Featured Posts
Week in Review, March 11th – 15th
This week on hbook.com… From the March/April 2019 issue of The Horn Book Magazine: New for New Readers: What (Exactly) Is an Easy Reader? From Out of the Box: "Refugees welcome here": Booklist and resources to help counter Islamophobia … [Read More...]
Pi Day 2019
Today is Pi Day (get it? March 14? 3/14? 3.14...?). To celebrate, here are two recent picture books about pie (and sharing and social justice and community and...). March being Women's History Month, check out these two recommended booklists about … [Read More...]
Five questions for Laurie Halse Anderson
This year marks the twentieth anniversary of Laurie Halse Anderson’s landmark novel Speak (Farrar, 12–16 years), about Melinda, a teenage rape victim who reclaims her voice. Now in SHOUT (Viking, 14 years and up), the author presents a “poetry … [Read More...]
Picture-book biographies of pioneering women 2019
March is Women’s History Month, but we believe women's history and empowerment are important topics to talk about with kids all year long. (And at every age — check out this onesie I was stoked to find for a friend's baby!) The following recent … [Read More...]
From the Editor – March 2019
March is Women’s History Month, and we’d like to wish a very happy birthday to KidLitWomen*, a group started in March 2018 by Friends of the Horn Book Grace Lin (read her Magazine article “Speak with Us, Not for Us”) and Karen Blumenthal (read her … [Read More...]
Blogs
For Paul Janeczko
Naomi Shihab Nye, helped out by Lynne Rae Perkins, remembers the recently departed Paul B. Janeczko. He will be missed. For Paul Janeczko, who Changed the World We were set up to do a reading together in … [Read More...]
Week in Review, March 11th – 15th
This week on hbook.com… From the March/April 2019 issue of The Horn Book Magazine: New for New Readers: What (Exactly) Is an Easy Reader? From Out of the Box: "Refugees welcome here": Booklist and resources to help counter Islamophobia … [Read More...]
Haiku: A Small Poem with Great Potential
snow melting the village brimming over… with children! --Issa (1763-1828) (translated by David Lanoue) Yes, I was taught that a haiku, a short poem that originated in Japan centuries ago, was supposed to consist of three lines of five, seven, … [Read More...]
The 2019 Robin Smith Picture Book Prize
Perched on her rocking chair (brightly painted by her students with Alabama outsider artist Chris Clark), teacher Robin Smith would launch with glee and gusto into a beloved picture book, her second graders in a semicircle at her feet. Every day for … [Read More...]
Review of the Week
Review of Lubna and Pebble
Lubna and Pebble by Wendy Meddour; illus. by Daniel Egnéus Primary Dial 32 pp. g 3/19 978-0-525-55416-5 $17.99 Wide-eyed Lubna befriends a pebble when she and her father arrive by boat at an unspecified refugee settlement she calls “a World of Tents.” She personalizes the small stone by drawing a happy face on it, telling it all about her family, the war that displaced her, and the home she left behind. Lubna assures Pebble that it is still her best friend after she bonds … [Read More...]
App Review of the Week
Sesame Street app review
Can you tell me how to get to…tons of wonderful educational videos and games for preschoolers? Just like the neighborhood itself, the Sesame Street companion app (Sesame Workshop, 2014; iOS and Android) is the place to be: a free account gives a child access to a large selection of games as well as new and classic (ad-free) video clips from the television show. The home screen offers a handful of featured videos and games. Below that, large icons link to additional videos organized by topic … [Read More...]
Recommended Books
Review of Lubna and Pebble
Lubna and Pebble by Wendy Meddour; illus. by Daniel Egnéus Primary Dial 32 pp. g 3/19 978-0-525-55416-5 $17.99 Wide-eyed Lubna befriends a pebble when she and her father arrive by … [Read More...]
Review of No More Poems!: A Book in Verse That Just Gets Worse
No More Poems!: A Book in Verse That Just Gets Worse by Rhett Miller; illus. by Dan Santat Primary, Intermediate Tingley/Little, Brown 48 pp. 3/19 978-0-316-41652-8 $17.99 e-book ed. … [Read More...]
Pi Day 2019
Today is Pi Day (get it? March 14? 3/14? 3.14...?). To celebrate, here are two recent picture books about pie (and sharing and social justice and community and...). March being Women's History Month, … [Read More...]
Picture-book biographies of pioneering women 2019
March is Women’s History Month, but we believe women's history and empowerment are important topics to talk about with kids all year long. (And at every age — check out this onesie I was stoked to … [Read More...]
Review of SHOUT: A Poetry Memoir
SHOUT: A Poetry Memoir by Laurie Halse Anderson High School Viking 290 pp. g 3/19 978-0-670-01210-7 $17.99 “This is the story of a girl who lost her voice and wrote herself a new … [Read More...]
Interviews
Five questions for Laurie Halse Anderson
This year marks the twentieth anniversary of Laurie Halse Anderson’s landmark novel Speak (Farrar, 12–16 years), about Melinda, a teenage rape victim who reclaims her voice. Now in SHOUT (Viking, 14 … [Read More...]
Five questions for Claire Hartfield
With painstaking historical detail, Claire Hartfield’s nonfiction book A Few Red Drops: The Chicago Race Riot of 1919 (Clarion, 12–16 years) recounts the week of violence in 1919 Chicago that left … [Read More...]
All-of-a-Kind Family Hanukkah: Sydney Taylor Book Award Blog Tour
Welcome to the first stop on the 2019 Sydney Taylor Book Award Blog Tour! Author Emily Jenkins and illustrator Paul O. Zelinsky were kind enough to answer my questions about All-of-a-Kind Family … [Read More...]
Five questions for Newbery Medalist Meg Medina
Meg Medina is the winner of the 2019 Newbery Medal for Merci Suárez Changes Gears (read The Horn Book Magazine's starred review here). For our February issue of The Horn Book Herald: ALA Youth Media … [Read More...]
Walter Wick Talks with Roger
Talks with Roger is a sponsored supplement to our free monthly e-newsletter, Notes from the Horn Book. To receive Notes, sign up here. Sponsored by Twenty years after winning the Boston … [Read More...]
