Publications about books for children and young adults
Published bimonthly since 1924, the Horn Book Magazine has long been essential for everyone who cares about children's and young adult literature.
Special Issue: Books Remixed: Reading in the Digital Age Stephen Roxburgh sees into the e-future Susan Meddaugh lets “Martha Speak” for herself M. T. Anderson travels (as a reader) with The Time Machine Roger Sutton interviews Holes director Andrew Davis Virginia Duncan on creating the Freight Train app Sight Reading: Leonard S. Marcus interviews Dan [...]
Winner: Duncan Tonatiuh for Diego Rivera: His World and Ours (Abrams) Review in The Horn Book Guide, fall 2011 The first half of the book provides background on Rivera’s life and the inspiration behind his work. Readers are then asked to imagine how he might paint subjects from life today: “Maybe Diego would paint shops [...]
Winner: Eerdmans for Soldier Bear by Bibi Dumon Tak; trans. from the Dutch by Laura Watkinson; illus. by Philip Hopman Review in The Horn Book Magazine, November/December 2011 It really happened: hundreds of Polish soldiers, fleeing the Russians after the German attack on their already divided country in 1941, escaped to Iran. There they joined [...]
Winner: Guadalupe Garcia McCall for Under the Mesquite (Lee & Low Books) Review in The Horn Book Guide, spring 2012 Eldest Lupita leads her seven younger siblings through the uncertainty of their mother’s cancer. Lupita endeavors to keep her Mexican American family together while attempting to reach her own goals for college and a career. [...]
Winner: Kadir Nelson for Heart and Soul: The Story of America and African Americans (HarperCollins/Balzer + Bray) Starred review in The Horn Book Magazine, November/December 2011 “Most folks my age and complexion don’t speak much about the past,” begins the unnamed narrator of this graceful and personalized overview of African-American history. But this doesn’t stop [...]
Winner: Shane W. Evans for Underground (Roaring Brook/Porter) Review in The Horn Book Magazine, January/February 2011 With dramatic images and minimal narrative, Evans projects a “we-are-there” experience of fugitives on the run, escaping slavery. The figures are eerily disembodied, and many of the double-page spreads feature a two-word text such as “The darkness” or “The fear” [...]
Winner: Where Things Come Back by John Corey Whaley (Atheneum) Review in The Horn Book Guide, Fall 2011 When Cullen Witter was seventeen, his younger brother disappeared from their rural Arkansas town. Meanwhile, the suicide of Cabot Searcy’s college roommate has sent him on a quest to save mankind. The two parallel plot lines, disconnected [...]
Winner: Balloons over Broadway: The True Story of the Puppeteer of Macy’s Parade by Melissa Sweet; illus. by the author (Houghton) At Macy’s department store, marionette maker Tony Sarg started inside and worked his way out. He designed mechanical storybook figures for Macy’s window displays before inventing the giant balloon characters that would become the [...]
Winner: A Ball for Daisy by Chris Raschka; illus. by the author (Schwartz & Wade/Random) Starred review in The Horn Book Magazine, September/October 2011 The wordless story begins on the title page, where we see a scruffy little black-and-white dog about to be given a big red ball. It’s clear from the start that Daisy [...]
Winner: Dead End in Norvelt by Jack Gantos (Farrar) Starred review in The Horn Book Magazine, September/October 2011 Who but Jack Gantos would get a summer job typing up obituaries for his arthritic neighbor, the town’s unofficial historian; have a best friend who “grew up in a house full of dead people”; and need to [...]
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