How to Break Through with a Nonfiction Children’s Picture Book with Dean Robbins

Description

Learn the do’s and don’ts of crafting a publication-worthy manuscript from an author who overcame many obstacles to succeed in the children’s book world. With a sense of humor and a personal touch, Dean Robbins’s interactive workshop covers various approaches to writing nonfiction picture books that publishers will buy and that young readers will love. The engaging PowerPoint presentation delves into effective narrative strategies, appropriate reading levels, and methods for communicating complex information in an accessible way. Based on his own experience in publishing, Dean also provides inspiration for persevering through setbacks.

**This event will be recorded and available for 30 days after the event.

About Dean

Dean Robbins is a journalist and children’s author whose award-winning nonfiction picture books include "Two Friends: Susan B. Anthony and Frederick Douglass" (Scholastic); "Miss Paul and the President: The Creative Campaign for Women’s Right to Vote" (Knopf); "Margaret and the Moon: How Margaret Hamilton Saved the First Lunar Landing" (Knopf); "The Astronaut Who Painted the Moon: The True Story of Alan Bean" (Scholastic); "Thank You, Dr. Salk!: The Scientist Who Beat Polio and Healed the World" (Farrar Straus Giroux), "The Fastest Girl on Earth!: Meet Kitty O’Neil, Daredevil Driver!" (Knopf); "Mambo Mucho Mambo!: The Dance That Crossed Color Lines" (Candlewick); "You Are a Star, Ruth Bader Ginsburg!" (Scholastic); "You Are a Star, Jane Goodall (Scholastic); “You Are a Star, Malala Yousafzai”; “The Fastest Drummer: Clap Your Hands for Viola Smith” (Candlewick); “The Shape of Things: How Mapmakers Picture Our World” (Knopf); and “You Are a Star, Martin Luther King, Jr.” (Scholastic). His books have been featured on Public Radio International, in the Wall Street Journal, and in Forbes; praised in The New York Times, USA Today, and Los Angeles Times; awarded starred reviews in Publishers Weekly, Booklist, Kirkus Reviews, Horn Book, and School Library Journal; chosen for best-of-the-year honors by the American Library Association, New York Public Library, Chicago Public Library, and Children’s Book Council, among others; and adapted for film by Weston Wood Studios. As a journalist, Robbins has served as the editor in chief of Isthmus newspaper and On Wisconsin magazine and contributed to USA Today, The New York Daily News, Space.com, GRAMMY Magazine, and dozens of other media outlets. He is also the author of “Wisconsin Idols: 100 Heroes Who Changed the State, the World, and Me,” an essay collection for adult readers that NBA legend Kareem Abdul Jabbar calls “insightful and entertaining: a passionate and poetic homage.”