Read Roger

Not as rhetorical a question as you might have wished

2010-03-19T11:50:00.005-04:00

From the promo blurb for My Double Life, by Janette Rallison:

You know how they say everyone has a twin somewhere in the world, a person chance has formed to be their mirror image? Well, mine happens to be rock star Kari Kingsley. How crazy is that?

Not crazy at all, when you, like I, have just spent two days combing through dozens (and dozens) of new YA novels, every other one of which seeming to encapsulate a formula of romance novel plus high-concept commercial hook plus glamorama cover art. In my day we called these paperbacks.

One of the more interesting of post-Harry Potter developments has been the emergence of commercial fiction for young people; that is, books designed to be purchased by kids/teens themselves, written in an undemanding style and with an alluring, quickly graspable premise. Airport books. Except if they were airport books, I wouldn't have to think twice about not reviewing them. And. There. Are. So. Many. And so many that seem to want desperately to be just like some other book that has already been a hit. Little Vampire Women, I'm looking at you.

Maybe this is only funny if you've been reviewing books for twenty-five years, but

2010-03-16T16:00:00.006-04:00

What do Heath Ledger: Talented Actor, John Lennon: Legendary Musician & Beatle, and Michael Jackson: King of Pop have in common? They are all entries in the Lives Cut Short series from ABDO.

Aw, now I'm all nostalgic for Things to Know about Death and Dying, published in Silver Burdett's Look Before You Leap series in 1985.

Battle of the Books

2010-03-15T11:22:00.003-04:00

SLJ's Battle of the Books begins with Jim Murphy deciding between Charles and Emma and Claudette Colvin. Was this random? I mean, is it chance that a noted nonfiction writer is choosing between two nonfiction books? I do agree with his choice.

Honor Books or Runners-Up?

2010-03-14T10:09:00.003-04:00

Until I read Time magazine this morning, I hadn't noticed that the Academy Awards had changed "and the Oscar goes to . . ." to "and the winner is . . . ," a phrasing not heard on the show since 1989. In our own world, ALSC changed the designation runner up to Honor Book for, er, runners-up for the Newbery and Caldecott Medals in 1971. I've been assured by several people that the change was not just euphemistic and that the terms mean different things but damned if I can figure out what the difference is. Does anyone know? K.T., Nina, Peter, are you out there?

March Notes

2010-03-10T15:05:00.003-05:00

In the new issue of Notes from the Horn Book, we recommend some springtime picture books, middle-grade adventure novels, new YA for girls, and a few good science books. And I interview the sizzle behind the Frizzle, Joanna Cole.

Bring your own mushrooms

2010-03-09T15:16:00.000-05:00

Chelsey reviews the new Alice in Wonderland.

Matthew insists on puffed sleeves

2010-03-07T07:23:00.000-05:00

and Anne her e. But what's the difference between gray and grey?

The Doppelganger Twins

2010-03-05T08:34:00.002-05:00

A new issue of The Horn Book!

A mystery solved

2010-03-05T08:24:00.003-05:00

So now I know why she calls it Fuse #8. And how much money ~~they're~~ we're paying her. Good on you, Betsy!

Presents

2010-03-04T08:23:00.003-05:00

We're working on a feature for the May issue, "What Makes a Good Graduation Gift Book?" and it's causing me to think about how complicated gift-giving can be. As Betty Carter says in the article, any gift of a book comes with an agenda: here's what I like or think is important and/or here's what I think you like or should find important. In either case, here's what I think about you. I remember the time an acquaintance gave me a Madonna CD for my birthday, and my acerbic friend Ruth remarked, "that's the kind of present a straight girl gives a gay man . . . she doesn't know very well."

Me, I generally give a gift card rather than a book, a dodge that Anne Quirk rightly denounced as cowardice. Richard is braver and/or more thoughtful, and almost always comes up with gifts of books or music that reveal he keeps a close eye on my tastes as well as what I already own. But for my last birthday he gave me a copy of Arthur Phillips' The Song Is You. It was a good guess, all about love and music and iPods, sort of a higher-minded High Fidelity, but reading it was complete hell--the prose was simply way too rich for my taste. But I gamely soldiered on, a few pages here and there, always packing it in my bag for vacations but never getting much beyond page 75. You have to, right, when it's a present from someone who loves you?

He eventually noticed that it was languishing, however, and took it for his own enjoyment. (Perhaps this was his motive for buying it in the first place, the way I bought him Simon Mawer's The Glass Room, which, fortunately, he loved and I am loving.) But today, triumph! I just got an email from him quoting from the Phillips, "her breath a cumulus the size of a peach," adding, simply, "slows you down, doesn't it?" Uh huh.

March/April Horn Book Magazine

2010-03-02T13:40:00.003-05:00

The March/April issue of the Horn Book Magazine, dedicated to Katherine Paterson, is now out and, selectively, up.

Why is there air?

2010-03-02T10:14:00.004-05:00

And why does everyone think we all understand football? Last week I finally saw The Blind Side, whose climax involves a football game and a kid learning how to change from being a crap football player to a great footballer player. I couldn't tell the difference between what he was doing wrong and what he was doing right, despite the p r o l o n g e d football footage.

Now I'm reading Louis Sachar's new book The Cardturner, which revolves perhaps obsessively around the game of bridge. But what does Sachar, via his narrator Alton, evoke to explain it? Yup:

"I realize that reading about a bridge game isn't exactly thrilling. No one's going to make a movie out of it. Bridge is like chess. A great chess player moves his pawn up one square, and for the .0001 percent of the population who understand what just happened, it was the football equivalent of intercepting a pass and running it back for a touchdown."

Now I'm two times deeper in the dark.

Many men have tried to mix us up but no one can

2010-03-01T09:59:00.005-05:00

Today we welcome editorial director Brian Kenney (with me above; photo taken by Mitali Perkins at Midwinter), publisher Ron Shank, and the rest of School Library Journal and Library Journal to Media Source, our parent company. Here's the press release:

Ohio-based Media Source Inc. announces today that it has acquired Library Journal and School Library Journal from Reed Business Information-US. The acquisition includes all print and Web products, services, supplements, and newsletters, including Library Hotline. With this purchase, Media Source, best known for its ownership of Junior Library Guild and The Horn Book, Inc., adds substantially to its product offerings in the library market.

“Library Journal and School Library Journal are valuable magazines that deserve a corporate home focused on libraries,” said Randall Asmo, CEO of Media Source. “We respect the history and contribution of LJ and SLJ. Our goal is to build upon those strengths to provide a vital and comprehensive service to the librarian community.”

The Editorial and Advertising Sales groups of the acquired publications will continue operations in New York City. Asmo continues, “Editor-in-Chief Brian Kenney and Publisher Ron Shank are important to the success of SLJ and LJ, and they will remain in their current roles. We believe that the combined businesses of SLJ, LJ, Junior Library Guild, and The Horn Book will create a myriad of new opportunities in the marketplace. At the same time, our plan is to have each business unit continue to operate with complete editorial independence.”

About Media Source Inc.: Media Source, with headquarters just outside Columbus, Ohio, is the parent company of Junior Library Guild (JLG) and The Horn Book, Inc. JLG is a review and collection development service that provides new release children’s and young adult books to more than 17,000 school and public libraries. The Horn Book, Inc. reviews children’s and young adult books in two print publications, The Horn Book Magazine and The Horn Book Guide.

About School Library Journal (SLJ): Each monthly issue of SLJ includes reviews of children’s and young adult books, audio, and multimedia products, as well as news, features, and columns that deliver the perspective, resources, and leadership tools necessary for its readers to become indispensable players in their schools and libraries. More than 100,000 librarians who work with students in public and school libraries read School Library Journal.

About Library Journal (LJ): Founded in 1876, Library Journal is the oldest and most respected publication covering the library field. Over 100,000 library directors, administrators, and staff in public, academic, and special libraries read LJ. In its twenty annual issues, LJ reviews nearly 7000 books and provides coverage of technology, management, policy, and other professional concerns.

About Reed Business Information-US: Reed Business Information-US (www.reedbusiness.com/us) is a leading business-to-business information provider of publications and web sites, as well as custom publishing, directories and research. Reed Business Information-US is part of Reed Elsevier (NYSE: RUK and ENL), a world leading provider of professional information and workflow solutions in the Science, Medical, Legal, Risk Management and Business sectors.

Reed Business Information-US and Reed Elsevier were represented by The Jordan, Edmiston Group, Inc., a New York City-based investment bank that specializes in the media and information industries.

Media Contact:
Andrew Thorne, VP Marketing, Media Source Inc.
athorne@mediasourceinc.net
614.873.7956

An editorial query

2010-02-25T13:04:00.003-05:00

For an upcoming article, we need to compile a list of children's and YA authors and illustrators, living or dead, who are/were vegetarians (don't ask; just subscribe!). Can anyone point me to any such verifiable persons?

Would we get more love from advertisers

2010-02-25T10:23:00.004-05:00

. . . if we worked the way Yelp is accused of doing?

"Oh, we can make that 5-in-the-Guide totally go away, no problem. A star, you say? Well, let me tell you what I can do . . . ."

I remember some years ago my friend Mary K. Chelton raising a ruckus in the Letters column of SLJ, implying that positive reviews (in SLJ and elsewhere) bore an interesting relationship to advertising in the same pages. And I myself have pondered the practice of book award committee members being wined-dined-and-sixty-nined by publishers. While I know of no instance where a review or an award has been even attempted to be bought or sold outright, it behooves us all to keep the lines as bright as possible. At the risk of boring you with this anecdote for the tenth time, I remember a BBYA committee I was on arguing about what Gary Paulsen might have meant by some ambiguous turn of phrase or plot, I forget just which. One member brightly announced that she knew exactly what was meant because "Gary told me while we were dancing last night." It's not the dancing I minded so much as its bumping into the evaluation process.

Old home week

2010-02-24T12:36:00.002-05:00

Didn't kiss no pigs but did have a glorious drive down (up? up and down?) Sunset Blvd. from the Getty Museum to the heart of Hollywood. (Unfortunately, the only stars we saw were of the reality-show stripe, Bruce and Kris Jenner, sitting in the booth next to ours at Beso, the restaurant managed by son Ethan. I had to be told who they were. Ethan also introduced us to Beso chef Todd English, who arrived at the restaurant with a bevy of beauties.)

The work part of the week went fine. I spoke about Mommy/Daddy-loves-you-best books at Pomona to an audience of enthusiastic students, profs, booksellers and writers (Susan Patron, Candace Ryan, and Megan Whalen Turner graciously attended.) After lunch (our thirty-year-old favorite, patty melts at Walters, which has gotten way fancier) the next day with my old Pitzer bestie Ruth, we went over to the campus for a rather more intime (read: sparsely attended) but lively discussion of censorship with Susan and then went for a walk around the campus, which has doubled in size since the 70s. The students were very polite to us Olds, and even praised the cafeteria food. (The all-you-can-eat ice cream, rumored to be a string attached to a bequest, was gone, but I noted that two vegan specialities were offered on each menu.) Right: Susan Patron and me.

And son Dorian and his wife were very gracious to drive out to SFO for our stopover on the way home, bringing number-one-grandson Miles along for our adoration. When did he turn from a baby into a little boy? (He's not even a year yet, so it must be the haircut.)

And now I'm back and pondering the in-box drama that is the ALSC discussion of lowering its age level of service from fourteen to thirteen. It's amazing what can draw fire from the dragon ladies' throats!

Percy Jackson

2010-02-16T14:18:00.001-05:00

Claire takes a breather from library school to review the movie.

I'm gonna see the folks I dig, I'll even . . .

2010-02-13T10:18:00.004-05:00

. . . oops, don't want to have to make like Sylvester and use my magic pebble to hide from the boys in blue. But I am going to California next week and will be giving two presentations to which you are all invited. Both are free.

The first is on Thursday, February 18th, where I'll be at Pomona College in Claremont, speaking on "Children's Literature and Adults: Where do we get off?" It's at 4:15 PM, Ena Thompson Room, Crookshank Hall. I hear there will be snacks.

On Friday the 19th, I'll be speaking at my alma mater Pitzer College, also in Claremont, with fellow alum Susan Patron on "What Makes a Good Banned Book?: How Children's Literature Gets Into Trouble." That will be from 2:00 PM - 3:00 PM, reception to follow, Broad Performance Space. Those with testicular fortitude are welcome to join us.

Eat these words

2010-02-11T14:20:00.004-05:00

"Terrific Baby" cake by Jennifer Brabander for Elissa Gershowitz's baby shower today at the office. Photo by Lolly Robinson. Elissa is married to Ken Silber and we really want them to name the baby Wilbur. As you can see.

New Notes, awards edition

2010-02-10T10:11:00.003-05:00

The February issue of Notes from the Horn Book is out, featuring parent-friendly takes on the ALA winners and an interview with O'Dell winner Matt Phelan. See if HE thinks The Storm in the Barn is historical fiction.

Great minds

2010-02-08T11:46:00.003-05:00

Our Fanfare choice Button Up: Wrinkled Rhymes by Alice Schertle and illustrated by Petra Mathers has been awarded the 2010 Lee Bennett Hopkins Poetry Award. Congrats, Alice!

And now, to paraphrase Nicki Grimes on Jerry Pinkney, just give Petra Mathers the damn Caldecott medal, already.

How do you buy books?

2010-02-04T12:45:00.001-05:00

I'm perplexed by Amazon's statement about their showdown with Macmillan, where, after pulling that publisher's print- and e-books from Amazon.com, they (paradoxically) go on to defend the free market as the best friend to the little guy:

We have expressed our strong disagreement and the seriousness of our disagreement by temporarily ceasing the sale of all Macmillan titles. We want you to know that ultimately, however, we will have to capitulate and accept Macmillan's terms because Macmillan has a monopoly over their own titles, and we will want to offer them to you even at prices we believe are needlessly high for e-books. Amazon customers will at that point decide for themselves whether they believe it's reasonable to pay $14.99 for a bestselling e-book. We don't believe that all of the major publishers will take the same route as Macmillan. And we know for sure that many independent presses and self-published authors will see this as an opportunity to provide attractively priced e-books as an alternative. (from the Kindle discussion board)

So the idea is that if a book from Macmillan costs too much, a reader will choose a less expensive book instead. Really? Is that how we buy books? I can see taking a risk on a book that is cheap (the top five Kindle best "sellers" are not cheap, they are free) but I can't see wanting to read, say, Finger Lickin' Fifteen, and settling for something else because Amazon wasn't selling it (the situation now) or because it cost more than some other book. I do understand the bookseller's reluctance to allow publishers to set prices (although I also kind of wish I was back in Germany, where book-discounting is verboten, thus allowing independent stores to compete) but I'm not buying its logic. Unless--the reading culture of e-books becomes a completely different thing from that of print books, where you don't care so much about reading the new Janet Evanovich as you do for reading whatever the hot e-book du jour is, whose price might only be a buck.

Who will read about who?

2010-02-04T07:35:00.003-05:00

Whom? I never get that right.

In either case, J. L. Bell has posted one of the smartest things I've yet read about color and reading. Much of the current blogging discussion about the "whitewashing" of covers, etc., assumes that if evil publishers and ignorant librarians would only change their ways and open their eyes they would see a world of unprejudiced young readers eager to devour books regardless of the color of skin on the cover or on the main character. But as Bell asks, do we know this to be true or do we simply want to believe it?

I've been working on an essay about the last ten years in children's book publishing (note to ALA: yes, it's coming, already) and while I can be as self-righteous as anyone about the cynicism of publishing, I can also see that the school and library forces that, in the past, informed a moral code in children's books have an increasingly small impact upon an increasingly small piece of the business. The gatekeepers didn't "make" Harry Potter or Twilight, they followed along.

On a related note, I laughed when I read a reader's comment about the Times report on the Oscar nominations: "'Urban drama' means there are black people in it, in case anyone was wondering. Come ON, New York Times!"

March/April starred reviews

2010-02-02T14:00:00.002-05:00

The following books will receive starred reviews in the March-April issue of the Horn Book Magazine:

My Garden, by Kevin Henkes (Greenwillow)
Once by Morris Gleitzman (Holt)
Shakespeare Makes the Playoffs by Ron Koertge (Candlewick)
The Dreamer by Pam Muñoz Ryan; illus. by Peter Sís (Scholastic)
Revolver by Marcus Sedgwick (Roaring Brook)
The Last Summer of the Death Warriors by Francisco X. Stork (Levine/Scholastic)
A Conspiracy of Kings by Megan Whalen Turner (Greenwillow)
One Crazy Summer by Rita Williams-Garcia (Amistad/HarperCollins)
Mirror Mirror: A Book of Reversible Verse by Marilyn Singer; illus. by Josée Masse (Dutton)

Count 'em, 669

2010-02-02T11:20:00.003-05:00

Previewing the Spring 2010 print edition of The Horn Book Guide, that's the number of new reviews just added to the Horn Book Guide Online. Check it out.