Vardell & Wong

Sylvia Vardell and Janet S. Wong found each other the way the best collaborations often begin — at a book signing. It was the mid-1990s, and Janet had just published A Suitcase of Seaweed, a poetry collection rooted in her Korean-Chinese-American childhood in Los Angeles. Sylvia, a children's literature professor and poetry devotee, was in the room. They admired each other's work, stayed in touch, and years later built one of the most beloved poetry partnerships in children's education — proof that the right two people in the right room at the right time can change things.

Janet's path to poetry was anything but expected. Born in Los Angeles and raised in Koreatown, she is the daughter of a Chinese-born father who served in the U.S. Army in Korea, where he met her Korean-born mother. That layered heritage — Chinese, Korean, American, and deeply Californian — runs through everything she writes. She went to law school, practiced corporate law, and one day told her husband Glenn, "I think I'm becoming a mean person." She wanted to do something good with her life, something that involved children, and she walked away from law to write poetry. It turned out to be exactly the right call. She has since authored more than 30 children's books spanning poetry, picture books, and middle-grade fiction, and in 2021 received the NCTE Award for Excellence in Poetry for Children — the field's highest honor for a children's poet.

Sylvia came to poetry from the other direction: through the stacks. The daughter of German immigrants, she grew up with a deep appreciation for the power of language and belonging, and she built her academic career around helping children experience that power through literature. As Professor Emerita in the School of Library and Information Studies at Texas Woman's University, she spent decades teaching graduate courses in children's and young adult literature, writing more than 25 books and 100 journal articles, and maintaining a long-running poetry column for the American Library Association's Book Links. In 2014 the Scholastic Library Publishing Award recognized her for her sustained contribution to children's reading — and her particular gift for making poetry feel not like a subject to be studied, but a pleasure to be shared.

Together, Vardell and Wong have created the Poetry Friday Anthology series and Poetry Friday Power Books — carefully curated, classroom-ready collections that bring diverse, contemporary poems to students and teachers across grade levels. Their collaboration works because their strengths are genuinely complementary: Janet's poet's ear and gift for writing that is funny, wise, and culturally alive; Sylvia's scholar's eye for what teachers actually need in the room. Between them, they have helped a generation of educators stop being afraid of poetry and start being excited by it. You can explore their full collection of books and resources at pomelobooks.com.