One in an occasional set of interviews with the reviewers who provide critical insights about new books from our client publishers.
Mia Wenjen is a multi-faceted author and book advocate. She first burst on the scene with the Pragmatic Mom blog which boasts over one million followers across its many platforms. She is the co-founder of Multicultural Children’s Book Day, now rebranded as Read Your World, which is celebrated at the end of January each year. Be sure to check out her award-winning nonfiction books including last year’s We Sing From the Heart: How the Slants Took Their Fight for Free Speech to the Supreme Court, published by Red Comet Press.
How did you get started reviewing titles?
I started blogging 15 years ago at PragmaticMom.com, and I would review the picture books that I would read with my children. We would read 10 picture books a night and I would go to the library three times a week. I used library recommended book lists to find the best books, and my kids would critique them.
What is your favorite genre to review?
I love picture books. When I read them with my children, it worked for my 6 year old, my 4 year old, and my 2 year old! There are not many book genres that you can read aloud for children of different ages and still have them be captivated! Now that I am a picture book author, I appreciate them even more because a well-crafted picture book is not easy to write!
Who is your ideal audience for your reviews/writing?
I generally write picture books for ages 4 and up, but I also have a few middle grade books for ages 8 and up. This means that I tend to review books that I am also reading in these two genres to learn and be inspired by other authors.
Tell us a bit about the process from reading a book, to deciding to review/write about it.
I have dedicated my blog to spotlighting diverse authors and illustrators, so that is my sweet spot! I am especially looking for diverse picture books that cover topics or themes that haven’t been covered.
How do the children in your life influence your choices?
My kids, though they learned to read, always in December of their Kindergarten year, were reluctant readers for various reasons until they went to college. My oldest loved adventure fantasy and now, as an adult, loves nonfiction. She always has book recommendations for me, which I appreciate. My middle child loved realistic middle grade/ya fiction and dystopian books. Laurie Halse Anderson and Suzanne Collins were two of her favorite authors. Now, as an adult, she’s trying to read the classics and even took a Russian Lit class in college! She recommends classics she’s enjoyed to me. I’m going to re-read Pride and Prejudice because of her enthusiasm. My son read every word that Rick Riordan ever wrote. As a soon-to-be-adult, he reads manga for pleasure. He also loves Tui T. Sutherland’s Wings of Fire series. He recommended Things Fall Apart by Chinua Achebe to me after reading it for a high school class. I am hoping he will create his own manga series. Sadly, I find that I read less middle grade now that they are out of the house.
If your perfect book existed, what would it include?
I am all about the illustrations in a picture book, along with an interesting structure for the story. The Fire in the Stars by Kirsten W. Larsen, illustrated by Katherine Roy, is one example. Watercress by Andrea Wang, illustrated by Jason Chin, is another.
What is your favorite holiday or tradition and why?
I love Thanksgiving because it’s a holiday that everyone can celebrate, regardless of religion, and because it brings people together based on a shared meal.
Do you have a favorite library or bookstore memory to share?
My parents used to take me to the library once a week, and I was allowed to check out ten books, which was the library’s limit at the time. My parents forced me to write a list of the titles to keep track of them, and I will have to say that often it was a mad scramble before we left for me to locate my ten books. The summer reading program at my local branch was earning a guppy from their tank of fish for reading ten books. We bought an aquarium for the fish that my siblings and I acquired through reading. We would debate amongst ourselves whether to get the more beautiful male fish with the long, colorful tail OR the female fish who was less showy but could reproduce. Eventually, our fish had babies, and our tank became quite full of guppies!
My parents didn’t have the budget to buy books for us at a bookstore, but my father taught math at California State University-Long Beach, and the bookstore would have a huge sale once a year where the books would be 50% off. I was allowed to pick out a book then, and I’d dig through boxes of books to find a wayward children’s book. Sometimes I’d find an outdated reading textbook and get that. It was still fun to read!
What other book reviewers influence your reading choices?
There are so many children’s book reviewers who started when I did, fifteen years ago, but many have stopped reviewing books after Google changed its algorithm about a year or two ago. Imagination Soup, Growing Book by Book, What Do We Do All Day?, The Educators’ Spin on It, All Done Monkey (our first reviewer spotlight), Mama Smiles, Crafty Moms Share, BiCultural Mama, The Logonauts, and Colours of Us are but a few of the amazing children’s book bloggers who do it for love, not money!