only a couple spaces in this world, and playgrounds as a rule serve no real purpose aside from existing for kids and kids alone. As a result, they tend to crop up in picture books on a regular basis. Yet for all that, few remain in your brain for very long. I was just sitting here, trying to think up the greatest picture books set in playgrounds, but all I could think of was the aforementioned The Swing and the charming You Go First by Ariel Bernstein, illustrated by Marc Rosenthal. How strange that a place that exerts such a pull on a child’s early life (and occupies their adult caretakers as well) should be so little lauded on the page. Until now.
Speaking of those caretakers, it took me a read or two of this book before I realized that there’s one key component to swinging completely obliterated from the narrative. Which is to say, this title is a parent-free zone. You’re not going to find one of those overaged interlopers spoiling the purely kid-centric narrative here. You have to assume they exist, of course. Vern’s love of swinging high but without the requisite knowledge of how to pump is entirely contingent on some big person giving him a push on a regular basis. But for this book to have the right amount of emotional oomph, Vern needs to learn pumping entirely on his own. That means excluding any well-meaning but ultimately unnecessary grown-ups from the book. Don’t worry. You don’t even miss them.
How to make a truly great picture book? Step One: Fill book with great writing. Tall order, that. If every incipient picture book author was able to conjure up words that were both exquisite and chock full of truth, then it would make the lives of reviewers like myself much harder, I can tell you. There is a moment in every book, and it doesn’t matter if I’m talking about titles for babies or the geriatric, when the reader falls in love. It might not be on the first read. It might not even be on the fifth or fiftieth, but when it happens you will defend that book’s honor to the end of your dying days. For me, that moment happened on page ten with the appearance of Gretchen. The book explains that Vern only knew her because of her mom.
“Gretchen, stop licking your scab!”
“Gretchen, dig up your brother right now!”
“Gretchen – do NOT pet that cat with your cheese!”
That sequence is doing the duty of making you fall in love with the book, sure, but you’re also now firmly in the pro-Gretchen camp and you would follow her lead wherever she might go. Creative writing teachers should use this sequence with up-and-coming authors to show them how to create an instant rapport with an audience.
But clever wordplay is only half the battle. Lucianovic also has to nail home the whole concept of learning something new and hard. In doing so, she has to avoid The Elmo Effect. That’s a term I just made up. You see, once I was watching Sesame Street with my kids and it was a sequence where Elmo wanted to learn to play some kind of an instrument. This being contemporary Sesame Street (i.e. shorter than it was when I was a kid) the sequence plays out like this: Elmo tries and fails. Elmo tries and fails. Elmo tries and succeeds! The Elmo Effect. And I hate this sequence. As anyone will tell you, the odds of learning something new on a third try, while not impossible, is pretty darn low. But picture books, like 21st century Sesame Street sequences, are pressed for time. This book clocks in at a mere 32 pages, so it was enormously gratifying to find Lucianovic not only shows Vern’s frustrations (“Giving up felt easier than trying again”, “He could get off the swing now. Gretchen would never know he gave up”) but also just the sheer amount of work he has to put into the learning. Even when he gets it, it isn’t slam-bang-whoopsie-doo-it’s-a-miracle all at once. Competence increases at its own steady rate. Beautifully done.
One of these days I’m going to shake up my normal writing format and mention the art right at the start of my reviews rather than near the end. That day, alas, is not today but not for a lack of respect for what illustrator Chris Park is doing here. Glance at the publication page and you read that the art of this book was created with “mixed media”, an all-encompassing term that tells you diddly over squat about Park’s process. That’s actually okay, though, since I’m a lot more interested in how Park managed to take what could have been an average playground book and made it, frankly, gorgeous. His medium resembles that of pastels and crayons (which are probably digital) but it’s his colors that set this whole enterprise apart. Specifically Vern’s hair. It’s long and luscious (still a rarity in books about boys) and filled with all these different blues, purples, and pinks. Gretchen’s hair? It seems to radiate purples and pinks almost from the inside out. Then you start looking at how Park shakes up his angles and the nuances of each page. Look at that shot of Vern on a swing from underneath, his body dark against the blinding light of the sun. Now look at the body language at play. The way Vern’s feet close in on themselves when Gretchen talks to him for the very first time. There’s even this fascinating sequence where the background becomes dark, and the scenes of Vern’s attempts become windows and even blobs. What could have been rote, nay, is almost REQUIRED by some books to BE rote, is made exemplary and magical thanks to one illustrator’s finesse.
The premise is good, the art fantastic, and the writing stellar but that could all be said of a lot of books. A truly great picture book needs that one extra added element to be stirred into the mix. That thing that lifts it, just one more step, above the hoard of hundreds of picture books published every year. In short, it needs heart. Real heart, TRUE heart. Touch the Sky has that heart in a single moment near the end of the book. Vern, at long last, has learned to pump and is filled to brimming with that knowledge. Now comes the moment of truth. So many kids (hell, adults too) when they have learned something new, will use that knowledge to lord it over the ones who still don’t know. In some alternate universe there is a version of this book where Vern turns to the envious little kid at the end of the book and rubs his newly acquired pump knowledge in that child’s face. Not this book. When the kid notes how good Vern now is, the response is an immediate, “It feels hard until you get it, and then it’s not . . . Do you want to learn how?” We never get to hear the first child’s response, but I feel like Park’s endpapers, filled to the brim with words like “PUMP”, “AGAIN”, “SKY”, “TUCK”, “TIP”, and more, are the actual answer.
Yeah, so I like it. Think it’s pretty good. I also think it’s a great example of all these different elements working together in tandem in just the right order and sequence. Humor and heart. Beautiful art and a smart text. A familiar concept but unfamiliar in a picture book until now. Memorable writing. All told, there are loads of picture books coming out every day that are perfectly fine. Completely decent. Downright nice. This book is not one of them. This book is better than those books. It has accessed, by whatever means, the magic required to make a title go from merely good to great. Best that you do a kid a favor and read it to them ASAP. They’ll be glad you did. You’ll be glad you did.
On shelves May 7th.
Source: E-galley sent from publisher for review.
And now, a couple words from Stephanie herself . . .
Betsy Bird: Stephanie! How the heck are you? And this book! Daaaang. It’s legitimately one of my favorites of the year. I’m downright baffled when I realize that I have read thousands upon thousands of picture books before and not a single one has ever been about learning to pump your legs on the swing. I can probably guess your answer to this, but can you give us the origin story of this book?
Stephanie V.W. Lucianovic
Stephanie V.W. Lucianovic: Betsy! Always a joy to talk to you because you ask the most interesting interview questions!
I’m so thrilled you feel that way about TOUCH THE SKY — I’m definitely not one to disagree! It *is* kind of wild that no other book has tackled this subject, which I put down to being seen as a “small moment” in a kid’s physical life. Not that the emotional impact is small, by any means, more that I think it doesn’t seem as HUGE to adult editors as jumping off a diving board or staying upright on a bike. (In fact selling it, we got a lot of “not special enough to break this out in the market” kind of passes, which, hello? There aren’t ANY other books on this subject!)
Another reason for the lack of picture books on swinging is that it is — as I personally and physically discovered — incredibly difficult to try and describe in writing how one gets their body to contort and flex and crunch with the coordination necessary to gain that crucial momentum to keep going.
As for the idea: I mean, like so many of my books, OF COURSE my original inspiration came from my own children going through the pump phase themselves. It’s not that I had forgotten my own struggles with it when I was their age, it’s just that I really didn’t think about it as an adult until I was trying to teach my own kids how to do it. My husband pointed out to me that it’s incredibly difficult to remember a time when we didn’t know something. Like, once you learn how to pump on a swing, it’s really hard to remember what it was like not to know how.
In this case, my youngest was taking longer than his older brother did to figure out the necessary coordinations, and I was trying in vain to explain it to him — both in words and physically. He was frustrated because friends very much took the attitude of, “Come on — it’s SO easy!” Which, yes, it is easy when you finally get it, but not before! It all got me thinking of all the great memories I had on swing sets as a kid: underdogs, leaps from the swings and landing on your feet, how those black rubber seats burned your butt in the summer, and even swinging with a high school sweetheart at dusk in a particular park. I could go on and on, but the long and short of it is: whenever I realize there’s so much emotion steeped in a certain, iconic childhood moment, that’s when I want to write it down for me, and then turn it into something for everyone.
BB: One thing I particularly appreciated about this book was that it avoids what I call The Elmo Effect. Which is to say, it doesn’t show a character failing one or two times and then being an immediate pro. Vern has to try on his own repeatedly and even when he starts to get it, it’s super slow. Success is not instantaneous. How important was it to you to make sure that was the case with this story?
SVWL: That part was incredibly important to me because none of these things — diving off a diving board, riding a bike, learning how to pump — happens in one day. It takes time and effort and it includes very real failures and very real frustration. I never liked books that took difficult things and made them out to be so easy. As a kid, they made me feel both inadequate and also lied to. I never want to lie to kids about the important things in my books — I want to validate their feelings, which are often quite complex. Kids can want to learn how to pump but also not want to work on it if it doesn’t come easy to them. And they can feel shame for not getting it right away and impatience and frustration with themselves and others during the entire process.
BB: The sentence “Gretchen stop licking your scab” may already be my favorite of the year. And I love the names you gave these characters. Gretchen. Vern. Why these particular names for this particular book?
SVWL: Me and Beatrice Alemagna, we get real with the scabs! I’ll tell you a secret, that particular sentence is something I’ve actually said to one of my children. Until my kids were about 8, I kept careful journals about all the crazy things they said or did, and those notes included things I had to say to them. “Don’t pet that cat with your cheese” was another sentence I uttered in real life that also made it into the book.
As for the character names: they aren’t common names these days, are they? I do think that makes them really stand out for people, but to answer your question, I named them for my parents. They are both in their 80s, and it tickled me to stick them in a story about kids in a park.
BB: Ahhhh, I suspected something like that! Now I don’t think there’s a soul alive who can’t relate to the idea that it’s easier to just give up and lie in the wood chips under a swing than it is to try something difficult again and again. It’s one thing to try to depict frustration on the page and something else entirely to do so well. When you were writing this, how many drafts did it go through to get it just right?
SVWL: I frequently lose count of my drafts because I tend to overwrite a draft rather than save it as a new draft. However, this one looks like it went through at least seven drafts before it was on submission to editors. My first draft had Vern getting frustrated, but not lying-in-the-woodchips-giving-up frustrated. By the second draft, I had teased that part out to last a little bit longer. However, I didn’t have the part about Gretchen never knowing if Vern were to give up until the 5th draft, and I feel like that part is so necessary to fully showcase how we feel when we want to give up. Like, no one’s watching and keeping track, so we can just a walk away, right?
BB: Well, for that matter, how different is this book from the very first draft? Did you have to take out anything you liked?
SVWL: I’d say it’s pretty different from the first draft, but it’s much stronger. I rushed the ending a bit in the very first draft, and really didn’t spend too much time on the part where he’s learning the physical lesson of pumping. I was afraid to lean into that because I thought it wouldn’t have enough action and drag the pacing down.
Two lines that I really liked but had to lose somewhere along the way were:
“Herb itched wood chips out of his shorts and tried again” and “Anastasia ran backwards until her tip toes were barely grasping the ground.”
I can’t remember when or why they came out, but it was probably about us leaning into brevity once we were working with the art. So much can be trimmed when you get to that stage. Also, those original names — Herb and Anastasia — got changed because we felt they might be difficult names to read aloud. But I still think Herb’s a really funny/old fashioned name for a kid and I would like to use it in another book someday.
But make no mistake, I wasn’t at all heartbroken by any of the changes. In fact, I had to compare drafts just now in order to remember them! I’ve certainly gotten past that writing hurdle where killing your darlings is an emotional wrench.
BB: I’m not sure what burnt sacrifices you offered up to the Illustration Gods, but congrats on getting paired alongside artist Chris Park! Did you know Chris’s work before this? How do you feel about the final product?
SVWL: Words fail when I talk about Chris’ art. I was not familiar with his work before, but when my team at Carolrhoda/Lerner suggested him, I was all-in and completely on the edge of my seat to see what he would do with the story. As you can imagine, I was NOT disappointed in the least.
One of my favorite parts about working on this particular book is that the picture book team at CarolRhoda/Lerner Books are some of the best people in publishing. Ever. My editor, Carol Hinz, and the designer, Danielle Carnito, have generously involved me in every aspect of this book’s creation from day one. As a text-only author, I don’t always get to see or have input on how the art and design come about. In this case, I was given the opportunity to react to everything! However, I don’t think I was much help in the end because my only reactions were: “I love this!” and “This is amazing, no notes!” It was the truth, though, and the final product fills me with such joy and amazement. I have never seen a picture book look like this one, and I really hope to work with Chris on many more books.
BB: You’re busy as all get out, but I gotta ask. What do you have coming out next (or even in tandem) for us?
SVWL: Hah! You’re sneaky with that “in tandem” bit, because I think you know that by the time this Q&A goes live, my verse novel about a kid dealing with distance learning during the early days of the pandemic will be out. That particular book, HUMMINGBIRD SEASON, is very important to me because it’s another one of those stories where I want kids to feel seen and to know that their experiences were very real and very lousy. I also want them to have the space and moment to discuss them since so many adults were very “business as usual!” when life started to return to a ew kind of normal. But I also know there are kids who were too young to really remember the pandemic and I hope that HUMMINGBIRD SEASON serves as a sort of emotional record of history for everyone.
Additionally, coming out in 2025, I have an ADORABLE book about a zombie boy who makes a pet out of one of the baby brains his parents raise on their farm and another book about the anxiety a child feels during a lockdown drill at his school. The zombie book will be published by Bloomsbury and illustrated by the amazing Laan Cham and the lockdown drill book is coming out with Random House Kids and will be illustrated by Gabrielle Grimard, an award-winning French-Canadian artist. I also have an unannounced picture book that I can’t say much about, but I will tell you that it was the FIRST EVER picture book I attempted to write, and ten years later it will actually see the light of day.
Big thanks to Stephanie for answering my questions and to Lindsay Matvick and the team at Lerner for helping to put all of this together. Touch the Sky is out May 7th in fine bookstores and libraries everywhere.
Interview with Stephanie V.W. Lucianovic (WHAT IS HOPE?)
September 6, 2023No Comments
Written by Connie Reid, Site Manager
Posted in Authors, Interviews, News & Updates
Today we are very excited to share an interview with Author Stephanie V.W. Lucianovic (What is Hope?) !
Meet the Author: Stephanie V.W. Lucianovic
Stephanie V.W. Lucianovic writes books in the San Francisco Bay Area surrounded by a few kids, a few cats, and one husband.
She is the author of SUFFERING SUCCOTASH: A PICKY EATER’S QUEST TO UNDERSTAND WHY WE HATE THE FOODS WE HATE (2012); THE END OF SOMETHING WONDERFUL (PB 2019); HELLO, STAR (PB 2021); THE LEAGUE OF PICKY EATERS (MG 2021); WHAT IS HOPE (PB 2023); HUMMINGBIRD SEASON (MG 2024), TOUCH THE SKY (PB 2024), ZOMBIE AND BRAIN ARE FRIENDS (PB 2025) and WHEN BREATHING IS TOO LOUD (PB 2025).
Stephanie still sleeps with the teddy bear she had as a baby, she has a bellybutton phobia, and she was born with six wisdom teeth. She doesn’t think this makes her any wiser than the average chewer but it does give her a biting sense of humor. Her favorite words are “knelt” and “cloak.”
Website * X * Instagram
About the Book: WHAT IS HOPE?
Celebrate how hope can be found in so many surprising moments and places as it fills our lives with beauty and wonder.
A beautiful rhyming text and cozy illustrations remind readers that hope can be found daily in so many aspects of life. From a poppy turning its face to the sun to a firefly lighting up the night. From putting all your effort into learning how to ride a bike, to asking for help to play ball. Hope can be found in so many places–in that shelf full of books waiting to be read, in a dog wagging its tail, and especially when you’re waiting at the window for a loved one’s visit.
Readers will be uplifted as they see all the ways hope can connect us and help us to live our best lives, and they may even be inspired to write a few verses of their own about where they find hope. Whatever hope is to you, wherever you find it in your life, this book shows how “Hope can glow bright or be just a spark. / Hope is the warmth at home in your heart.”
Amazon * B&N * Indiebound
~Author Chat~
YABC: What gave you the inspiration to write this book?
Ironically, I was at one of my lowest emotional points in my career. The steady grind of rejections had worn my heart down to a raw nub and I felt utterly without hope. I didn’t know how I would ever find writing inspiration again.
In order to take my mind of of things, I asked an illustrator friend of mine (Tara Hannon) if she wanted to have what I called an Author-Illustrator Playdate. I would write a manuscript and send it to her and she would do some accompanying sketches. We were both looking for distractions and we both craved new ways of being creative.
This was not a manuscript I really thought would ever go on submission. We were just messing around, having fun. My story was about a pastry-baking platypus who had lost her hope somewhere and she was looking for it in all the likely places she might have last had it. Was it by the banks of the river where she and badger dug for buried treasure? (You have to have hope with you when you’re hoping to find buried treasure.) Was it in the tree where she and sparrow watched a meteor shower? (You have to have hope when you’re hoping to see a shooting star to wish on.) And so forth.
As I was trying to come up with the more unusual — less cliche — places where hope is needed to put in the story, I was paying more attention to the world around me. I’d go on a run and get to a steep incline and I’d realize I was hoping I could make it up that hill. There was a golden poppy in a vase on my window sill and even though it had been picked, it still closed at night and opened every morning. And that seemed like a very hopeful action indeed, so I wrote the line, “Hope is a poppy awake with the sun.” After that I couldn’t help but string together many rhyming couplets about hope. I posted them on Twitter, but they were just for fun, just brainstorming for my Author-Illustrator Playdate. Then one of my other author friends (Kristy Everington) said, “This is a picture book” and she convinced me (forced me, really) to send it to our agent.
I finally took her advice and my agent loved it and took it on sub where an offer came back 30 minutes after my editor read it.
WHAT IS HOPE? is dedicated to Tara and Kristy as result of their involvement and support.
YABC: How do you know when a book is finished?
Hah, for me a book is never finished. I will keep poking and prodding at it until my agent steps in and tells me it’s time to let it go. It’s either that or I know it’s finished when I can’t stand to look at it a second longer.
YABC: What research did you do to write this book?
I just kept myself really open to seeing signs of hope in unusual places — the poppy and hill I mentioned earlier — but also when I went to the library to pick up a new book. I was hoping I’d like the book as much as the one I was returning.
YABC: How do you keep your ‘voice’ true to the age category you are writing within?
I read tons of book in my age category to keep myself centered but I also have two kids — 10 and 14 — and I listen to their voices, what they say, how they speak, what they are interested in, what upsets them, what excites them.
YABC: What is your favorite writing space?
I wish I could say it was a tiny cabin out back of my house that was built specifically as a writing studio, but alas, I have my desk in a corner of my bedroom. However, it’s a beautiful desk that has me looking up at walls hung with framed art from my favorite illustrators who are also my friends. It’s a tiny, but inspiring, corner to write in.
However, I also love it when I’m out hiking in the forest with absolutely zero intention of writing a single word, but then my brain decides it has other plans for me and starts stringing words, sentences, and ideas together. Then I have to stop and find some way to capture them — I write them down in notes or, on one occasion, I sent a frantic text to another author friend that made very little sense to anyone except me because I needed to document the fact that I had finally worked out a problem in a story that was bothering me.
YABC: How do you plan to celebrate the launch of your book?
I plan to tell the above story about Tara and Kristy’s involvement on social media and showcase the never-before-seen art that Tara created for that platypus book. Because being a writer is about fostering and rejoicing in the community that surrounds and supports us. I’ll also likely take a very long hike on my favorite ocean cliffs.
YABC: What do you do when you procrastinate?
Absolutely everything but write. I’ll clean every room in the house, cook elaborate meals,
YABC: What’s up next for you?
Quite a bit, actually. I have four books coming out in the next two years. Up first and publishing February 2024 is my first novel-in-verse with Bloomsbury Children’s. It’s called HUMMINGBIRD SEASON and is about a boy struggling with lockdown, loneliness, and distance learning during the early days of the pandemic. Then in May 2024, I have a thoroughly delightful picture book coming out with illustrator Chris Park and Lerner/CarolRhoda Books called TOUCH THE SKY. That book is about that unforgettable moment when you finally master how to pump on a swing. In fall of 2025, I have a picture book called ZOMBIE AND BRAIN ARE FRIENDS with illustrator Laan Cham and Bloomsbury Children’s. It’s about a zombie boy who adopts a brain as a pet even though his brain farming parents keep telling him that brains are food, not pets. Also in fall of 2025, I have a picture book with illustrator Gabrielle Grimard and Random House Children’s about the anxiety a child feels during a lockdown drill at his school — that one is called WHEN BREATHING IS TOO LOUD.
Book’s Title: What Is Hope?
Author: Stephanie V.W. Lucianovic
Illustrator: Kelsey Buzzell
Release Date: September 5th, 2023
Publisher: Nancy Paulsen Books/Random House Children’s Books
Genre: Children’s poetry
Age Range: 3-6
The End of Something Wonderful: A Practical Guide to a Backyard Funeral. By Stephanie V. W. Lucianovic. Illus. by George Ermos. Sept. 2019. 32p. Sterling, $16.95 (9781454932116). Gr. 1-3.
At first glance, a guide to backyard funerals might seem morbid or glib--especially after viewing its lovely animal skeleton endpapers--but this picture book offers earnest advice to kids needing to say goodbye to a beloved pet, using language that is sympathetic but not euphemistic. Lucianovic refers to pets as a child's "Something Wonderful" and proceeds to offer step-by-step advice for burying, reminiscing, and grieving when Something Wonderful becomes Something Dead. The book opens with a two-page spread divided into four panels, each showing a kid discovering a deceased pet--a goldfish, a turtle, a guinea pig, and a pill bug. Next comes planning a funeral specialized to the pet. A touch of humor is integrated into the practical steps and digital illustrations: finding an appropriate box (such as a shoe box, rather than a Jack-in-the-box) and digging a small hole in the yard (a hippo-sized hole will require a city permit). But emotional expression also gets its due, validating being tongue-tied, sharing stories about the pet, crying, laughing, and even singing. Lucianovic reminds young readers that while a funeral is sad, "It's not the end of everything. You can always begin Something Wonderful again." This frank but tender guide offers consolation and hope to children as they cope with loss and move forward to bright, new (Wonderful) things.--Julia Smith
Copyright: COPYRIGHT 2019 American Library Association
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Smith, Julia. "The End of Something Wonderful: A Practical Guide to a Backyard Funeral." Booklist, vol. 115, no. 22, 1 Aug. 2019, p. 66. Gale General OneFile, link.gale.com/apps/doc/A598305325/ITOF?u=schlager&sid=bookmark-ITOF&xid=100d54b9. Accessed 28 Mar. 2024.
Lucianovic, Stephanie V.W. THE END OF SOMETHING WONDERFUL Sterling (Children's Fiction) $16.95 9, 10 ISBN: 978-1-4549-3211-6
Several school-age children try to accept the deaths of their pets by holding backyard funeral ceremonies.
This misguided attempt at bibliotherapy endeavors to help children in their understanding and acceptance of the death of a pet with an approach using dark humor and attempts at clever throwaway lines and situations. The cover illustration shows a dead turtle falling out of its burial box, and on the endpapers are skeletons of various pets, including dogs. Five diverse children are shown with their dead pets, including two fish, a turtle, a guinea pig, and a bug; these dead pets are collectively referred to as Something Dead. Funeral suggestions include various methods of burial or disposal along with ideas for telling stories about the dead pet, singing songs, and adding flowers to the grave. Two problematic warnings include a note to be sure the pet is actually dead before burying it and advice against digging up a deceased pet to check on it, while an overly cheerful conclusion shows one of the children eyeing a lobster at a fish market as a possible replacement for her dead turtle. While the basic concepts of honoring a deceased pet with a memorial service are here, the overall flippant tone of the second-person text is not helpful to either prepare a child for an impending death or deal with the emotions following a loss. The death of a dog or cat, often a traumatic experience for the entire family, is avoided except for the skeletons on the endpapers.
Not recommended, especially for anyone who's ever lost a beloved pet. (Picture book. 5-8)
Copyright: COPYRIGHT 2019 Kirkus Media LLC
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"Lucianovic, Stephanie V.W.: THE END OF SOMETHING WONDERFUL." Kirkus Reviews, 1 July 2019. Gale General OneFile, link.gale.com/apps/doc/A591278945/ITOF?u=schlager&sid=bookmark-ITOF&xid=5a679d02. Accessed 28 Mar. 2024.
LUCIANOVIC, Stephanie V.W. The League of Picky Eaters. 304p. Clarion. Oct. 2021. Tr $16.99. ISBN 9780358379867.
Gr 4-6--In a society where consuming varieties of food in healthy quantities is a highly prized skill, Minerva's picky eating practices set her apart, and not in a good way. After performing poorly in her "eating placement test" at St. Julia Child Elementary and Middle School, she is assigned to a class for Remedial Eaters, filled with unpopular kids like Alice Who Only Eats White Food and Ralph, who disrupts classes by making vomit-like noises. The group of outcasts, though, turn out to be members of the League of Picky Eaters, with cool strategies for avoiding foods and fooling teachers that help kids like Minerva make it through school. She learns to appreciate her own uniqueness and that of her new friends, ultimately standing up for the virtues of pickiness in ways that instigate real change. The premise of elevating eating habits to a crucial social measurement is established early and maintained with cleverness and consistency. For instance, the class must take part in food immersion therapy ("Be one with the Brussels Sprouts"), and similes and other comparisons are often food-related. Some plot elements, which include the mystery of how the League was founded and Minerva's realization that she might actually be a "supertaster," are not especially compelling, but the food-based interactions between Minerva and her new friends versus a variety 6f antagonistic classmates and teachers are often entertaining and amusing. VERDICT A mostly successful blend of satirical humor within a solid story of friendship.--Steven Engelfried, Wilsonville P.L., OR
Copyright: COPYRIGHT 2021 A wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.
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Engelfried, Steven. "LUCIANOVIC, Stephanie V.W.: The League of Picky Eaters." School Library Journal, vol. 67, no. 10, Oct. 2021, p. 84. Gale General OneFile, link.gale.com/apps/doc/A678583618/ITOF?u=schlager&sid=bookmark-ITOF&xid=b703040a. Accessed 28 Mar. 2024.
Lucianovic, Stephanie V.W. HELLO, STAR Little, Brown (Children's None) $17.99 9, 21 ISBN: 978-0-316-45175-8
A girl sees a brightly burning star in the night sky and is curious, but she becomes concerned when she learns that the star is dying.
Enamored by a bright shining star she learns is a supernova, the little Black girl sets out to learn everything about it she can. She asks questions about stars in school and reads books about stars. Every night she whispers to her star so that it knows it’s not alone. As time passes, she learns that her star is a blue giant, a rare sight from Earth. As a young woman, she goes to college to study stars and space, convinced that she will find a way to her star. And so she does. All grown up, the woman becomes an astronaut and authority on stars and space. She arrives in space just in time to witness her star fade to darkness and then burst into more bright, shining stars. Based on a conversation the author had with her son, this book celebrates a child’s curiosity and compassion. Though not based entirely on scientific facts, this book will stand up as an introduction to space and stars for very young readers. Harrison’s dreamy, blue-toned illustrations are a hit; front and rear endpaper illustrations artfully attest to the protagonist’s lifelong interest in space. The author’s note discusses the book’s inspiration. (This book was reviewed digitally.)
Share with your favorite future astronauts. (Picture book. 4-8)
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"Lucianovic, Stephanie V.W.: HELLO, STAR." Kirkus Reviews, 15 Aug. 2021, p. NA. Gale General OneFile, link.gale.com/apps/doc/A671782894/ITOF?u=schlager&sid=bookmark-ITOF&xid=d93467e4. Accessed 28 Mar. 2024.
Hello, Star. By Stephanie V. W. Lucianovic. Illus. by Vashti Harrison. Sept. 2021.40p. Little, Brown, $17.99 (9780316451758). K-Gr. 3.
A young Black girl gazing out her window notices a particularly bright star. Reading with her mother, she learns that it is a supernova, a giant dying star, and this new interest helps the girl find her voice at school. With scientific information incorporated into the fictional story, the girl and the reader gain greater knowledge as she trains to be a scientist and astronaut, though the inspiring story maintains a light touch. Ever driven by a desire to actually meet her special star, the girl succeeds through her efforts and hard work, with no outside forces imposing limits on her. Soft colored-pencil and Photoshop illustrations employ a palette of blues and grays that emphasize her steadfast passion for the night sky. The fading supernova beautifully symbolizes the idea of legacy. Its light inspires the girl, and then, as the girl achieves her goal of traveling in space, the star moves to the next phase, breaking into smaller, younger stars. They and the now-grown girl will illuminate a path for future curious children. --Lucinda Whitehurst
Copyright: COPYRIGHT 2021 American Library Association
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Whitehurst, Lucinda. "Hello, Star." Booklist, vol. 118, no. 2, 15 Sept. 2021, p. 55. Gale General OneFile, link.gale.com/apps/doc/A678822158/ITOF?u=schlager&sid=bookmark-ITOF&xid=0f1586cf. Accessed 28 Mar. 2024.
LUCIANOVIC, Stephanie V.W. The League of Picky Eaters. 304p. Clarion. Oct. 2021. Tr $16.99. ISBN 9780358379867.
Gr 4-6--In a society where consuming varieties of food in healthy quantities is a highly prized skill, Minerva's picky eating practices set her apart, and not in a good way. After performing poorly in her "eating placement test" at St. Julia Child Elementary and Middle School, she is assigned to a class for Remedial Eaters, filled with unpopular kids like Alice Who Only Eats White Food and Ralph, who disrupts classes by making vomit-like noises. The group of outcasts, though, turn out to be members of the League of Picky Eaters, with cool strategies for avoiding foods and fooling teachers that help kids like Minerva make it through school. She learns to appreciate her own uniqueness and that of her new friends, ultimately standing up for the virtues of pickiness in ways that instigate real change. The premise of elevating eating habits to a crucial social measurement is established early and maintained with cleverness and consistency. For instance, the class must take part in food immersion therapy ("Be one with the Brussels Sprouts"), and similes and other comparisons are often food-related. Some plot elements, which include the mystery of how the League was founded and Minerva's realization that she might actually be a "supertaster," are not especially compelling, but the food-based interactions between Minerva and her new friends versus a variety 6f antagonistic classmates and teachers are often entertaining and amusing. VERDICT A mostly successful blend of satirical humor within a solid story of friendship.--Steven Engelfried, Wilsonville P.L., OR
Copyright: COPYRIGHT 2021 A wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.
http://www.schoollibraryjournal.com/
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Engelfried, Steven. "LUCIANOVIC, Stephanie V.W.: The League of Picky Eaters." School Library Journal, vol. 67, no. 10, Oct. 2021, p. 84. Gale General OneFile, link.gale.com/apps/doc/A678583618/ITOF?u=schlager&sid=bookmark-ITOF&xid=b703040a. Accessed 28 Mar. 2024.
The League of Picky Eaters. By Stephanie V. W. Lucianovic. Oct. 2021.304p. Clarion, $16.99 (9780358379867). Gr. 4-6.
Lucianovic puts a delicious spin on the familiar "middle-schooler learns to own a personal difference rather than be humiliated by it" theme. In the town of Muffuletta, founded by chefs and gourmets, the curriculum at the St. Julia Child Elementary and Middle School is entirely food-centric. An excellent student except in Eating, where she earns grades of "Picky," Minerva is devastated to find herself starting sixth grade in the Remedial Eating to Change Habits (RETCH) class. Hardly has clueless teacher Mr. Kreplach dished out the first assignment than she finds herself bonding with her classmates in schemes to derail the dietary indoctrination, and even invited by them to join the titular secret club, which has been in existence for generations. There's a roux of sophistication in some of the culinary humor that the story's characters and conflicts lack, but Minerva's final triumphant acceptance of her sensitivity to taste and texture as a kind of superpower (as well as the tart verbal smackdown she delivers to a faux friend) will leave readers replete.--John Peters
Copyright: COPYRIGHT 2021 American Library Association
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Peters, John. "The League of Picky Eaters." Booklist, vol. 118, no. 3, 1 Oct. 2021, p. 40. Gale General OneFile, link.gale.com/apps/doc/A695507130/ITOF?u=schlager&sid=bookmark-ITOF&xid=d8ea2356. Accessed 28 Mar. 2024.
LUCIANOVIC, Stephanie V.W. What Is Hope? illus. by Kelsey Buzzell. 32p. Penguin/Nancy Paulsen. Sept. 2023. Tr $18.99. ISBN 9780593326558.
K-Gr 2—An array of simple pleasures awaits readers in this charming picture book. Rhyming text presents examples of uplifting experiences to which nearly everyone can relate. Digital and mixed media illustrations bring to life scenes of learning to ride a bike, a hillside covered with flowers, and running for the ice cream truck. Three siblings appear throughout the book, along with their family, friends, and neighbors. A range of skin tones and hair colors and textures are used for the various characters. Along with grandmother helping to bake an apple pie or big brother giving a boost for a basketball shot, pets also offer hope as a "promise of love in a fur-covered coat." Scenes support the wonders of childhood and the possibilities for making a new friend, mastering a new skill, or spending time with loved ones. Teachers may especially enjoy the spread showing children waiting at the library checkout counter and the sentiment, "Hope is a book on a shelf just for you."
VERDICT: The perfect book to read with someone who is feeling discouraged, or to use with older students as a mentor text on metaphors.—Suzanne Costner
Copyright: COPYRIGHT 2023 Library Journals, LLC
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Costner, Suzanne. "What Is Hope?" WebOnlyReviewsSLJ, vol. 69, no. 9, 15 Sept. 2023, p. 1. Gale General OneFile, link.gale.com/apps/doc/A767330392/ITOF?u=schlager&sid=bookmark-ITOF&xid=bec18065. Accessed 28 Mar. 2024.
Lucianovic, Stephanie V.W. WHAT IS HOPE? Nancy Paulsen Books (Children's None) $18.99 9, 5 ISBN: 9780593326558
An attempt at exploring the concept of hope in a child-friendly way.
In this rhyming narrative, a group of kids are shown engaging in various summer activities: flying a kite, riding a bicycle, playing in a treehouse, selling lemonade, and visiting the beach. On each two-page spread, a short verse tries to relate the activity to hope. Some of the rhymes seem to have a slight, if tenuous, connection: "Hope is two wheels / and staying upright. / Hope is pumping fast / with all of your might." But the majority are cryptic, to say the least: "Hope is being thoughtful / choosing to care. / Hope is discovering / you have so much to share." This last one seems at odds with the accepted definition of the noun form of hope: wanting and expecting a particular thing to happen. The words joy or happiness would seem a better fit. The illustrations, mirroring the narrative, give no further illumination to readers, although they are colorful, if presented a bit too uniformly in their perspective. The conclusion, which sees a large, loving family sitting down to a meal ("Hope is a tail wag / at the screen door. / Hope is a family / together once more"), brings the tale to a warm conclusion. Characters depicted are diverse, although light-skinned, red-haired kids dominate. (This book was reviewed digitally.)
Sweet but puzzling. (Picture book. 4-6)
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"Lucianovic, Stephanie V.W.: WHAT IS HOPE?" Kirkus Reviews, 15 July 2023, p. NA. Gale General OneFile, link.gale.com/apps/doc/A756871983/ITOF?u=schlager&sid=bookmark-ITOF&xid=0d5c5195. Accessed 28 Mar. 2024.
Hummingbird Season
by Stephanie V. W. Lucianovic
Intermediate Bloomsbury 272 pp.
2/24 9781547612741 $17.99
e-book ed. 9781547612758 $12.59
Lucianovic documents the life of her protagonist during COVID-19 when "every day / everything / is the same boring same." Archie's father works from his bedroom, his mother from the kitchen, and his older brother is still allowed to play outside with friends (some unmasked). Archie wonders, "I don't know / how you can be lonely / when you're stuck / in your house / with a family / who has no / choice but to be / with you / but I know / that's the way it is." COVID has created a near-dystopian world, and the boring ordinariness of Archie's life belies the dangers of a time-warped existence where "a week feels much longer / than it did before. / A day takes / forever to end. / And time feels like it's made of worksheets." Archie simply wants connection--with parents, brother, classmates. The hummingbirds outside his window represent that, with their happy, friendly, "cozy" whirring-wing sounds reminding him of family moments he misses. Lucianovic portrays Archie's interior world in straightforward first-person verse that effectively captures the voice of an elementary school boy living through extraordinary times.
Copyright: COPYRIGHT 2024 A wholly owned subsidiary of Media Sources, Inc. No redistribution permitted.
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Schneider, Dean. "Hummingbird Season." The Horn Book Magazine, vol. 100, no. 1, Jan.-Feb. 2024, p. 99. Gale General OneFile, link.gale.com/apps/doc/A781187783/ITOF?u=schlager&sid=bookmark-ITOF&xid=6cf43e42. Accessed 28 Mar. 2024.
Lucianovic, Stephanie V.W. HUMMINGBIRD SEASON Bloomsbury (Children's None) $17.99 2, 13 ISBN: 9781547612741
A California boy chronicles the long, difficult Covid-19 lockdown in verses that explore his confused emotions.
On the day "that started everything" and that "was also a day that ended everything," Archie's life is turned upside down. School is abruptly closed, his parents must work from home, and big brother Hank is ever more difficult. Archie's asthma puts him at risk, causing his parents to take ever-greater precautions. All this, plus attending "(not real) school at home," makes him feel more and more isolated, unseen, and muted. He has outbursts of anger and despair: " even though we're together / stuck inside the house / we're not really together-together." Archie's imagination is captured when he hears a brief buzzing sound, senses something whipping past, and witnesses "the smallest bird ever," and he soon finds a new purpose. With help from his family, he carefully provides nectar for his "hummingbird restaurant" and becomes especially attached to Ruby, a hummingbird with red patches, as he watches for and worries about her, especially when a wildfire rages. Some poems are lists or consist of a few lines; others flow breathlessly, offering detailed accounts of events, beautiful descriptions, or information about hummingbirds. Archie often repeats important words, phrases, or concepts in a rhythmic way that emphasizes his escalating emotions. He's intensely loving, deeply compassionate, insightful, inventive, and expressive. Readers will gasp in wonder and empathy, cry and sometimes laugh, cheer at the upbeat conclusion, and feel every emotion that's so powerfully expressed.
Brilliant. (author's note) (Verse fiction. 8-12)
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"Lucianovic, Stephanie V.W.: HUMMINGBIRD SEASON." Kirkus Reviews, 1 Dec. 2023, p. NA. Gale General OneFile, link.gale.com/apps/doc/A774415054/ITOF?u=schlager&sid=bookmark-ITOF&xid=e78fc7d1. Accessed 28 Mar. 2024.
LUCIANOVIC, Stephanie V.W. Hummingbird Season. 272p. Bloomsbury. Feb. 2024. Tr $17.99. ISBN 9781547612741.
Gr 2-4--When the world shuts down in the midst of the COVID-19 pandemic, Archie struggles to adapt to school moving online. His older brother, Hank, seems to be thriving, and even gets to spend time with friends outside, but Archie feels increasingly alone and isolated, and doesn't think that his teacher and his classmates care if he is in class or not. On top of that, the California wildfires make even the outside air dangerous for him to breathe because of his asthma. When he sees a hummingbird in his yard, he becomes fascinated with her and sets up feeders all around the house. Over time, the hummingbird becomes something that helps Archie find and build connections, both with his brother and with his class. Told in a series of free verse poems, this novel captures the confusion and isolation of the first year of the pandemic, especially for kids. The author uses the metaphor of being on mute in an online class to describe struggles that often go unheard, from the fears Archie's classmates have about situations at home to the natural disasters caused by climate change. This book would make for a great lead-in to classroom discussions or writing prompts, giving kids the opportunity to share their own memories of lockdown. VERDICT This beautifully written novel in verse offers a sensitive reflection on the pandemic and its emotional toll, even for those families who were able to stay healthy and financially stable during lockdown.--Ashley Larsen
Copyright: COPYRIGHT 2024 A wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.
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Larsen, Ashley. "LUCIANOVIC, Stephanie V.W.: Hummingbird Season." School Library Journal, vol. 70, no. 1, Jan. 2024, pp. 59+. Gale General OneFile, link.gale.com/apps/doc/A778646572/ITOF?u=schlager&sid=bookmark-ITOF&xid=e2685990. Accessed 28 Mar. 2024.