Publications about books for children and young adults
It was exciting to realize that emergent literacy was a field that was not spoken of at all in the pediatric literature. Imagine that! A whole area of crucial child development which doctors seemed utterly unaware of. It was an opportunity that could not be passed up.
Let us first note that both Adam Gidwitz (Jepp, Who Defied the Stars v. Starry River of the Sky) and Franny Billingsley (Liar & Spy v. Splendors and Glooms) break the mold by discussing their winning books first. Billingsley more so than Gidwitz, who devotes some 1200 words to the agony of choice and the [...]
Very different approaches here from Kathi Appelt (Three Times Lucky v. Endangered) and Deb Caletti (Temple Grandin v. The Fault in Our Stars). Appelt’s voice is very . . . considered, placing her contenders in literary context and braiding her observations on one book with her thoughts about the other and bringing them into contention [...]
In our first bracket of BoB judges, Kenneth Oppel selects Bomb over Wonder, and Margarita Engle chooses Code Name Verity over Titanic. The fact that I agree with both of these decisions counts for nothing in my little meta-battle; what we are evaluating here is the ability of each judge to come to a clear [...]
Never Say Die by Will Hobbs Intermediate, Middle School Harper/HarperCollins 212 pp. 2/13 978-0-06-170878-7 $16.99 Library ed. 978-0-06-170879-4 $17.89 e-book ed. 978-0-06-222384-5 $9.99 Set in the Yukon Territory hard by the Beaufort Sea, Hobbs’s latest turbocharged wilderness survival story has heavy weather, savage river waters, treacherous trails, and, as chief antagonist, a “grolar bear.” Just [...]
Since 1988 and the publication of Changes in Latitudes, Will Hobbs has been one of the preeminent adventure novelists writing for young people. Typically, his stories feature a young protagonist confronting some challenge or other posed by the natural world; in his new book Never Say Die, a boy and his adult half-brother face all [...]
I hope you can join us on Thursday, April 25th for “Fostering Lifelong Learners,” a one-day conference about early childhood education the Horn Book is co-sponsoring with the Cambridge Public Library and Reach Out and Read. The keynote address will be provided by Dr. Robert Needlman, editor of Dr. Spock’s Baby and Child Care, and [...]
In between the few huge publishing houses and the many tiny ones lie the small independents. Mary Cash is vice president and editor in chief of Holiday House, founded by Vernon Ives in 1935 and currently publishing sixty-plus new books a year; Jason Low is the publisher of Lee & Low Books, co-founded by his [...]
SLJ’s Battle of the Books has begun, with Kenneth Oppel judging Wonder v. Bomb. After Margarita Engle finishes with Code Name Verity v. Titanic tomorrow, I’ll weigh in on who was the better judge. Preliminary cavil: I’m a little bothered by Oppel’s ambiguous use of the word “faultlessly.” I spent most of yesterday at home, [...]
