Mpr News With Kerri Miller

All kids are readers. Some just haven’t discovered it yet. Courtesy of Orange Coast Magazine Kitty Felde is the host and executive producer of Book Club for Kids. That’s the belief of Kitty Felde, former NPR correspondent and current host and executive producer of the podcast “Book Club for Kids.” In May, she joined Kerri Miller for a Friday episode of Big Books and Bold Ideas to talk about how to get kids reading over their summer break. Here are a few of her top tips. If you have a reluctant reader, any book is a good book. Felde recommends parents or caregivers take kids to a library or a bookstore and let them choose any book they show interest in. “Don’t censor them,” she cautions. “They are going to go and [choose] the dumbest thing you’ve ever seen in your entire life. But I don’t care! They will be reading words, and that’s what you want them to do.” Stop looking down on graphic novels. Felde believes the new crop of graphic novels is some of the most wonderful lit

Fairy tales are deceptively simple — “once upon a time” stories, filled with adventure and righteous moral power. But many believe they shouldn’t be relegated to the kids’ shelf. Writer Neil Gaiman famously said, “Fairy tales are more than true. Not because they tell us that dragons exist. But because they tell us dragons can be beaten.” Novelist Kelly Barnhill knows her way around fairy tales. Her book, “The Girl Who Drank the Moon,” won the prestigious Newberry Medal in 2017. She’s out with a new book for middle grade kids, this one also filled with fantastical creatures and children trying to navigate a changing world. But as she writes in the opening, it’s about more than that. “This book stated out as a fairy tale, but revealed itself to be a story that asks a specific question: What is a neighbor?’ On Friday’s Big Books and Bold Ideas, Barnhill joined MPR News host Kerri Miller to talk about her new book, the secrets of fairy tales and how her new novel, “The Ogress and the Orphans,” can speak to kids

On Friday’s show, it’s all about books for kids. MPR News host Kerri Miller talks with Minnesota author Kelly Barnhill about her new book, “The Ogress and the Orphans,” and Kitty Felde, host of the podcast Book Club for Kids, about what young readers should dive into this summer. To whet your appetite, we thought you would enjoy this fun 2019 interview Miller did with another Minnesota author, Drew Brockington, who sent cats to space in his kids' lit series "CatStronauts." The author and illustrator shared how his love of space fueled this series, and what humans can learn from an intrepid crew of CatStronauts named Waffles, PomPom, Blanket and Major Meowser. Guests: Drew Brockington is the author of the “CatStronauts” series and several other books for kids. He lives in Minneapolis. To listen to the full conversation you can use the audio player above.  Subscribe to the MPR News with Kerri Miller podcast on Apple Podcasts, Google Podcasts or RSS. Subscribe to the Thread newsletter for the

How to use science to help us manage life’s toughest moments is the theme of this week’s Big Books and Bold Ideas. Here, we revisit three discussions MPR News host Kerri Miller had with authors this past year and learn what they’ve discovered about grief, heartbreak and talking with people with whom we fundamentally disagree. Climate scientist Katharine Hayhoe kicks us off with a conversation about how we can find common ground when talking about climate change. Then we turn to Florence Williams, and her personal and clinical look at what science now knows happens in our bodies when we are dealing with heartbreak. Last, we hear from grief researcher Mary-Frances O’Connor about what loss looks like in the human brain. Guests: Katharine Hayhoe is a climate scientist, the chief scientist for The Nature Conservancy and the author of “Saving Us: A Climate Scientist's Case for Hope and Healing in a Divided World.” Florence Williams is a journalist, author and podcaster. Her new book is “Heartbreak: A Pers

The roots of ecologist Suzanne Simard’s love of forests are multiple generations deep. Her family relied on forestry for their livelihood, and she was one of the early groups of women to carve out space within the logging industry. But her experience didn’t mirror her family’s. As the scale of the industry’s business grew, Simard’s concern about the implications for the ecosystem around it eventually evolved into a new career path.  Simard is now a professor of forest ecology at the University of British Columbia and is working to reframe conversations about conservation. In her book “Finding the Mother Tree: Discovering the Wisdom of the Forest” she writes, “This is not a book about how we can save the trees. This is a book about how the trees might save us.” In June 2021, Simard talked with MPR News host Kerri Miller about what humans can learn from the way trees cooperate and communicate with other plants. Let this conversation whet your appetite for more science-based conversation coming this Friday. Gues

If you stand in the Sistine Chapel and look up at Michelangelo’s depiction of God, you’ll see the archetype. God is white, old, and male. Always male. Theologian and activist Christena Cleveland believes that image is limiting and even harmful. Her new book, “God is a Black Woman,” seeks to recover the sacred, Black feminine, thanks to a pilgrimage she undertook in 2018 to visit some of the 450 Black Madonnas scattered throughout Europe. Christena Cleveland Three photos of Black Madonnas taken by Christena during her pilgrimage. Ancient and revered, the Black Madonnas are sources of strength and miracles. Joan of Arc prayed before the Black Madonna of Moulin. At the Black Madonna of Vichy, thousands of sick came to pray and be comforted. Cleveland. herself, found strength and healing during her pilgrimage. She writes in her book, “Imagination is theology. We can only believe what we can imagine. And our cultural landscape hasn’t given us many tools to imagine a non-white, no

For centuries, the white American church enabled and even embraced racism. Many Christians say that's in the past. Jemar Tisby doesn't agree. MPR News host Kerri Miller talked to the theologian and author in 2019 about his book, "The Color of Compromise," and again in 2021, in the aftermath of George Floyd’s murder. This week, as we look ahead to a conversation with Christena Cleveland, about how her Christian faith changed when she viewed it through the lens of being a Black woman, we are listening to Miller’s 2021 program with Tisby. Here, they discuss his book “How to Fight Racism” and talk about how the white evangelical church in America could do more to heal the wounds it caused. Guest: Jemar Tisby is a historian of race and religion. He recently released a young reader’s edition of “How to Fight Racism.” To listen to the full conversation you can use the audio player above.  Subscribe to the MPR News with Kerri Miller podcast on Apple Podcasts, Google Podcasts or RSS. Subscrib

In classic literature, a hero goes forth to find great adventure and calamitous tragedy. But at the end of their journey, they often turn toward home. Don Winslow uses Greek and Roman literature as his muse as he launches his new trilogy with the book, “City of Fire.” Set in Rhode Island in the late 1980s, it chronicles the clashes of two crime families, one Italian and one Irish, who control the state and have led a relatively peaceful coexistence — until a woman, reminiscent of Helen of Troy, fractures the truce and kicks off a brutal war. His protagonist is Danny Ryan, an Aeneas-like character whose loyalty is both his greatest strength and his tragic flaw. Ryan is forced to grow from a street soldier into a ruthless leader in order to protect the people and the home he loves. Winslow himself went home to write this novel. As he tells MPR News host Kerri Miller, he was eager to leave Rhode Island as a young man, and he’s happily exiled himself in San Diego for years. But to write “City of Fire,” he retu

Novelist Don Winslow has written hundreds of pages about America's war on drugs. He's taken readers into the labyrinth of Mexican cartels, revealed the cynical calculations made in the highest echelons of governments and laid bare the violence and the damage that flow from America's greed for drugs. This Friday, MPR Hews host Kerri Miller will talk to Winslow about his new book, “City on Fire,” which is the first in what promises to be an epic saga about the Irish and Italian crime syndicates in America. To whet your appetite, here’s Miller’s last conversation with Winslow from 2019, when they discussed “The Border,” the final chapter in his trilogy about the war on drugs. Guest: Don Winslow is a best-selling author of 21 books and countless articles and short stories. His new novel, coming April 2022, is “City on Fire.” To listen to the full conversation you can use the audio player above.  Subscribe to the MPR News with Kerri Miller podcast on Apple Podcasts, Google Podcasts or RSS. Subscri

In 2014, after years of writing in relative obscurity, Emily St. John Mandel published a breakaway novel. “Station Eleven” was a huge hit, selling more than 1.5 million copies and receiving critical acclaim. It was even made into a television series by HBO Max. Eerily enough, “Station Eleven” was set in a world confronting a global pandemic. Her new novel, “Sea of Tranquility,” is also set in the future — and the past — thanks to a time-traveling narrative the weaves together five centuries across space and time. This Friday, as part of the Big Books and Bold Ideas conversation, MPR News host Kerri Miller stepped into the void with Mandel. They talk about the folly of time travel, how hinge moments are often recognized only in hindsight, and the constant contingency of living. Who would we be if we weren’t ourselves? Guest: Emily St. John Mandel is the best-selling author of five novels, including “Station Eleven” and “The Glass Hotel.” Her new book is “Sea of Tranquility.” To listen to the full conve