CURRENT ISSUE PREVIEW
JANUARY 2023
Our January lineup includes interviews with Neil Goldberg, Andi Diehn, Mona K, Cynthia Kern OBrien, Barbara Krasner, and Peter Brown. Deedee Cummings talks about making connections, and we welcome our new contributor, Character Counts!
Judy Newman finds a perfect reading spot, and Nick Spake reviews Guillermo del Toro’s Pinocchio.
Check out our newest book reviews and winter reading list! It's all inside!
Plus, find great activities on our Kids Corner page.
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Story Monsters Ink® is sponsored by Once Upon a Dance and Dr. Joy Pillay
FEATURES
Neil Goldberg
From the Page to the Stage
by Lindsey Giardino
“My life has been like a colorful kaleidoscope: changing, unexpected, and distinct,” says Neil Goldberg. The Broadway director, theater producer, and creative visionary can now add children’s book author to his long list of descriptors.
POMP, SNOW & CIRQUEumstance, co-written with Niko Nickolaou and illustrated by John Kelly, is Goldberg’s first book. It shares the holiday adventures of three unique characters as they study and learn special music, magic, and circus skills at a secret university before sharing their gifts with the world and learning a valuable lesson in humility and service to others.
Andi Diehn
Life Lends to Storytelling
by Lindsey Giardino
“Perhaps the most relevant fact about my early years is that I was an only child growing up in a large, haunted country house with my parents and grandparents, and I spent a lot of time either reading in trees or listening to conversations not meant for children because I was very good at being quiet and unnoticed by adults,” says children’s book author Andi Diehn.
“Pretty much the ideal childhood,” she jokes.
We are All Connected
by Deedee Cummings
Recently I had lunch with a friend. She was being really hard on herself because she has been feeling sad and depressed. Her mind tells her that she is being a baby and needs to toughen up. She owns her home, she is financially stable, she has friends and family. What does she have to be down about?
Mona K
Educates and Entertains Little Ones with Whimsical Tales
by Lindsey Giardino
Mona K grew up in the central India town of Bhopal, where she attended an all-girls Catholic school and was exposed to an array of literature forms. Her favorite of those was poetry. So, she started writing her own.
A few of her poems even got published in local newspapers.
When it came time to pursue a career, though, Mona chose to follow her analytical calling and eventually earned a bachelor’s degree in engineering and a master’s degree in applied statistics from Rutgers University. “During my initial years, I had the opportunity to work with researchers and was intrigued by the application of statistics in healthcare,” she explains.
Cynthia Kern OBrien
Pens a Picture Book with a Magnificent Message
by Lindsey Giardino
Cynthia Kern OBrien, a California native, grew up during a time when you never wanted to be inside and were thrilled to play outside until the streetlights came on.
“The neighborhood yards were always scattered with bikes, skates, and skateboards as we traveled in packs house to house,” she recalls. “As kids there were no computers, and not much was available on TV, so we used our imaginations to create games. And no day was complete without a round of neighborhood hide-and-seek!”
MONTHLY COLUMNS
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Life of a Reader
Pull Up a Chair …
by Judy Newman -
Q&A
Peter Brown
by Julianne Black DiBlasi -
The Book Bug
Barbara Krasner
by Raven Howell -
Monsters at the Movies
Guillermo del Toro’s Pinocchio
by Nick Spake -
Liv On Life
What would you do?
by Olivia Amiri -
KIDS CORNER
Questions That Matter
Click here
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