Flowers Bloom and Ants Work Together!

Mélina Mangal's book, Flowers Bloom, was published on April 14th and is the fifth book in the nature based board book series Outside Our Window.  Ants Work Together will be published on August 25th. In each book, join 4-year-old Kamali and her 3-year-old cousin Josiah as they explore and delight in nature in their city neighborhood. You can find a copy through your favorite bookseller or here.

Payal Doshi’s Race to the Floating Islands releases July 7, 2026—but you can preorder now and add it to your Goodreads TBR.

Free, downloadable lessons are available for Revolutions Are Made of Love: The Story of James Boggs and Grace Lee Boggs.  

Produced by Amazeworks, this book lesson for educators and caregivers provides valuable background info and resources, as well as questions, activities, and writing prompts to share with young readers.  Click here to download the lesson. 

STEM Lesson for Flowers Bloom

Check out Mélina's guest appearance on Patricia Newman's LitLinks blog here for her latest STEAM lesson for Flowers Bloom: "A simple flower activity to help students develop their sense of smell and descriptive language."

How to Make Board Books Bloom

Check out the Blissfully Bookish Blog here for an interview Mélina did with Lydia Lukidis! 

Sign up for Sun Yung Shin’s amazing newsletter here!

Justice Bell Bey’s launch event is this Saturday at the North Minneapolis Cub Foods Community Center on Broadway. Come out for entertainment, food, fellowship and fun for all ages.

Payal Doshi is on tour with her newly launched books. You can find her at the MN AAPI Creative Voices Celebration at Broken Clock Brewing on May 31st. Read on to find out more about this amazing event!

AAPI Creative Voices is a free, family-friendly event celebrating Asian American and Pacific Islander artists, storytellers and creatives.

Date: May 31st | Time: 3:00-4:30PM 

Locations: Broken Clock Brewing Cooperative in Northeast Minneapolis

Hosted by Emiko Rainbow. This event is supported by the MRAC Creative Connections Grant.

Join Meenal Patel on June 6th at 10:30 for a Red Balloon Bookshop Story Time

Join Payal Doshi, Phuoc Tran, and Karen Kenney at the Midtown Farmers Market located at 2225 E Lake St, Minneapolis, MN 55407. Visit www.picturebookparade.com for details.

Art Coulson, Vanessa Lee Christensen, Karen Kenney, and Sarah Warren were out connecting with families at the Midtown Farmers Market. Readers on-the-go experienced a story stroll version of Art’s award winning book All the Stars in the Sky!

Tanaǧidaŋ To Wiŋ’s beautiful book Our Sacred Land of Phežúta was spotted out in the wild at Red Balloon Bookshop. Stop by this awesome local bookstore to pick up a copy!

Sarah Warren and Lucy Laney Elementary celebrated their 10th annual Beyoncé Day together. They even had Bey Day t-shirts! According to Sarah, school visits are the best part of the job!

Shannon Gibney celebrated the release of Where is My Sister at Red Balloon Bookshop!

Meenal Patel launched Where do Stories Live at Wild Rumpus. Guests also enjoyed a story walk of this powerful new book!

Payal Doshi led book-lovers in a character-building writing exercise at her Magic Gems event hosted by Red Balloon Bookstore!

The Minnesota Book Awards is always a fun event for artists, educators, and booklovers, but we also had a lot to celebrate this year! Finalists Mélina Mangal and Sun Yung Shin signed books for countless fans, Sun Yung won the Kay Sexton Award, and Art Coulson won the award in picture book catagory! Congratulations, friends!