| From
the March/April 2008 issue of The Horn Book Magazine
Editorial
News and e-Ventures
 ith
this issue of the Horn Book we bid farewell to retiring
reviewers and welcome new ones to the masthead. Margaret Bush, professor
in the Simmons College Graduate School of Library and Information
Science, and Susan Bloom, associate professor emerita and former
director of the Simmons College Center for the Study of Children’s
Literature, have served the Horn Book long and faithfully.
I thank Maggie and Susan for their many years of perceptive reviews,
their wise judgments both in these pages and as members of Boston
Globe–Horn Book Award committees, and their dogged observance
of deadlines. And reviewer Vicky Smith has departed to become the
children’s and YA editor of Kirkus Reviews, the venerable
home, at various times, to Horn Book friends Lillian N.
Gerhardt, Barbara Bader, Joanna Rudge Long, and, most recently,
Karen Breen. Vicky, you have a formidable tradition to uphold.
The fresh faces: Sarah Ellis is an old Horn
Book hand, starting with her “News from the North”
column about Canadian children’s literature, which debuted
in 1984. An honored children’s book author herself, and recently
retired from the North Vancouver District Library, Sarah joins Robin
Smith, a second-grade teacher at the Ensworth School in Nashville,
on the masthead. Robin has published several articles in the Horn
Book and in ALA’s Book Links and, with her husband
and teaching colleague Dean Schneider, is the creator of our popular
“Unlucky Arithmetic: Thirteen Ways to Raise a Nonreader”
poster (“Buy only 40-watt bulbs for your lamps”).
You can download
“Unlucky Arithmetic” from our website, and if you haven’t
visited www.hbook.com in a while, you should. Under the leadership
of web editor Kitty Flynn and webmaster Lolly Robinson, hbook.com
has become an integral component of our durable mission to —
say it with me — “blow the horn for fine books for boys
and girls.” On the website you will find archived Horn
Book articles, reading
lists on all manner of themes, podcast
interviews with writers and illustrators, the Horn Book’s
blog, and the online
database of The Horn Book Guide, with more than 70,000
searchable reviews.
Our latest e-venture is Notes
from the Horn Book, a free monthly electronic newsletter
for parents, teachers, and other adults interested in good books
for children and teens. Each issue will briefly review a dozen or
so new books, provide links to further resources, and answer questions
sent in by readers. We will also pose a few questions to a writer
or illustrator in the news: first up is Jon Scieszka, the newly
appointed “National Ambassador for Young People’s Literature,”
a position and choice I applaud. In his interview, Jon discusses
how parents can get their children reading, and we hope Notes
can play its modest part to the same end. Sign
up at www.hbook.com. Tell your friends.
From the March/April 2008 issue of The
Horn Book Magazine |
