What is my graphic novel ARMAVENI about? You’ll discover Western Armenian culture, a spotlight on history, and a touch of fantasy. ARMAVENI comes out March 10 and it’s available for preorder now! If you’d like a sneak peek before it’s out, make sure to sign up for my newsletter. All links are in my bio!
#graphicnovel #comics #youngadultfiction
Help us ignite a love of reading in under-resourced communities!
• Over 100,000 books donated so far this year to organizations like First Book and the National Book Foundation
• But we want to do more! Your support can help reach even more kids
Just $100 = 15 new books for kids who need them most
Make your tax-deductible donation by Dec 31st:
fundraising.fracturedatlas.org/the-lantern-library
Two weeks ago today, @danielnayeri ’s TEACHER OF NOMAD LAND won the National Book Award! We’re still as shocked and happy as we were then! (Swipe to the end to see our very own Kerry’s reaction 😜)
Thank you to @davidobowles , the committee, and the @nationalbookfoundation ✌🏽
🍯 Next week at MOFAD! 🍯
MOFAD Book Club: Like Wafers in Honey with Leah Eskin and Sari Kamin
Wednesday, May 20
7 - 9 PM
Book talk, pickle tasting, and discussion
Join us for a MOFAD book club event as we discuss Leah Eskin’s new novel, Like Wafers in Honey, which was inspired by the life and recipes of Edda Servi Machlin.
Machlin’s important cookbook The Classic Cuisine of the Italian Jews (along with its sequels) offers the compelling story of a vanished community — Machlin's family, along with the other Jewish townspeople of Pitigliano, known as Little Jerusalem, fled during World War II.
@leah.eskin will be joined by @sarikamin to discuss the process of converting Machlin’s recipes for the modern cook all while showing how memory, food, and storytelling can resist erasure.
Copies of Like Wafers in Honey are available for pre-sale via @kalnyc !
As always, ticket holders have access to our newest exhibition, Street Food City ahead of the program from 6-7pm.
See y’all soon!
Link to tickets in bio! Click: MOFAD Programs
🍯 🍯 🍯
Happy Earth Day!
Celebrate with AFLOAT & GEOGRAPHICS, two LQ books that celebrate the Earth, where we come from, and how we can take care of our land for future generations.
🌳
The love for The True Ugly Duckling continues. I am beyond words and immensely grateful. Thank you Mom Read It! “Nickel draws empathy from readers by unfolding Andersen’s story as one would a fairy tale hero’s journey, using some of Andersen’s most famous stories to tell his tale: his inability to dance like a swan; his speaking and acting “like a country duck”; his singing voice becoming “more like a toad’s” when his voice changed. . . . Every single part of this book is a joy to read.” @calvinnicholls@hgliterary@levinequerido #newbook #biography #childrensbook #picturebook #illustration
Have you checked out LIKE WAFERS IN HONEY yet?
This debut novel from food writer Leah Eskin of the Chicago Tribune combines the historical sweep and emotional power of The Invisible Bridge by Julie Orringer and the resonant use of food and recipes of Like Water for Chocolate by Laura Esquivel.
The story opens on the mountaintop town of Pitigliano, Italy, once called Little Jerusalem for its vibrant, centuries-old Jewish community. But the year is 1943. Mussolini has enacted anti-Jewish laws across Italy, and the family of Stella Fortuna struggles to maintain any sense of their former life.
In a separate timeline, Edda Servi Machlin is a housewife in 1960s Westchester trying to make sense of a new culture, as well as the “spaghetti and meatballs” food that passes for Italian cuisine. With caustic wit, we see twentieth-century America through an immigrant’s eyes, someone who can never return to her former home because it no longer exists. Someone who comes to understand that it might be up to her to preserve the indelible flavors of an Italian-Jewish way of life that is in danger of extinction, as her family once was.
In between these two remarkable stories are more than forty recipes (updated for today’s cooks), all inspired by the life and example of Edda Servi Machlin, author of The Classic Cuisine of the Italian Jews.
📣 FACULTY ANNOUNCEMENT
Irene Vazquez, Editor & Poet, Levine Querido
Born in New Orleans, raised in Houston, & now living in Manhattan, Irene Vázquez is a queer Black Mexican American poet, translator, and journalist who writes at the intersection of Black cultural work, placemaking and the environment. Irene's debut chapbook Take Me To the Water was released by Bloof Books. Their poetry also appears in When Language Broke Open: Queer and Trans Black Writers of Latin American Descent (University of Arizona Press 2023) and Attached to the Living World: A New Ecopoetry Anthology (Trinity University Press 2025). Irene is a Pushcart Prize and Best of the Net nominated poet.
Irene completed a B.A. in Ethnicity, Race, and Migration and English at Yale. In 2021, with the support of the Pulitzer Center, Irene reported on environmental justice advocacy and healing in Black and Indigenous communities on the Louisiana coast.
By day, Irene works as an editor at Levine Querido, where they edited the New York Times bestseller, One of the Boys. When not in the world of books, Irene likes drinking coffee, watching the WNBA, and reminding folks that the South has something to say.
Registration Opens May 1!
Sep. 11-12, NYC
#lkbfstorytellers26
What I loved most about the manuscript of Stolen Colours was that Shreya was an artist. Aside from endearing her to me, her artwork gave me another layer to work with visually to depict her story. After the abuse takes place, Shreya’s vibrant art wilts and turns dark. At the end of the book, we know she is healing because her art returns to feeling joyful and vibrant. She even begins to paint in the figures of those most dear to her.
You can buy STOLEN COLORS online now (link in bio!) and if you do, please consider leaving us a review on Amazon!
@khushboo_.patel._@levinequerido
THE TRUE UGLY DUCKLING: HOW HAND CHRISTIAN ANDERSEN BECAME A SWAN
Written by Sandra Nickel @sandranickelbooks | Illustrated by Calvin Nicholls @calvinnicholls
Ages 4 – 8
“There once was a poor shoemaker’s son, who was tall and skinny. His nose was two times as long as everyone else’s and his heart two times as tender.” Thus begins not a fairy tale, but Sandra Nickel’s real life story of Hans Christian Anderson.
Sandra Nickel’s mesmerizing and sensitive portrait of Hans Christian Andersen highlights his seemingly limitless creativity, imagination, and courage as he stays true to himself despite the treatment and rejections he endured as a child and after moving to Copenhagen alone, at the age of 14, to find acceptance and a place to express his talents.
Her lyrical and moving biography is not only an inspiring tribute to this unique storyteller and artist—who experts now believe was on the autism spectrum—but a buoy for children struggling themselves and a reminder for all to embrace each person as a whole, recognizing and encouraging their talents, dreams, and contributions. Although his enduring popularity is already known to readers, her account of his ultimate triumph still has the power to astonish and prompt cheers.
Visually arresting, Calvin Nicholls’ extraordinary paper sculpture illustrations pop with action and emotion, immersing readers in the sights and sounds of Andersen’s factory hometown, his experiences in Copenhagen, and the joy of his long-dreamed-for success. The realism of Nicholls’ low-relief sculptures, assembled from various weight and textured papers then photographed, is astounding. Nicholls’ color scheme mirrors the theme of the “Ugly Duckling,” portraying Andersen in muted grays and browns until his full transformation when he dazzles Copenhagen royalty in a white tuxedo.
Levine Querido, 2026 l ISBN 978-1646146093
Thanks to @levinequerido and @blue_slip_media for sending me this book!
To read a summary of the book and find an easy swan origami craft, click link in bio.
#readtokids #booksforneurodiversekids #childrensbooks #classroombookaday #kidsbooks
What an incredible day at the Texas Library Association’s Annual Conference! We had such a great panel with Melissa Sweet, Matthew Burgess, Katie Yamasaki, Steph Littlebird and Deanna O’Marah! Then, after that so many great connections while signing! Thank you Texas librarians. You are amazing! #txla26 #newbook #books #texas #librarians @levinequerido@hgliterary
