Beth Kephart Libros

In this lively, lyrical picture book biography, meet the groundbreaking, outspoken, legendary editor of the best-loved books for children, and see how she inspired Maurice Sendak, Margaret Wise Brown, and others to create Where the Wild Things Are, Good Night Moon, and many more classics. "Ursula Nordstrom was a grown-up who never forgot what it was to be a child." The girl who'd always loved to read would grow up to work in the Department of Books for Boys and Girls at Harper & Brothers Publishers. Soon she was editing books by Margaret Wise Brown and E. B. White, discovering new talent like John Steptoe and Maurice Sendak, and reinventing what a book for children should be. "Children want to be seen," she'd tell her writers. "Not good enough for you," she'd scribble in the margins of their manuscripts, asking them to revise. Her favorite books of all? "Good books for bad children," she'd say. And those books went on to win every award imaginable, including the Caldecott and Newbery Medals and the National Book Award.

A poetic story about the life and work of William Morris, maker of beautiful, useful things, sure to engage young dreamers and artists alike William Morris is best known for his colorful wallpapers and textiles, inspired by the English forests and wild foliage where he grew up. But did you know this icon of the Arts and Crafts Movement was also a poet, a painter, a preservationist, an activist, an environmentalist, and a maker of many other beautiful useful things, like books?

The author tells the story of her relationship with her son and their struggles to help him overcome the difficulties he experienced as a victim of pervasive developmental disorder.

A Junior Library Guild Gold Standard Selection When a girl in a homemade hot air balloon falls out of the sky in rural Gilbertine, there are Who is this girl, where exactly did she come from, why won’t she talk, and what has she risked to live in a country that does not seem to want her? And what can Sophie, Wyatt, and K—three misfit best friends with complex and harrowing stories of their own—do to help the girl who can’t trust those who want to help her? What should they do? As seen through the eyes of 14-year-old Sophie, who lives with her terminally ill grandmother, Cloud Hopper by National Book Award finalist Beth Kephart is a poignant, high-flying adventure set among the old planes, Vietnam vets, and majestic hot air balloons of a run-down municipal airport. It’s about the rules we’ll break and the dangers we’ll face to do the most-right thing we can imagine, even when we’re feeling long past brave.

From award-winning creators—author Beth Kephart and artist Julia Breckenreid— A Room of Your Own is a picture book about the places we go to create, inspired by Virginia Woolf and her noted essay.Sometimes Virginia Woolf wrote her stories in a garden shed. Sometimes she wrote them among stacks of books in a cool basement. And you? Where do you go to think, to dream, to be? The shade beneath a tall tree? The brick step on a city stoop? The cozy spot beneath the kitchen table? Or inside the night’s deep dark? Not all rooms require four walls and a roof.Inspired by the writer Virginia Woolf and her celebrated essay, “A Room of One’s Own,” A Room of Your Own is about the importance of claiming a space for oneself.“Colorful watercolors in spot art and larger scenes depict diverse girls and boys under a tree, on a neighborhood sidewalk, at the kitchen table, under a bedsheet fort, and in more spaces.” — Kirkus Reviews“Together, images and text combine for an unequivocal ode to the necessity of being oneself, and of having time alone.” — Publishers Weekly

The story revolves around eleven-year-old Sara and her brother Hawk, who face a pressing challenge: they must help a reclusive author renting a silo on their farm. Successfully completing this task could secure them reward money crucial for funding Sara's life-saving surgery. The narrative highlights themes of determination, family bonds, and the pursuit of hope in the face of adversity.

Offers a testament of the author's marriage to her artist husband and her revelations about his war-torn coffee farm home in El Salvador.

Like a modern-day Cyrano de Bergerac, Elisa ghostwrites love notes for the boys in her school. But when Elisa falls for Theo Moses, things change fast. Theo asks for verses to court the lovely Lila—a girl known for her beauty, her popularity, and a cutting ability to remind Elisa that she has none of these. At home, Elisa's father, the one person she feels understands her, has left on an extended business trip. As the days grow shorter, Elisa worries that the increasingly urgent letters she sends her father won't bring him home. Like the undercover agent she feels she has become, Elisa retreats to a pond in the woods, where her talent for ice-skating gives her the confidence to come out from under cover and take center stage. But when Lila becomes jealous of Theo's friendship with Elisa, her revenge nearly destroys Elisa's ice-skating dreams and her plan to reunite her family. National Book Award nominee Beth Kephart's first young adult novel is a stunning debut.

A poetic picture-book biography about artist N.C. Wyeth's daughter, Henriette, a talented painter in her own right And I think of the girl I am and the girl I'll be: A painter, like Pa. An actress (maybe). A fairy with wings. A father and daughter sneak away from their big, busy family to paint in the wild landscape. Together, they paint a lily, bright and white as a star; the green growing into the cap of a strawberry; the blue in the sky running pink. Henriette's father is N.C. Wyeth, the famous artist, who encourages her to paint what she sees, to awaken into her dreams, and she does, in this poetic picture book inspired by a famous American family of artists.

THIS IS THE STORY OF YOU is about the beauty of nature and the power of family, about finding hope in the wake of tragedy, and recovery in the face of overwhelming loss.