About

Who am I and why am I writing this blog? Hmmm…

I’ve loved books since I was a toddler in the 60’s, and I’ve never outgrown my love of great children’s literature.

I’m a mom to four awesome people — one teaching in Europe, two in college, one in high school. We’ve had a rich time learning together via homeschooling, reading countless books over mugs of tea.

I earned a degree in Writing, and find pleasure in words.

I believe in non-electronic pastimes for children — books and paints and rain boots and hammers and bicycles and ukuleles and fresh air and the wide world — for the sakes of their bodies and minds and souls.

water is interesting

peeling potatoes is interesting

I’ve lived in northern Minnesota, Philadelphia, Quebec City, West Africa, and my current home is Minneapolis.

I’ve led several different book clubs and taught some writing classes for kids and am energized by hearing their thoughts.

When I’m not reading, I love camping, hiking, baking bread, the North Shore of Lake Superior, kayaking, chocolate in most forms, tea, all things British…well, not Marmite, music, snow, used book stores…

And that’s a little about me!

39 Comments »

39 Responses

on April 19, 2010 at 12:28 pm | Reply Doreen Stewart

Hi Jill,
I’m excited about your blog! We’re always looking for new ideas. Do you have some specific poetry books that you recommend? We’ve been using A Child’s Introduction to Poetry this year and I’m wondering what would be a good follow-up with poems that are pretty easy to understand.

Grace to you,
Doreen
- on April 20, 2010 at 1:42 pm | Reply jillsbooks
  
  Doreen,
  I’d say it depends a bit on how your kids have responded so far to poetry. If they are interested enough to absorb it without the beautiful pictures you’ve had in your book, there are a number of books I like with large collections of poetry such as Favorite Poems Old and New, The Book of 1000 Poems, or The Oxford Book of Children’s Verse by Iona and Peter Opie. If your kids prefer to see illustrations which help them enjoy the poetry, there are a number of beautiful books that I’ve seen in my library with more of the classic poetry, such as The Barefoot Book of Classic Poems, or the Poetry for Young People series which are picture-book-size volumes featuring only one poet, or one with much more of a children’s poetry flavor that I own called The Random House Book of Poetry for Children by Jack Prelutsky. If you are looking for a more heavily illustrated book, I’d scope some out at the library to decide if you want to even purchase them or just borrow them because I think they must be quite pricey!
on September 18, 2010 at 9:16 pm | Reply Barbara Broderson

LOVE the photos that you put on here! I think I TOOK the one of Little You When and where was the most recent one taken? It is a GREAT picture of all of you beautiful people!
on September 22, 2010 at 1:30 pm | Reply Marit

I really like this, Mom! It’s interesting, fun, and informative. I love the pictures you chose!
on December 10, 2010 at 4:46 pm | Reply Molly

Sorry it’s taken me so long to get to your new about page. It’s wonderful! I’m going back through your archives today to figure out some first chapter books to get for Orison for Christmas. He just turned 6 and is a reading fiend!
- on December 22, 2010 at 4:20 pm | Reply jillsbooks
  
  Oh, Molly…I simply cannot believe you didn’t get to this earlier!! Thanks very much for your encouragement.
on February 4, 2011 at 2:26 am | Reply Erika

Jill,

I am the author of a soon-to-be-released picture book. This is my first ever book and I’m working on ways to promote my work. Now I have to be honest, I have great respect for illustrators. Their work is something I could only dream to have the talent for.

My picture book profits are 100% being donated to charity. It is going to the Toledo Children’s Hospital oncology unit. My nephew was diagnosed with leukemia in July 2009. I’ve spent countless hours with him and his friends in the hospital. They are true heroes and teach me everyday what real strength is. I am using the money to buy games, toys, books, video games and things for the kids to do, whom spend weeks at a time admitted.

I’m writing you on behalf of my illustrator Karl A. Diaz. My picture book is his first ever published art and we are working to get both of our names and work out there. As you can tell this is very close to my heart. Karl did all 23 pages and bookmark as a donation to the charity. His work is beautiful and unique. Is it possible for you to do an illustrator piece or even an interview with him on your blog?

Thank you for your time and I look forward to hearing from you!

-Erika
- on February 4, 2011 at 1:47 pm | Reply jillsbooks
  
  Erika: Your book sounds like a work of love. I don’t foresee doing any interviews on my blog, but I wish you all the best in your efforts on behalf of the hospital. Have you read
  , by Jordan Sonnenblick? It’s about a young boy with leukemia, and is a fantastic story.
on February 14, 2011 at 11:50 am | Reply Yvonne Blake

I love your blog. I have a new blog about children’s literature. May I put a link to your blog?

http://polliwogpages.blogspot.com
- on February 14, 2011 at 1:50 pm | Reply jillsbooks
  
  Yvonne, by all means! I am honored by any link with your blog. I am non-techno enough that I don’t even know what a button/link is! But if you know how to do this, be my guest
on February 14, 2011 at 11:53 am | Reply Yvonne Blake

Do you have a button/link?
on February 20, 2011 at 10:27 pm | Reply Black History Month: Books for 12 and under « Noel Piper

[...] February 20th, 2011Black History Month: Books for 12 and underI’ve known Jill Swanson for a long time. You’d have to look far and wide to find someone more devoted to education [...]
on May 12, 2011 at 2:00 pm | Reply Yvonne

I have made a button for you. Please email me at yvonblake(at)faithwriters(dot)net so I may send it the code to you.

I will explain how to use it on your blog (if you want to).
on June 22, 2011 at 8:42 pm | Reply mountainwords

I found your blog via a google search for My Naughty Little Sister, and loved the trip down memory lane.

I’ve been asked to choose a story or a poem to be read out at the non-religious naming ceremony of my best friend’s daughter, who is also two that day. I won’t be there because I live abroad. I’d love to choose an extract from a children’s book that would express hope for the future, happiness, love and the importance of friendship.
If you have any ideas, I would be very, very grateful for assistance!

Rebecca
mountainwords (at) gmail (dot) com
- on June 22, 2011 at 10:53 pm | Reply jillsbooks
  
  Hi, Rebecca. The naming ceremony sounds like a beautiful day. I’ll think about it and see if I come up with anything. At any rate, I’d love to hear what you choose!
- on June 23, 2011 at 3:23 pm | Reply jillsbooks
  
  Rebecca,
  As I was looking for a poem for tomorrow’s blog, I came across one called “Barter” by Sara Teasdale which made me think of you. As far as a book, one that comes to mind is The Secret Garden by Frances Hodgson Burnett. At least that has all the themes that you mentioned and there might be something in the closing couple of chapters that brings all of that together. Best of luck!
  - on June 24, 2011 at 5:04 pm mountainwords
    
    Thank you so much for introducing me to Barter – what a beautiful poem. I am going to use it – I couldn’t think of a better message to send to a child.
  - on June 25, 2011 at 2:28 am jillsbooks
    
    I’m so glad it works!
on July 28, 2011 at 2:04 pm | Reply Claire

Loved stumbling across your blog as I why searching for some inspiration for a illustration/cartoon I am working on.

Funnily enough it will contain marmite, though I don’t like it myself
- on July 28, 2011 at 3:24 pm | Reply jillsbooks
  
  Claire, I enjoyed your blog! I have a great deal of trouble commenting on blogspot as I am about as techno as an earthworm, but…your site is very cool. I’ll be looking for your marmite-inclusive illustration
  - on July 28, 2011 at 3:33 pm Claire
    
    Hello!
    
    Thanks for popping over to my blog I have been with blogpsot for nearly five years now and the thing I hate about it, is the ruddy comment section! I am hoping that one day they will get around to fixing it, as you are not alone (far from it) in having problems with it.
    
    Marmite is a teeny part of it, but it made me smile after reading above thing about it
on October 12, 2011 at 6:01 pm | Reply Ashley Van Eysinga

Hi Jill,
I was wondering if you had an email where I can contact you in regards to picture books reviews.

Thanks,
Ashley
- on October 12, 2011 at 8:52 pm | Reply jillsbooks
  
  Sure. You can email me at jillswanson61@gmail.com
  
  Jill
on October 17, 2011 at 1:02 pm | Reply Lindsay

Hi Jill,

My family and I currently live in West Africa. Senegal, to be exact. We are church-planting missionaries. I’m just curious which country you lived in, and for how long?

I found the link to your site on Molly Piper’s blog. Glad to find another good resource for great books! We are a reading family!

Lindsay
- on October 17, 2011 at 6:36 pm | Reply jillsbooks
  
  Hi Lindsay,
  Nice to meet a fellow-West African-dweller! We lived next door, in Guinea, for about 5 years. I haven’t been to Senegal, but we have several friends who live in Dakar, or who used to. Living overseas and taking time to read as a family is a great way to raise kids!
- on March 19, 2012 at 9:40 pm | Reply Cara
  
  Lindsay,
  
  I am a missionary in Senegal also – and good friends with Molly Piper. Who are you, and where do you live??? Have we met? If you have little kids, we should probably be friends!
  
  Cara Herzberg
on December 10, 2011 at 5:32 am | Reply Paula

I have just been introduced to your blog and enjoy it thoroughly! You have great book suggestions and I need all I can get with my 3 little readers. Thank you!
on March 19, 2012 at 9:37 pm | Reply Cara

Hi Jill,

I’m sure we have met a couple times, but I doubt you remember me. My husband and I are missionaries in Senegal, and I just want to tell you that I ADORE this blog. Julie Steller told me about it a while ago, and I devour it. Thank you for writing it, and for putting up pictures of all the books. I have two two year olds who would possibly sit and read all day if they didn’t have to eat and nap, and your blog is my guiding light. Whenever people ask what they can send us for the kids, I have a list of books ready from your blog. There is so much junk out there, I would have no way to discern, from this distance, what I should request for my kids. Thank you, thank you, thank you!
- on March 19, 2012 at 10:52 pm | Reply jillsbooks
  
  Cara, I do remember you, and have had updates on you from time to time from Julie, the Networking Queen! Thank you so much for your encouragement. I love that your kids are itty-bitty book worms! And having lived overseas, I do understand the difficulty of knowing just how to use those precious pounds of shipping or baggage allowance! All the best to you as you head into hot season…
on December 10, 2012 at 5:15 pm | Reply Carys

Hello Jill!

Thanks for the lovely words about my blog! I am so excited to have come across yours. My friends and I have recently been talking about trying to compile lists of some great children`s books for our little ones so we can start our collections – this is an amazing resource that I will definately pass along to them. Would love to link to you when I put together a post on our bookcase? Warmest regards, Carys.
- on December 10, 2012 at 6:18 pm | Reply jillsbooks
  
  Sounds great. I’m clicking follow on your blog so I can get in on your creativity and eventual booklists!
on January 5, 2013 at 4:05 pm | Reply Mary McAndrew

Hi Jill, I’m glad I found your blog, I just love your “about me” page! Sounds like we have some common interests, and I saw you were in the Lake District which I adore! I’m an artist who loves to paint nature and I sometimes teach Nature Sketching in the field. I also love to write fun poems and stories for children and am now working on illustrating them! Yay! Please have a look at my website, I just started adding some of my children’s illustrations in the Gallery. On my blog there I do a lot of posts about my sketching outdoors in nature. http://www.marymcandrew.com
Great to meet you!
Mary
- on January 6, 2013 at 11:20 pm | Reply jillsbooks
  
  Hi Mary, Thanks for introducting yourself and your beautiful blog! I enjoyed looking through your galleries, and especially loved your watercolors. Best of everything as you keep pursuing your art. If you are interested in children’s illustration, I’d particularly recommend the blog Seven Impossible Things which is an amazing treasure store of illustration work and interviews with illustrators! The link is here: http://www.blaine.org/sevenimpossiblethings/ Warmly — Jill
on January 7, 2013 at 11:34 pm | Reply Candygirlflies

Hi, Jill– I have just taken a brand new job, teaching students with severe learning disabilities in grades 4 through 8. Most of them are boys, and I am scrambling to find them some good options for novel studies. They have already done “The Giver”, “Frindle” and “Maniac Magee”… Any suggestions from the expert on some Classics they may enjoy?

Many thanks for all you do– your references have been invaluable for my primary classes! xo CGF
- on January 8, 2013 at 3:02 pm | Reply jillsbooks
  
  Hi Candy — Congrats on your new job! It sounds tremendous! The titles your group has tackled already are terrific, and what could be better than sharing great literature with these guys! Thanks for what you do~
  
  I’m not sure how “classic” you are reaching for here. A few old classics for this age group would be “The Children’s Homer:The Adventures of Odysseus and the Tale of Troy” by Padraic Colum (a great prose retelling of these epics), “The Epic of Gilgamesh” retold by Geraldine McCaughrean (very well done for this age group), and “The Call of the Wild” by Jack London (I did this with a similar age group of boys and was astonished at how they loved it! Challenging, but it’s a classic for good reason.) Other, more recent “classics” I would recommend for your group: “A Single Shard” by Linda Sue Park, “The Midnight Fox” by Betsy Byars, “My Side of the Mountain” by Jean Craighead George, “The House of Sixty Fathers” by Meindert DeJong. A couple of new titles that I’d throw out are “Wonder” by R.J. Polacio, and “Heart of a Samurai” by Margi Preus. A couple of lighter reads for this age group would be “By the Great Horn Spoon” by Sid Fleishman, and “Chitty Chitty Bang Bang” by Ian Fleming. All these have male main characters. Two with female leads that would still appeal to boys would be Gone Away Lake by Elizabeth Enright, and Becoming Naomi Leon by Pam Munoz Ryan.
  
  Hope you find great titles that work for your students. FYI, I think I’ve reviewed most of these except for the oldest classics. Best of everything to you! — Jill
on March 17, 2013 at 12:23 pm | Reply Esther

Hi there, I love your site and was trying to recommend it to friends, but when I go to your home page, I get a message that says “jillsbooks.wordpress.com is no longer available.” But I can still get new posts from you via my Google Reader (until Google Reader gets eliminated by Google in a few months…). Any idea what’s up?

THANK YOU for posting so many great book recommendations. I regularly request books from the library that you have recommended and you have never let me down yet!
- on March 17, 2013 at 5:58 pm | Reply jillsbooks
  
  Esther, thank you for your encouragement and thanks very much for passing my blog along to friends. I did not realize that message was still plaguing my blog. There was a day when I could not even get on the blog, when WordPress had accidentally deactivated it, but when I wrote to them, they apologized and said they had fixed that. Hmm…I guess I’ll check with them again.
on May 3, 2013 at 8:02 pm | Reply Eluka Moore

Jill-
I recently signed up to follow your blog and love what I have read so far!

I am an author of a new children’s recipe adventure book series called Kitchen Club Kids and would like to find out if you would be willing to review my first book, End of the Rainbow Fruit Salad and share with your readers.

Please let me know how I can get in touch with you and thank you for your consideration to review my first children’s book.
- on May 8, 2013 at 11:47 am | Reply jillsbooks
  
  Eluka,
  Thanks for following me. I’m glad you’ve enjoyed the blog. You can e-mail me: jillswanson61@gmail.com to talk more about your book.

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Orange Marmalade

spreading the word on delightful children's literature

About

Who am I and why am I writing this blog? Hmmm…

I’ve loved books since I was a toddler in the 60’s, and I’ve never outgrown my love of great children’s literature.

I’m a mom to four awesome people — one teaching in Europe, two in college, one in high school. We’ve had a rich time learning together via homeschooling, reading countless books over mugs of tea.

I earned a degree in Writing, and find pleasure in words.

I believe in non-electronic pastimes for children — books and paints and rain boots and hammers and bicycles and ukuleles and fresh air and the wide world — for the sakes of their bodies and minds and souls.

I’ve lived in northern Minnesota, Philadelphia, Quebec City, West Africa, and my current home is Minneapolis.

I’ve led several different book clubs and taught some writing classes for kids and am energized by hearing their thoughts.

When I’m not reading, I love camping, hiking, baking bread, the North Shore of Lake Superior, kayaking, chocolate in most forms, tea, all things British…well, not Marmite, music, snow, used book stores…

And that’s a little about me!

39 Responses

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Orange Marmalade

spreading the word on delightful children's literature

About

Who am I and why am I writing this blog? Hmmm…

I’ve loved books since I was a toddler in the 60’s, and I’ve never outgrown my love of great children’s literature.

I’m a mom to four awesome people — one teaching in Europe, two in college, one in high school. We’ve had a rich time learning together via homeschooling, reading countless books over mugs of tea.

I earned a degree in Writing, and find pleasure in words.

I believe in non-electronic pastimes for children — books and paints and rain boots and hammers and bicycles and ukuleles and fresh air and the wide world — for the sakes of their bodies and minds and souls.

I’ve lived in northern Minnesota, Philadelphia, Quebec City, West Africa, and my current home is Minneapolis.

I’ve led several different book clubs and taught some writing classes for kids and am energized by hearing their thoughts.

When I’m not reading, I love camping, hiking, baking bread, the North Shore of Lake Superior, kayaking, chocolate in most forms, tea, all things British…well, not Marmite, music, snow, used book stores…

And that’s a little about me!

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39 Responses

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Categories

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