Oz, the Great and Powerful, or, Why it pays to have low expectations

Oz, the Great and Powerful

Or, Maybe I’ve Gotten Less Discerning Since Having a Second Kid. I recently saw Oz, the Great and Powerful in IMAX 3-D. Having read mostly 2-2.5-star reviews, I wasn’t expecting much. But when their grandparents are willing and available to babysit your two small children (“Go, see a movie!”), it doesn’t have to be Citizen [...]

World Book Night kick-off event

World Book Night

Every year on April 23rd, World Book Night provides volunteers with specially-printed free books to distribute in their communities. Each volunteer selects a title from a list of thirty adult, YA, and children’s books, then picks up twenty copies from a local bookstore or library. Which book would you choose? On Monday, fellow Horn Booker [...]

April’s Nonfiction Notes

nf notes april 2013

This afternoon subscribers to our monthly newsletter Notes from the Horn Book receive its nonfiction counterpart Nonfiction Notes. Editor in chief Roger Sutton has an important (and happy!) announcement about the newsletter’s schedule. You’ll also find reviews of recommended nonfiction books for all grade levels, covering these subjects: – the Holocaust – explorers and exploration [...]

5Q for Fostering Lifelong Learners presenters

lifelong learners

Tomorrow we’re hosting the free Fostering Lifelong Learners: Prescribing Books for Early Childhood Education conference with Reach Out and Read and the Cambridge Public Library. Pediatricians, educators, critics, and librarians will speak about early learning and literacy from birth to preschool. Over the last few weeks Roger gave several of the presenters his “five questions” [...]

Remembering Elaine Konigsburg

Konigsburg_Silent to the Bone

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 [...]

Last Friday and this Thursday

Boston was certainly an eerie place last Friday. I had gone to bed early the night before, missing all the news about the pursuit of the bombers, and was catching up early Friday morning when the news flashed across my phone that the T was shut down. I texted the Horn Book staff to wait [...]

Boston this week

marathon

Thanks to all who have emailed, called, texted or tweeted their concern for our safety and well-being. We are all fine. The attack coincided with an all-staff conference call with our New York colleagues, so I didn’t find out about it until later in the day when information was available but fragmentary and spookily fact-free, [...]

Eleanor & Park

Eleanor & Park

It feels like everyone (the Horn Book included) is talking about Rainbow Rowell’s Eleanor & Park (St. Martin’s Griffin, February 2013) — and for good reason. I recently read it when it up was for starring in the May/June issue (it was a shoe-in), and mourned the fact that Rachel Smith and I hadn’t come [...]

New poetry booklist

Stardines Swim Across the Sky

In honor of National Poetry Month, we’ve compiled a list of poetry books for a wide range of ages, all recently published and recommended by The Horn Book Magazine. There’s something for everyone: anthologies and verse narratives; silly poetry and serious poetry; love poems and lullabies; free verse, formal verse, and brand-new verse forms. What [...]

Five Questions for Anna Dewdney

Dewdney

Llama Llama… author-illustrator and rock star to preschoolers Anna Dewdney will be our special guest at the Fostering Lifelong Learners conference on April 25th, joining in the conversation about making and sharing great books for preschoolers. Here are five questions for her. 1.What did your own children teach you about creating books for preschoolers? My [...]