September/October 08 Horn Book Magazine

Our September special issue on School is out, and you can view selected articles on our website. Make sure to try the quiz by Monica Edinger and Roxanne Hsu Feldman--it's harder than it looks.

I'm leaving tomorrow for Sedona to marry the other one off; I'll be sure to steer clear of the legendary cougar in the canyon. With any luck, her tired, grizzled mate will be sucked up by one of these. See you next week.

Fightin' Words or the Simple Truth?

The Guardian's Derek Draper on Meghan McCain's new picture book:

It's easy for us Brits to assume that such sentimental spin will backfire but, having lived in the US for three years, I can assure you that Americans are made of gooier stuff.

Lost in the 60s

and the 70s I've been, listening to Julie Andrews marvelously read her new autobiography Home: A Memoir of My Early Years (Hyperion) and reading Sheila Weller's Girls Like Us: Carole King, Joni Mitchell, Carly Simon--and the Journey of a Generation. Forget the "You're So Vain" gossip--did you know "Car on a Hill" was about Jackson Browne? And J. T.'s "You Can Close Your Eyes"? Joni.

But, really, it's been like eating a whole plateful of madeleines. My baby-boomer cohort ( a word Weller uses way, way too often in an otherwise delicious book) will understand.

We Were There

Does anyone remember the We Were There books? There were two I read over and over: We Were There at Pearl Harbor and We Were There at Guadalcanal. I would have been reading them around 1964, roughly twenty-five years after the events in the books took place, which seemed to me like forever ago.

I'm thinking of them because tomorrow I'm talking to Norma Jean Sawicki's publishing class at Simmons; my topic, the last twenty-five years of children's book publishing. I was there. How weird. Now I know why Betsy Hearne was once initially resistant to giving the Scott O'Dell Award for Historical Fiction to a book set during WWII. She was there, so it didn't feel like history to her.

Two more reasons not to vote for him.

From the NY Times:

When asked his favorite novel in an interview shown yesterday on the Fox News Channel, Mitt Romney pointed to “Battlefield Earth,” a novel by L. Ron Hubbard, the founder of Scientology. That book was turned into a film by John Travolta, a Scientologist.

A spokesman said later it was one of Mr. Romney’s favorite novels.
“I’m not in favor of his religion by any means,” Mr. Romney, a Mormon, said. “But he wrote a book called ‘Battlefield Earth’ that was a very fun science-fiction book.”

Terrible taste. Lousy grammar.

Horn Book 2.0

Just in time for May Day and in service to workers the world over, we're proud to introduce our newly designed and rejiggered website. What's newest is our Horn Book History section (make Laura Ingalls Wilder's gingerbread!), plus there is now a handy what's-new page, which updates additions and revisions to the blog and website. And for a hint of our glamorous environs, see this picture of the Horn Book Guide office. Lolly Robinson tells me that if you are a frequent visitor to our site you will need to refresh your web cache to see the new stuff. Many thanks to Lolly, our designer and webmistress, and Kitty Flynn, our newly anointed online content editor, for all their work. Please let them know of any problems or suggestions at info-at-hbook-dot-com.

Also appearing today are selections from the May/June issue of the Magazine, including links to my editorial ("Balls! says the Queen," was my preferred title, but I was overruled) our science reviewer Danielle Ford explaining what makes a good dinosaur book, and blogonatrix Betsy Bird, aka Fuse#8, on the why and wherefores of cyber-nattering and with a list of her favorite blogs. Yes! Go see if you are on it!