Publications about books for children and young adults
At our upcoming Fostering Lifelong Learners: Prescribing Books for Early Childhood Education conference, Horn Book Guide Executive Editor Kitty Flynn will be leading a presentation about how the Horn Book evaluates and reviews preschool books. This is one aspect of her work that also engages her off the clock: Kitty and her husband are parents [...]
I work at a library that provides reading materials for the “print disabled” — those people who cannot read a traditional print book for a physical reason. It’s a network library of the National Library Service for the Blind and Physically Handicapped (NLS), a division of the Library of Congress, and the program has been [...]
The books recommended below were all published within the last several years and reviewed by The Horn Book Magazine. Grade levels are only suggestions; the individual child is the real criterion. Picture Books Suggested grade level for each entry: K–3 Emma’s Poem: The Voice of the Statue of Liberty written by Linda Glaser; illus. [...]
Victorian- and Edwardian-era England — whether in our own history or in an alternate reality — provides a vivid backdrop for these YA tales of derring-do. Performers in a Victorian freak show are detective heroes in Kieran Larwood’s Freaks. Sheba, a hirsute girl who can morph into wolf form, joins with a “monkey boy,” a [...]
March is Women’s History Month, and these four picture-book biographies of remarkable women who broke down boundaries and changed the world should find an audience of primary-aged girls and boys. Michelle Markel brings the plight of early-twentieth-century female garment workers to life in Brave Girl: Clara and the Shirtwaist Makers’ Strike of 1909. Persecuted in [...]
Four new titles for preschoolers star animal characters, every young child’s favorite picture book stand-in. In Construction Kitties by Judy Sue Goodwin Sturges, four indisputably cute overall-clad kitties don hard hats and hop into colorful earthmovers to dig into a kid-friendly building project revealed on the back endpapers. Shari Halpern’s gouache illustrations channel Byron Barton’s [...]
From golems to pirate kings, dragons to wilderness quests, these action-oriented middle-grade novels featuring strong boy protagonists are packed with magic, intrigue, and page-turning plot twists. Sammy is a victim of bullying in Jane Yolen and Adam Stemple’s B.U.G. (Big Ugly Guy). Things improve when he starts a band with a new student named Skink. [...]
For COLLEGE. Ruta Sepetys and Penguin Young Readers Group are running an essay contest in conjunction with the release of Ruta’s new book, Out of the Easy, a tale of growing up in the French Quarter of 1950s New Orleans. The prize is $5000 toward college; full details can be found at the Out of [...]
Recommended love stories, all published in the last few years and reviewed by The Horn Book Magazine.
Ha ha, not really. I hope everybody is getting some use out of our latest newsletter, Nonfiction Notes from the Horn Book. I’ve been thinking about NF a lot since ALA, where I spent two solid days talking to publishers about what they were planning for the coming year(s). Along with inflicting upon the world [...]
