Featured Posts
YA mother-daughter reading recommendations
Last summer, website mom.me asked us to contribute to their feature "Books to Read With Your Teen Daughter." Here are our recommendations from that article — plus a few new ones! — to get you ready for Mother's Day. What YA book would you … [Read More...]
Peter Rabbit and the Tale of a Fierce Bad Publisher
Originality is everything in literature, as in art. “Originals never lose their value,” Ralph Waldo Emerson said. He may have been referring to Shakespeare and Wordsworth, but the statement is just as true of children’s literature. Of course, … [Read More...]
Five questions for Emily Jenkins
Author Emily Jenkins seems equally at home in picture books and intermediate fiction (and even — shh! — in YA, under nom de plume E. Lockhart). Like several of Emily’s previous books, her latest, Water in the Park: A Book About Water & the … [Read More...]
Books for black kids
There's a provocative new comment over on Yolanda Hare's "Beyond the Friends." It has me wondering if the CSK awards ever suffer from Newberyitis, where some kids see the sticker and think, "oh, this is one of those books that's supposed to be good … [Read More...]
Beatrix Potter and the Horn Book
We just posted "Peter Rabbit and the Tale of the Fierce Bad Publisher," Caroline Fraser's excellent article about Emma Thompson's The Further Adventures of Peter Rabbit and Frederick Warne's methods for getting around copyright laws in order to keep … [Read More...]
January 2013 reviews of the week
As promised, we're going to pop up from time to time off-season to keep us all up to date with new books that will be eligible for the next Caldecott. Every week, this website posts a review from the latest issue of Horn Book Magazine. Whenever … [Read More...]
From the editor — May 2013
Many of the books in this issue of Notes implicitly enjoin us to look up from the page and head out into nature (or, as my mother would say, “put down that book and go out and play!”). As I write this, we’re just coming off of Screen-Free Week, … [Read More...]
Review of the Week
Review of Water in the Park
Water in the Park: A Book About Water & the Times of the Day by Emily Jenkins; illus. by Stephanie Graegin Primary Schwartz & Wade/Random 40 pp. 5/13 978-0-375-87002-6 $16.99 Library ed. 978-0-375-97002-3 $19.99 On a warm day, just before six a.m., a city park starts to stir: turtles laze on rocks by the pond, and dogs arrive, owners in tow, for an early-morning swim. Next, a few kids and their caretakers show up; at eight, the sprinklers are … [Read More...]
App Review of the Week
Little Red Riding Hood app review
All signs point to happily-ever-after in this interactive picture book app of the classic fairy tale Little Red Riding Hood (Nosy Crow, April 2013). Vibrant, cheery colors set a lighthearted tone for wide-eyed and well-freckled Red’s familiar adventure through the woods to Grandma’s house. Unlike other, more gruesome renditions which often include an ax-wielding woodsman, there is zero bloodshed in this toddler-friendly retelling, though thankfully the canonical exchange between Red and the … [Read More...]
Recommended Books
YA mother-daughter reading recommendations
Last summer, website mom.me asked us to contribute to their feature "Books to Read With Your Teen Daughter." Here are our recommendations from that article — plus a few new ones! — to get you … [Read More...]
Books mentioned in the May 2013 issue of Notes from the Horn Book
Five questions for Emily Jenkins Water in the Park: A Book About Water & the Times of the Day written by Emily Jenkins, illus. by Stephanie Graegin, Schwartz & Wade/Random, 4–7 … [Read More...]
Review of Water in the Park
Water in the Park: A Book About Water & the Times of the Day by Emily Jenkins; illus. by Stephanie Graegin Primary Schwartz & Wade/Random 40 pp. 5/13 … [Read More...]
Teen audiobooks
Fill those earbuds with great adventure books, from a WWII spy thriller to sci-fi dystopias. These four audiobooks will keep teens on the edge of their seats. Elizabeth Wein’s Code Name Verity … [Read More...]
Get moving
Baseball and basketball, auto racing and boat-jumping. The following picture book biographies of historical sports stars will inspire youngsters to pick up a bat, go for the dunk, or just zoom around … [Read More...]
Interviews
Five questions for Emily Jenkins
Author Emily Jenkins seems equally at home in picture books and intermediate fiction (and even — shh! — in YA, under nom de plume E. Lockhart). Like several of Emily’s previous books, her … [Read More...]
Five questions for Jeanne Birdsall
The first book about the feisty Penderwick sisters, The Penderwicks: A Summer Tale of Four Sisters, Two Rabbits, and a Very Interesting Boy, won the National Book Award in 2005. Since then, the family … [Read More...]
Five Questions for Anna Dewdney
Llama Llama... author-illustrator and rock star to preschoolers Anna Dewdney will be our special guest at the Fostering Lifelong Learners conference on April 25th, joining in the conversation about … [Read More...]
Nicola Davies on Deadly! The Truth About the Most Dangerous Creatures on Earth
In the March/April 2013 Horn Book Magazine, our editors asked Nicola Davies about facing a dangerous animal herself — and got not one, but four stories. Read the review of Deadly! The Truth About … [Read More...]
Five questions for Marilyn Singer
Marilyn Singer had already demonstrated considerable versatility of poetic talents when in 2010 she debuted a new verse form in Mirror Mirror: A Book of Reversible Verse (6–10 years, Dutton). This … [Read More...]
