Subway

Subway
by Anastasia Suen (Author) and Karen Katz (Illustrator)
@ Amazon | Bookshop

Booktalk: We didn’t have any subways nearby when I was growing up, so riding a subway was something I did years later when we went on family vacations with our children. On one of those vacations, I thought about writing a small poem about the ride, but that was hard to do when I was back home.

After two post-vacation writing attempts, I realized that I needed to write the poem while I was riding the subway. So that’s what I did! Each time we rode the subway during our next vacation, I jotted down a few lines about what we did and how it felt. (I always keep a small pad of paper in my purse to capture ideas.)

Snippet:

When we got back home I used those small notepad lines to write this 169-word picture book poem. As you can see from the book announcement postcard below, Subway was published in 2004.

A few years later, the publisher asked me to tighten the poem so it could be reprinted as a board book. After the 2008 board book appeared in Amazon’s Top 100 for Children’s City Life Books, Amazon made a preview video for it!

It’s #ThrowbackThursday!
Copyright © 2026 Anastasia Suen All Rights Reserved. (*bookstore affiliate)

One Step Forward

One Step Forward
by Marcie Flinchum Atkins (Author)
@ Amazon | Bookshop

Booktalk: Matilda Young was the youngest American suffragist imprisoned for picketing the White House to demand women’s right to vote.

Raised in a politically divided family, Matilda wondered if she could be as courageous as her older sister who fought for suffrage. Joining the radical protest movement came with plenty of risk. Women were routinely scorned, harassed, arrested—and worse. And taking a stand for her rights could tear her family apart.

Snippet: On this date in 1913 . . .

The author, Marcie Flinchum Atkins, is one of my former students.
Copyright © 2026 Anastasia Suen All Rights Reserved. (*bookstore affiliate)