Publications about books for children and young adults
Biographical information about writers and illustrators of books for young people.
In her adult graphic-novel memoir Relish: My Life in the Kitchen (First Second, April 2013), Lucy Knisley portrays specific periods of her life and their associated “taste-memories” in a series of witty, touching vignettes. Relish begins with Lucy’s early childhood in New York City, growing up in a family of foodies with great faith in [...]
In the May/June 2013 Horn Book Magazine, reviewer Robin Smith asked Kathleen Krull and Paul Brewer, authors of The Beatles Were Fab (and They Were Funny), about the Beatles’ music in their own lives. Read Robin’s review here. Robin L. Smith: What was the first Beatles song you memorized? Kathleen Krull and Paul Brewer: The [...]
We just posted “Peter Rabbit and the Tale of the Fierce Bad Publisher,” Caroline Fraser’s excellent article about Emma Thompson’s The Further Adventures of Peter Rabbit and Frederick Warne’s methods for getting around copyright laws in order to keep protecting its cash cow. Or bunny. (Cash bunny? Buck bunny?) As someone who occasionally needs to [...]
Author Emily Jenkins seems equally at home in picture books and intermediate fiction (and even — shh! — in YA, under nom de plume E. Lockhart). Like several of Emily’s previous books, her latest, Water in the Park: A Book About Water & the Times of the Day (illus. by Stephanie Graegin; Schwartz & Wade/Random; [...]
Some kidlit happenings in and around Boston this month: The Edward Gorey House’s 2013 special exhibit “Edward Gorey’s Vinegar Works” opened for their 2013 season on April 18th. The exhibit covers the “three volumes of moral instruction” in Gorey’s Vinegar Works boxed set: The Insect God, The West Wing, and his best-known work, The Gashlycrumb [...]
The first book about the feisty Penderwick sisters, The Penderwicks: A Summer Tale of Four Sisters, Two Rabbits, and a Very Interesting Boy, won the National Book Award in 2005. Since then, the family has expanded in soul-satisfying ways — as has fans’ love for the series. The third volume, The Penderwicks at Point Mouette, [...]
My mother is a writer, and as a small child, I would wander into her office and look through the magazines scattered across her desk. I remember wondering why the magazines were called The Horn Book, because they didn’t seem to be about horns, and also why they had the neat covers, even though the [...]
We mourn the death (last Friday) of E.L. Konigsburg, who never wrote a book I didn’t want to read. (Not that I love them all, but even where she went wrong, she did so magnetically.) I remember a slightly uneasy conversation with Konigsburg’s editor Jean Karl right after Elaine had won her second Newbery Medal [...]
