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Opinion

Gimlet-eyed and occasionally -addled views on what's wrong and right in the world of books for young people.

Books to Unite the Digitally Divided Family

January 3, 2012 By 3 Comments
peck_hires

Ladies and gentlemen, winners of the Boston Globe–Horn Book Awards, people of the book…

We gather to ask our annual question: “Can there still be books for the young?” Even now, in these darkening days, while Barnes & Noble eats independent booksellers, and Amazon eats Barnes & Noble. New problems to mask the old ones we never solved, since you can still sit out twelve years of school in the “remedial” program not because you’re “learning disabled” but because you aren’t home at night. Can our books still tell their stories in the age of the “digitally reduced attention span”? Can we still reach a generation whose own parents lost eye contact with them long ago? In the full knowledge that there is no app for eye contact…

Oh, yes. The answer is yes because never have the young needed us more. Never has a young generation on their way to adulthood lived this far from adults. Never has a generation needed an adult voice more, if only on the page and well disguised.

Filed Under: Authors & Illustrators, Creating Books, Featured, Opinion Tagged With: , , , ,

Letter to the Editor from Mary Alice Garber, January/February 2012

December 30, 2011 By Leave a Comment
November/December 2011 Horn Book Magazine cover

November/December 2011 Horn Book I am one of the buyers, along with Jewell Stoddard, for the children and teens’ department at the Politics & Prose bookstore. The picture book “Proclamation!” published in the November issue and your editorial (“The Sign on Sendak’s Door”) echo what Jewell and I feel strongly. I just shared the “advertisement [...]

Filed Under: Horn Book Magazine, Letters Tagged With:

Letter to the Editor from Margaret Bush, January/February 2012

December 30, 2011 By Leave a Comment
sep11cov_blog

September/October 2011 Horn Book Barbara Bader’s series of articles on the “second generation” of prominent librarians in the children’s services field (“Virginia Haviland,” January/February 2011; “Augusta Baker,” May/June 2011; “Mildred Batchelder,” September/October 2011) has been enjoyable to read. For the small number of us who worked with these librarians or knew them, Bader stirs up [...]

Filed Under: Horn Book Magazine, Letters, Library Tagged With: , , ,

In Which We’ve Done Only Half the Work

December 30, 2011 By 1 Comment
Roger Sutton caricature by Ed Bryant

But let us here consider the books in need—those books for youth that make librarians both happy and industrious. When I look at our 2011 Fanfare list, beginning on page 10, I see an array of thirty books whose fortunes will largely depend on you. Yes, some of the choices have already established themselves (Press Here and I Want My Hat Back are on this week’s New York Times bestsellers list), and good for them. But most of the books on our Fanfare list will need your attention first if they hope to find the attention of young readers.

Filed Under: Editorials, Featured, Horn Book Magazine, Using Books Tagged With: , ,

Present Tensions, or It’s All Happening Now

December 29, 2011 By 8 Comments
HungergamesCover-web

When the 2010 Man Booker shortlist was announced in the UK, the Daily Telegraph ran this headline: “Philip Pullman and Philip Hensher criticise Booker Prize for including present tense novels.” In fact, what Pullman said, as he explained in an article in the Guardian, was that “the use of the present tense in fiction had [...]

Filed Under: Opinion, Publishing Tagged With: , ,

The Sign on Sendak’s Door

November 1, 2011 By 3 Comments
Proclamation

Although grateful for the support of publishers who place advertisements in The Horn Book, I’ve never before felt the need to direct you to such from this page. But I do so now: please go and read the advertisement on page 57 and then come back here. I’ll wait. Imagine a picture book world where [...]

Filed Under: Creating Books, Editorials, Featured, Horn Book Magazine, Publishing Tagged With: , , , ,

Lunacy

October 28, 2011 By Leave a Comment
koertge_goose

Mother Goose waddled to the window. Ah, there was the moon, perfect and round, its light streaming into bedrooms everywhere. She sighed. Mother Goose was upset. How could parents say that…word, that awful word, to their children? How could they use it in front of innocent little darlings almost fast asleep? Their drowsy eyes. Well-washed [...]

Filed Under: Horn Book Magazine, Opinion, Publishing Tagged With: , , , , ,

Project Child’s Play

September 13, 2011 By 1 Comment
Kim_boyblue

Fashion and children’s literature icon Heidi struts onto the runway, leading one of her goats on a chic, to-die-for leash. HEIDI: Hello, everyvon and velcome to da runvay! I am your host, Heidi. This is Ziegfried. Your challenge vas to design a fresh new look for some of children’s literature’s biggest icons. Von of you [...]

Filed Under: Featured, Horn Book Magazine, Opinion Tagged With: , , , , ,

Editorial: What Books Can Do

August 17, 2011 By Leave a Comment
Roger Sutton

In the aftermath of the attacks of September 11th ten years ago, there were many books published for children and teens about the tragedy. Some were informative, and at least two transcended the moment: Maira Kalman’s Fireboat and Mordicai Gerstein’s The Man Who Walked Between the Towers. But there was a persistent strain of “helpful” [...]

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New Knowledge

March 1, 2011 By Leave a Comment

Once upon a time, there were two sure signs that a nonfiction book was aimed at young readers: it had illustrations, and the facts, ideas, and insights were securely based on existing adult research. Authors saw themselves as translators whose job was to take the work of adult writers — who had the training and [...]

Filed Under: Creating Books, Opinion Tagged With: , , ,
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