Featured Posts
Inside and out
Nina Lindsay has a terrific article up at SLJ about this year's ALA Award winners and What It All Might Mean. And in my latest editorial, I write about the need to value art from outsiders as well as insiders. Can we have both? Can we HAVE IT ALL? … [Read More...]
Editorial: The Difference That Made Them
Inadvertently or not, ALA heeded the call of the zeitgeist when it honored six books (out of ten in toto) by people of color in the 2015 Newbery and Caldecott medals and honors, announced last month at the Midwinter conference in Chicago. The winners … [Read More...]
Horn Book Magazine – March/April 2015
Table of Contents Features "Mind the Gaps: Books for All Young Readers" by Vaunda Micheaux Nelson Creating a demand for more good books featuring diverse characters. "Five Gay Picture-Book Prodigies and the Difference They’ve Made" by … [Read More...]
Diverted: A Bostonian dystopia
It was dawn. It was time for the Waiting. Three hundred thousand were Waiting. Some waited for Buses, some waited for Trains that would become Buses. Some tried different routes, and some gave up hope and called Ubers. But many remained. Most … [Read More...]
Blogs
Inside and out
Nina Lindsay has a terrific article up at SLJ about this year's ALA Award winners and What It All Might Mean. And in my latest editorial, I write about the need to value art from outsiders as well as insiders. Can we have both? Can we HAVE IT ALL? … [Read More...]
The Carrot Patch comes to us
Today's mail brought a box of (foam) carrots*, buttons, stickers, bookmarks, and a very nice note from Wolfie the Bunny author Ame Dyckman. Thanks, Ame! In our March/April Magazine, Wolfie receives a starred review and Ame tells us a … [Read More...]
Picture books and early readers | class #2 2015
Now that our first class is done, we can move on to some in-depth reading and discussing. Last week we got our feet wet with two picture books, one a classic and the other a wordless exploration of culture. For our second class on March 5, we will … [Read More...]
Shutting down the shop (for now)
It's been quite a season of books, hasn't it? As I clear off my picture book shelf, preparing for the 2015 titles, I feel a twinge of nostalgia. There are so many books I have loved this year, but now they have to find new homes. I have piles of 2014 … [Read More...]
Review of the Week
Review of The Walls Around Us
The Walls Around Us by Nova Ren Suma High School Algonquin 321 pp. 3/15 978-1-61620-372-6 $17.95 g e-book ed. 978-1-61620-486-0 $17.95 Orianna Speerling — the so-called “Bloody Ballerina” — is just fifteen when she is convicted of murdering two rival dancers. A month after her sentence begins, all forty-two girls interned at the Aurora Hills Secure Juvenile Detention Center are dead — victims of an unexplained mass killing. Ori’s story is gradually revealed through the eyes of … [Read More...]
App Review of the Week
Metamorphabet app review
In Metamorphabet (Vectorpark, 2015), each (uppercase) letter of the alphabet appears on a brightly colored background. Tap the featured letter to initiate its animated transformation into a short series of visual representations of words beginning with that letter: J to jiggle to juggle to jelly fish. A somewhat monotone female narrator speaks the letter's name, then reads the related words as they appear on the screen. Tap a word to hear it read again. The illustrations — with a minimalist, … [Read More...]
Recommended Books
Review of The Walls Around Us
The Walls Around Us by Nova Ren Suma High School Algonquin 321 pp. 3/15 978-1-61620-372-6 $17.95 g e-book ed. 978-1-61620-486-0 $17.95 Orianna Speerling — the so-called “Bloody … [Read More...]
Review of BirdCatDog
BirdCatDog [Three-Story Books] by Lee Nordling; illus. by Meritxell Bosch Primary Graphic Universe/Lerner 32 pp. 11/14 Library ed. 978-1-4677-4522-2 $25.26 Paper ed. … [Read More...]
Review of One Plastic Bag
One Plastic Bag: Isatou Ceesay and the Recycling Women of the Gambia by Miranda Paul; illus. by Elizabeth Zunon Primary Millbrook 32 pp. 2/15 Library ed. 978-1-4677-1608-6 $19.99 e-book … [Read More...]
Review of Tales of Bunjitsu Bunny
Tales of Bunjitsu Bunny by John Himmelman; illus. by the author Primary Holt 128 pp. 10/14 978-0-8050-9970-6 $13.99 e-book ed. 978-0-8050-9972-0 $9.49 Young rabbit Isabel is known as … [Read More...]
Review of Smick!
Smick! by Doreen Cronin; illus. by Juana Medina Preschool, Primary Viking 32 pp. 2/15 978-0-670-78578-0 $16.99 g With minimal text, a clever use of sight words and word families, and a … [Read More...]
Interviews
Five questions for Kwame Alexander
Middle-school hoops star Josh "Filthy McNasty" Bell wants to play for Duke. His twin brother JB bleeds Carolina Blue. Is there a more apt metaphor for sibling rivalry?! Here we talk to 2015 Newbery … [Read More...]
“These children need a champion”: an interview with Gretchen Bircher
Gretchen Bircher is an instructional aide at Adam Elementary School in Santa Maria, California. (She’s also my amazing mom!) Today she is submitting a proposal to the Santa Maria–Bonita School … [Read More...]
Five questions for Lucy Cousins
If you know any little girls named Maisy (or Tallulah; or, for that matter, any little boys named Cyril), chances are good that it's because of Lucy Cousins. Her indomitable little-girl-mouse is … [Read More...]
Sharon Draper on Stella by Starlight
In the January/February 2014 issue of The Horn Book Magazine, editor Martha Parravano talked to Sharon M. Draper about her new intermediate novel Stella by Starlight. Read the full review … [Read More...]
Five questions for A. S. King
A. S. King's books are one of a kind: strange, sometimes surrealistic, but always grounded in truth. Her latest YA novel — Glory O'Brien's History of the Future (Little, Brown, 14 years and up) — is … [Read More...]
