Bill Martin Popular Books
Bill Martin Biography & Facts
William Ivan Martin Jr. (March 20, 1916 – August 11, 2004) was an American educator, publishing executive, and author of more than 300 children's books including The Sounds of Mystery, Chicka Chicka Boom Boom (co-authored with John Archambault), Brown Bear, Brown Bear, What Do You See?, Baby Bear, Baby Bear, What Do You See?, Panda Bear, Panda Bear, What Do You See?, and Polar Bear, Polar Bear, What Do You Hear? (all collaborated with illustrator Eric Carle). The Bill Martin Jr. Award, which is the Kansas state award for best children's picture book, was established in his honor in 1996. Early life and education Martin was born and raised in Hiawatha, Kansas. His father was a paperhanger and his mother a housewife; he was one of 5 brothers. He had difficulty reading until he went to college, at the Kansas State Teacher's College in Emporia, Kansas. There he memorized poems that a teacher read aloud in class, and was then able to relate the words to what was on the page. Enthusiastic about helping other children learn to read by "[having] language inside of themselves," he went on to earn a doctorate in early childhood education from Northwestern University in 1961. Career After graduating with his bachelor's degree, Martin taught journalism, drama, and English at high schools in Newton and St. John, Kansas. During World War II, he served in the Army Air Force as a newspaper editor and wrote his first book, The Little Squeegy Bug, published in 1945, as William Ivan Martin, with illustrations by his brother Bernard Martin. Eleanor Roosevelt praised the book in her syndicated newspaper column, "My Day," and it eventually sold 1 million copies. He wrote 10 more books with his brother and by the time of his death had published more than 300 children's books, always working with a carefully chosen illustrator. He liked to collaborate and to make many revisions until the words sounded right. Martin then worked as principal of Crow Island Elementary School in Winnetka, Illinois, and later moved to New York City and joined the publishing company Holt, Rinehart and Winston, where he was editor in chief of the school division during the 1960s and developed innovative reading programs. In 1972 he became a full-time writer. He revitalized his publishing career when he met John Archambault in 1983 at UC Riverside. They went on to collaborate on more than a dozen award-winning books, including Chicka Chicka Boom Boom, and Barn Dance! and Knots on a Counting Rope, both Reading Rainbow featured selections, illustrated by Ted Rand. Their first joint work, "The Ghost-Eye Tree" won an IRA Children's Choice award and has remained in print for almost 30 years. During the last 15 years of his life, he co-wrote many books with Michael Sampson, whom he met at a reading conference in Tucson, Arizona in 1978. In 1992, Martin moved from New York to Texas to build a house beside Sampson on 26 acres (110,000 m2) on the banks of the South Sulphur River. Martin named the land “Woodfrost” as a reflection of his love for Robert Frost and Frost's poetry about the woods. For the next 12 years, Sampson and Martin wrote daily, creating 25 books for children, including award winners: I Pledge Allegiance (illustrated by Chris Raschka) and Chicka, Chicka, 1, 2, 3, (illustrated by Lois Ehlert). A work in progress, the Bill Martin Jr Big Book of Poetry, was completed by Sampson and published by Simon and Schuster in November 2008, four years after Martin's death. Other books authored by Martin and Sampson continue to be published, including Kitty Cat, Kitty Cat, Are You Waking Up (2011), Listen to Our World (2016), and Spunky Little Monkey (2017). Armadillo Antics came out in 2022. Martin was also active as an educational speaker and with Sampson, conducted annual workshops for educators called Pathways to Literacy that eventually trained over 50,000 teachers at 30 sites throughout the US. He was one of the first children's book authors to promote his books by touring schools and bookstores. At these appearances he read aloud to the children, often with music and dancing. He believed in instilling interest in children and helping them remember new words through rhythm and repetition. Sampson said: “Poetry allowed him to become a reader - if he could hear it, he could read it. And as a writer, Bill worked with his ear. How his writing sounded was the most important thing. Poetry was his mentor. It inspired and guided him.” During the 1950s he hosted a regional television program, The Storyteller, and he later produced audiotapes of his books. Personal life and legacy Martin married Betty Jean Bachmann in 1942 and they divorced in 1978. He had a son (who died in 1963) and a daughter, Danielle. Martin died in Commerce, Texas in 2004 at the age of eighty-eight. A library on the campus of Texas A&M University–Commerce is named in his honor and contains all his books and many artifacts. In 2000, the Morrill Public Library in Hiawatha, Kansas dedicated the Bill & Bernard Martin Children's Library in honor of Bill and his brother, Bernard, who is best known as a Midwest wildlife painter and printmaker. References External links Michael Sampson & Bill Martin Jr. (co-authors) Bill Martin Jr. Award Bill Martin, Jr. Collection at Texas A&M University–Commerce. Discover the Bill Martin popular books. Find the top 100 most popular Bill Martin books.
Best Seller Bill Martin Books of 2024
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Flesh and Blood
Bill Kitson'The best one yet!' Reader Review'This is the third time I've read the whole series and I enjoyed it as much as the first.' Reader Review Stephen Pengelly, owner of Barton Manor,...
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Crime Inc.
Vince Everett EllisonAs seen on Tucker CarlsonMurder, rape, sex trafficking, and hateCrime Inc. explains how the Political Left utilized these tactics of organized crime to gain and maintain power in A...
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Silent as the Grave
Bill Kitson'Addictive. One of those books that you just cannot put down' Reader ReviewChristmas 1979. Former TV reporter Adam Bailey is invited by his old flame Harriet and her husband, Sir ...
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Love All the People
Bill HicksBill Hicks was arguably the most influential standup comedian of the last 30 years. He was funny, out of hand, impossible to ignore and genuinely disturbing. His work has inspired ...
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Homeward
Angela Jackson-BrownThe country is changing, and her own world is being turned upside down. Nothingand no onewill ever be the same.Georgia, 1962. Rose Perkins Bourdon returns home to Parsons, GA,...
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The Girls Inside
NJ MackayA gripping, compelling psychological thriller about a cult, a fire, and the dark secrets that four young girls have carried with them but can no longer keep buried...Blue grew up i...
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Winter of Discontent
Jeanne M. DamsDorothy Martin's neighbor and closest friend, Jane Langland, has been having a fling with Bill Fanshaweor, as much of a fling as two 80year olds in a small town are allowed. Now t...
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Words
Bill Martin Jr. & John ArchambaultFrom the creators of the bestselling classic Chicka Chicka Boom Boom comes a lively parade of fancy, dancy, prancy words!Some words are long. Some words are short. Some words are f...
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Across That Bridge
John LewisWinner of the NAACP Image Award for Outstanding Literary Work/Biography in paperback for the first time.In turbulent times Americans look to the Civil Rights Movement as the apoth...
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Rising Star
David GarrowNew York Times BestsellerRising Star is the definitive account of Barack Obama's formative years that made him the man who became the fortyfourth president of the United Statesfrom...
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My Sister Milly
Gemma DowlerYou've seen Manhunt, now read this powerful and personal account from Milly Dowler's sister Gemma . . . 'My name is Gemma Dowler. On 21 March 2002, a serial killer named Levi Bellf...
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Give Me Liberty
David E. HoffmanFrom the Pulitzer Prize–winning Washington Post reporter David E. Hoffman comes the riveting biography of Oswaldo Payá, a dissident who dared to defy Fidel Castro, inspiring thousa...
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Live From New York
Tom Shales & James Andrew MillerJames Andrew Miller and Tom Shales's definitive oral history of Saturday Night Live, hailed as "incredible" (Vulture) and "required reading" (People). When first published to celeb...
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Cosby
Mark WhitakerThe first major biography of an American icon, comedian Bill Cosby. Based on extensive research and indepth interviews with Cosby and more than sixty of his closest friends and ass...
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Vanishing Act
Bill Kitson'Reading this book for the second time' Reader Review1965 the heyday of Rock & Roll. Northern Lights are tipped to become as big as The Beatles. But after a gig in Newcastle,...
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True Peace Work
Parallax Press & Thích Nhất HạnhThich Nhat Hanh, His Holiness The Dalai Lama, bell hooks, Bill McKibben, Gary Snyder, Maha Ghosananda, Charles Johnson, Bhikkhu Bodhi, Matthieu Ricard, and many others are featured...
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Everything All at Once
Bill Nye & Corey S. PowellIn the New York Times bestseller Everything All at Once, Bill Nye shows you how thinking like a nerd is the key to changing yourself and the world around you. Everyone has an inner...
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Wired
Bob WoodwardThis reissue of Bob Woodword’s classic book about John Belushione of the most interesting performers and personalities in show business history“is told with the same narrative styl...
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Democracy in Black
Eddie S. Glaude JR.A powerful polemic on the state of black America that savages the idea of a postracial society. America’s great promise of equality has always rung hollow in the ears of Afric...
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The Eyes of the Dragon
Stephen King“It is just not possible to stop turning the pages” (The Washington Post) of this bestselling classic talean epic fantasy as only #1 New York Times bestselling author Stephen King ...
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Real Irish New York
Dermot McEvoyAs they entered their six hundredth year of British occupation, the Irish looked to America. By the 1840s, America was the oasis that the Irish sought during a decade of both famin...
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The 20 Most Significant Events of the Civil War
Alan AxelrodThis is the first book to not only select the events that most influenced the causes and outcome of America’s Civil War, but also to rank them in order of significance. In each of ...
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Abundance
Ezra KleinFrom bestselling authors and journalistic titans, Ezra Klein and Derek Thompson, Abundance is a onceinageneration, paradigmshifting call to rethink big, entrenched problems that se...
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The Man Who Made Mark Twain Famous
Cappy McGarr & Ken BurnsIn The Man Who Made Mark Twain Famous, Cappy McGarr shares how he became an Emmynominated cocreator/executive producer of the Kennedy Center Mark Twain Prize for American Hum...
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Good for Nothing
Brandon Graham"Enchanted by Good For Nothing..." Stephen Fry "This book could be the lovechild of Bill Bryson and Martin Amis.... But at its heart is a very serious point. It is about the tsunam...
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Live from New York
Orange Hippo!Since Chevy Chase first uttered the phrase 'Live from New York, it's Saturday night,' Saturday Night Live has grown from the vision of Canadian comedian Lorne Michaels to be a cult...
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Wild and Crazy Guys
Nick de SemlyenThe behindthescenes story of the iconic funnymen who ruled '80s HollywoodBill Murray, Steve Martin, Chevy Chase, John Belushi, Dan Aykroyd, and Eddie Murphyand the beloved films th...
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The Controversialist
Martin PeretzFeatured in the Wall Street JournalFrom his deep involvement in the civil rights and antiwar movements of the 1960s to his almost forty years at the head of the New Republic, Marti...
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Meditations
Marcus Aurelius, David V. Hicks & C. Scot HicksNATIONAL BESTSELLERA powerful and accessible translation of Marcus Aurelius’s timeless book on character, what it takes to be a good leader, and how to live a fulfilling life.Marcu...