After all the hard work, a novel finally lands on bookshelves. A new story is born. But the gestation period, if you will, is often a mystifying process to readers. How does a book go from idea to ...

With so few words, most of them kid-friendly, it should be a piece of cake. But it depends on who’s holding the whisk. By Daniel Hahn In “Where the Wild Things Are,” the boy Max finds himself sailing ...