Publications about books for children and young adults
Joanna Rudge Long is former editor of Kirkus Reviews and a frequent lecturer on children’s books.
My Brother’s Book by Maurice Sendak; illus. by the author di Capua/HarperCollins 32 pp. 2/13 978-0-06-223489-6 $18.95 g If, as Wordsworth wrote, “poetry is the spontaneous overflow of powerful feelings: it takes its origin from emotion recollected in tranquillity,” Sendak’s vision of a Dante-esque search for his beloved brother Jack (1924–1995) is poetry in both [...]
The McElderry Book of Mother Goose: Revered and Rare Rhymes compiled by Petra Mathers; illus. by the compiler Primary, Intermediate McElderry 96 pp. 8/12 978-0-689-85605-1 $21.99 e-book ed. 978-1-4424-5314-2 $12.99 Not since Leonard Marcus’s Mother Goose’s Little Misfortunes (rev. 11/90) has there been such a delightfully idiosyncratic selection. Drawn mostly from the canonical Opies (see [...]
From the July/August 2012 issue of The Horn Book Magazine: Reviewer Joanna Rudge Long asks Moonbird: A Year on the Wind with the Great Survivor B95 author Phillip Hoose about the rufa red knot’s current whereabouts. Read the full starred review of Moonbird here. Joanna Rudge Long: Has there been another sighting of B95 since [...]
Moonbird: A Year on the Wind with the Great Survivor B95 by Phillip Hoose Intermediate, Middle School, High School Farrar 148 pp. 7/12 978-0-374-30468-3 $21.99 He’s called “Moonbird” because, over a lifespan of twenty years, he’s flown some 325,000 miles, the distance to the moon and almost halfway back. This robin-sized red knot (subspecies rufa), [...]
Lies, Knives, and Girls in Red Dresses by Ron Koertge; illus. by Andrea Dezsö High School Candlewick 88 pp. 7/12 978-0-7636-4406-2 $19.99 A much-honored poet and novelist retells, in free verse and from various points of view, twenty-three familiar tales (mostly Grimm, Andersen, and Perrault). With a contemporary sensibility and voice, Koertge pitches directly to [...]
Just as the proof of the pudding is in the eating, real appreciation of a picture book depends on more than a first taste, or a first look; truer evaluation becomes possible only after savoring every nuance. At first glance, illustrations may delight us with their beauty — their drafting, palette, forms, composition; with how [...]
Show Me a Story!: Why Picture Books Matter: Conversations with 21 of the World’s Most Celebrated Illustrators compiled and edited by Leonard S. Marcus Middle School, High School, Of Interest to Adults Candlewick 310 pp. 4/12 978-0-7636-3506-0 $22.99 “For a story’s text to work, it needs to be incomprehensible. Otherwise you wouldn’t need the pictures,” [...]
