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Can we talk about dedications?

Personally, I love reading them. When My Favorite Author in the Whole Wide World and I do our end-of-the-workday picture-book-reading ritual, we always include the dedications. I’m eternally curious about the recipients, especially when the authors have moved past their own parents and/or children.

But hardly anyone ever asks me about the recipients of my own books’ dedications, and there’s always a reason — one I’d love to share — about who I chose and why.

I’ve been thinking that there must be other readers out there who feel as strongly about dedications as I do — and, hopefully, other authors who feel that way, too. That’s why Jennifer and I began this video series.

“This One’s Dedicated to…” focuses on the dedications in books for young readers. Each edited, student-friendly conversation is between five and ten minutes long and offers our fellow creators of children’s books an opportunity to share with readers the stories behind who they dedicated their book to, how that person found out, and more.

Each of these conversations also comes with a book giveaway to subscribers of my Bartography Express newsletter. (You can sign up for Bartography Express here.)

Here’s the full list of “This One’s Dedicated to…” episodes. Click through to view our conversations and get details about the book giveaway for each title.

March 2026 Giveaway
Torrey Maldonado, Just Right

February 2025 Giveaways
Chris Baron, The Gray
Kari Lavelle, Ode to Grapefruit: How James Earl Jones Found His Voice
Adrianna Cuevas, What Fell from the Sky

January 2025 Giveaways
Timothy Young, Don’t Open the Box!
Polly Holyoke, Skyriders

December 2024 Giveaways
Nadia Salomon, A Voice of Hope: The Myrlie Evers-Williams Story
Kaz Windness and Heather Brockman Lee, When You Love a Book
Natalia Sylvester, Breathe and Count Back from Ten

November 2024 Giveaways
Ty Chapman, Stokes
Olugbemisola Rhuday-Perkovich, Operation Sisterhood
Erica S. Perl, How Carrot and Cookie Saved Christmas

October 2024 Giveaways
Varsha Bajaj, Thirst
Leila Sales, Tonight the Streets Are Ours
Jessica Kim, Make a Move, Sunny Park!

September 2024 Giveaways
Yamile Saied Méndez, The Beautiful Game
Barb Rosenstock, The Great Lakes: Our Freshwater Treasure
Charles Waters, Can I Touch Your Hair? Poems of Race, Mistakes, and Friendship

August 2024 Giveaways
Evan Griffith, Manatee Summer
Janet Fox, Wintergarden

June 2024 Giveaways
Chris Barton (yep, that’s me!), How to Make a Book (About My Dog)
Jennifer Ziegler, Worser

October 2023 Giveaway
Donalyn Miller, The Joy of Reading

June 2023 Giveaway
H. M. Bouwman, Gossamer Summer

January 2023 Giveaway
e.E. Charlton-Trujillo, Lupe Lopez: Rock Star Rules! (recorded live at the 2022 South Texas Book Festival!)

December 2022 Giveaway
Rajani LaRocca, The Secret Code Inside You: All About Your DNA (recorded live at the 2022 Chappaqua Book Festival!)

November 2022 Giveaway
Alex London, City of Thieves (Battle Dragons #1) (recorded live at the 2022 Chappaqua Book Festival!)

June 2022 Giveaway
Naomi Shihab Nye, The Turtle of Michigan (recorded live at the 2022 San Antonio Book Festival!)

April 2022 Giveaway
John Schu and Veronica Miller Jamison, This Is a School

November 2021 Giveaways
Pat Zietlow Miller, What Can You Do with a Rock?
Tracey Baptiste, African Icons
Christina Diaz Gonzalez, Concealed
Robin Preiss Glasser, Grand Jeté and Me

October 2021 Giveaways
Hena Khan, Amina’s Song
Steve Sheinkin, Fallout: Spies, Superbombs, and the Ultimate Cold War Showdown
NoNieqa Ramos, Hair Story
Betsy Bird, Long Road to the Circus

September 2021 Giveaways
Angela Cervantes, Lety Out Loud
Saadia Faruqi, Yusuf Azeem Is Not a Hero
Divya Srinivasan, What I Am
Rebecca Hirsch, Night Creatures: Animals That Swoop, Crawl, and Creep while You Sleep

August 2021 Giveaways
Tom Angleberger & Cece Bell, Inspector Flytrap #1
Crystal Allen, The Laura Line
Debbi Michiko Florence, Just Be Cool, Jenna Sakai
Kate Messner, Dr. Fauci: How a Boy from Brooklyn Became America’s Doctor

July 2021 Giveaways
Jennifer Gennari, Muffled
Liz Garton Scanlon & Kevan Atteberry, I Want a Boat!
Gene Luen Yang, Dragon Hoops
Nikki Grimes, Legacy: Women Poets of the Harlem Renaissance

June 2021 Giveaways
Torrey Maldonado, What Lane?
Elizabeth Eulberg, The Best Worst Summer
Rita Williams-Garcia, A Sitting in St. James
Brandy Colbert, The Voting Booth

May 2021 Giveaways
Kekla Magoon, The Highest Tribute: Thurgood Marshall’s Life, Leadership, and Legacy
Minh Lê, Drawn Together
Deborah Underwood, Outside In
Stuart Gibbs, Charlie Thorne and the Lost City and Bear Bottom

April 2021 Giveaways
Kao Kalia Yang, The Most Beautiful Thing
Jennifer Holm, The Lion of Mars
Baptiste Paul, To Carnival! A Celebration in Saint Lucia and Peace
Jordan Sonnenblick, The Boy Who Failed Show and Tell

March 2021 Giveaways
Miranda Paul, Speak Up
Traci Sorell, Classified
Stephen Shaskan, Pizza and Taco: Best Party Ever
Cynthia Leitich Smith, Jingle Dancer

February 2021 Giveaways
Mike Jung, The Boys in the Back Row
Dashka Slater, The Book of Fatal Errors
Kyle Lukoff, Call Me Max
Karina Yan Glaser, The Vanderbeekers Lost and Found

January 2021 Giveaways
Don Tate, William Still and His Freedom Stories
K.A. Holt, BenBee and the Teacher Griefer
Emma Otheguy, A Sled for Gabo
Gordon Korman, Unplugged

We hope you’ll keep coming back for more, and that in the meantime, you’ll help Jennifer and me spread the word about these conversations. Maybe we’ll even dedicate a book — or at least an episode — to you!