Newcomers

The Horn Book is always on the watch for talented newcomers to the children’s literature scene. This page highlights exceptional work by the latest crop of novice authors and artists. All these books were reviewed in The Horn Book Magazine during the last year.

Becky Baines  Your Skin Holds You In
    National Geographic
    (Preschool, Primary)
    Reviewed 9/08
Here’s science for the very young about a topic that always catches their interest: themselves. Thirteen short sentences describe skin (“Skin can come in different colors”) in all its glory. Additional facts appear in smaller print (“Skin color comes from a pigment called melanin. The more melanin you have, the darker your skin”) on the same pages with the main idea sentences. Photographs of people, outlined in white and reproduced on brightly colored pages, serve as diagrams for important elements. For example, one sentence states that skin grows and stretches. A photograph of a pregnant woman, with an arrow pointing to her very round belly, shows where the baby resides. Adult readers may have to clarify a few oversimplifications (such as what and where pores are), but exuberant double-page spreads encourage looking and talking. A concluding spread lists questions, ideas, and experiments such as “Does a feather feel the same on your nose as on your elbow?” spurring youngsters to think about the ideas and concepts mentioned and beginning the process of scientific inquiry. B.C.

Ellen Booraem  The Unnameables
    Harcourt
    (Intermediate, Middle School)
    Reviewed 1/09
In this quirky, gentle fable sure to have wide appeal, Booraem depicts a repressive, orderly Island society to which thirteen-year-old Medford Runyuin, a shipwrecked orphan, has had to adapt despite the many ways in which he doesn't belong. His meaningless name sets him apart from a community of people named for their trades; even more troubling and isolating is his urge to "waste time" by carving playful sculptures instead of the Useful bowls and spoons he should be producing. The Island culture values Usefulness only, and self-expression and the making of art are an abomination. Then the Goatman shows up, a smelly Pan-like figure who explodes Medford's careful secrecy and, with it, the Island society's self-understanding. Booraem's Goatman is an endearing, anarchic figure, a gust of creative wildness in a controlled, Puritan-esque community that distances itself from the modern, gas- and electric-powered Mainland. An optimistic story about the importance of art (and its marketability), this also plays lightly with questions of language and naming; friendship and integrity, too, are notable themes. The novel's humor and amiable tone make it a highly accessible but thought-provoking read. DEIRDRE F. BAKER

Kristin Cashore  Graceling
    Harcourt
    (High School)
    Reviewed 11/08
Lady Katsa of the Middluns, the most central of the Seven Kingdoms, was born with a terrifying Grace (the Seven Kingdoms term for the hyper-developed talents that occasionally surface in their populations). Katsa's seems to be for killing, and her thuggish uncle, the king, makes her his brute squad. She rebels by forming the Council, a sort of social justice league, and it is through this affiliation that she is drawn into a mystery involving the kidnapping of an elderly cross-kingdom prince, the secret Grace of the king of nearby Monsea, and the kidnapped royal's wicked cute, super-sensitive grandson Po — also, like Katsa, a Graceling. Katsa's assertion of her independence, and her harnessing of her Grace as subservient to her humanity, form the philosophical skeleton of the narrative, but for the most part this is a straightforward journey-adventure with a hearty dose of too-good-to-be-true romance. Creepy villains aside, Graceling is light fare, anchored in Katsa and Po's fairly simple relationship; with a butt-kicking but emotionally vulnerable heroine, it should appeal to fans of recent girl-power urban fantasies as well as readers who've graduated from Tamora Pierce's Tortall series. CLAIRE E. GROSS

Laura Espinosa  Otis and Rae and the Grumbling Splunk; illus. by Leo Espinosa
    Houghton
    (Primary)
    Reviewed 5/08
Otis and Rae, jolly friends out for their first camping trip, work through their fears with good humor, spunk, and the magic of PB&B (for banana) sandwiches. In their first picture book, the Espinosas bring graphic innovation to the familiar best-friend story. With elements of comic strips, a retro color scheme, and a winning sense of humor, they tell a story that will draw in new readers and listeners alike. Otis (decked out in blue) and Rae (in rose) bravely face the wilderness together. Well, Rae does the bravery part — Otis is a bit short in the guts department. He is afraid of wild animals, scary stories by the fire, and even the sounds of crickets in the night. But, when it really counts, Otis has the brains to get out of a tough situation. The (seemingly hairless) pals wear stylish hats with expressive ears that flatten and move like antennae. Their eyes communicate every emotion, changing from tiny dots to terrified circles in response to the shadowy figures that pop out of the darkness. Each spread is filled with action and enough detail to entertain viewers for many return visits. R.L.S.

Richard Farr   Emperors of the Ice: A True Story of Disaster and Survival in the Antarctic, 1910-13
    Farrar
    (Middle School)
    Reviewed 11/08
For anyone who doubts that the line between fiction and nonfiction has blurred practically beyond recognition, take a look at this: the story of Scott's tragic South Pole quest retold as a first-person memoir by one of the expedition members, Apsley Cherry-Garrard. Farr protests in the preface that this is not fiction, and everything about the book asserts itself as nonfiction — plentiful archival photographs in a familiar photobiography format; extensive backmatter, including a chronology and an impressive bibliography; interspersed maps and manifests; even that "true story" in the subtitle. However, although based on "Cherry's" own memoir The Worst Journey in the World, Farr's narrative is not an adaptation but a complete revisioning — "what [Cherry] would have written had he been able to...absorb the arguments that have continued to rage over the expedition to this day and consider all evidence...from the viewpoint of our own time." Cataloging issues aside, it's an enthralling tale, told with marked immediacy, verve, and force of personality. "Imagine dragging a sledge from Paris to Rome and back. But with higher mountains in the middle, and fewer hotels." And, following the calamitous loss of a tent on a high-risk scientific side-expedition: "Yes, we replied, yes we're all right, which was true in the narrow sense that we were not actually dead." Farr's/Cherry's story rivals that of Shackle-ton for sheer suspense, details of Antarctic conditions, and vicariously lived adventure; it is also a rewardingly intimate view of the members of the doomed Polar Party, most notably Bill Wilson, "Birdie" Bowers, Titus Oates, and the infamous Captain Scott himself. M.V.P.

Kazuno Kohara  Ghosts in the House!; illus. by the author
    Roaring Brook
    (Preschool, Primary)
    Reviewed 9/08
This picture book gets back to basics with three-color illustrations, a simple text, and old-fashioned charm that isn’t at all dated. Kohara’s child-friendly pictures help set the tone. Attention-holding, uncomplicated compositions feature clean jack-o’-lantern-like shapes in warm black, pumpkin orange, and translucent white (for the ghosts, natch). The story is just as straightforward. A girl and her cat move into an old house and discover it’s haunted. Luckily, “the girl wasn’t just a girl. She was a witch!” Better yet, “she knew how to catch ghosts.” Donning her black pointy hat, the witch girl and her cat familiar (wearing a black-cat suit) hop on her magic broom and start ghost wrangling — which, frankly, looks like a lot of fun. The ghosts seem as happy to be caught as not; the mostly smiling characters make clear that no one is really scared. After she’s caught the ghosts — and washed and dried them — the resourceful girl repurposes her charges around the house. Her still-smiling curtains, grinning tablecloth, and, of course, peacefully sleeping bed sheets are the perfect ending to a happy Halloween story. K.F.

Meg Medina  Milagros: Girl from Away
    Ottaviano/Holt
    (Middle School)
    Reviewed 9/08
Twelve-year-old Milagros lives with her mother on the island of Las Brisas, an idyllic community in the Caribbean. But after Milagros finds a message in a bottle warning that “Happiness and jealousy are bad cousins,” outside evil creeps in. Las Brisas erupts in violence as the neighboring Rubians attack and murder nearly everyone on the island. Milagros escapes and, guided by the stingrays beloved to her mother, encounters her long-lost father’s pirate ship. Father and daughter share stubbornness and pride, and Milagros refuses his help. Miraculously, her dinghy carries her to an island off the coast of Maine. Woven into the story of Milagros’s new life as an outsider in present-day Maine are concurrent chapters set aboard her father’s ship. Not all is what it had appeared; he’s not a fearsome pirate but a lowly deckhand, and her mother, rescued from the island massacre, is now a servant. Medina’s use of magical realism keeps readers tantalizingly off-balance as she navigates among settings. Her language, too, is as changeable as the sea, sometimes lulling readers with gentle alliteration and flowing metaphor, other times jolting them with menacing foreshadowing and sharp dialogue. Milagros is a survivor, and though her strange, haunting tale ends on a hopeful note, a melancholic echo of all that she endured will remain with readers. ELISSA GERSHOWITZ

Sally Nicholls  Ways to Live Forever
    Levine/Scholastic
    (Intermediate)
    Reviewed 1/09
Sam is eleven, and he is dying of leukemia. In this journal record of the final four months of Sam's life, Nicholls creates a character and a world that are authentic, buoyant, honest, and stripped of sentimentality. The story is structured around Sam's eight goals, from breaking a world record to going up a down escalator, from being a teenager (smoking, drinking, having a girlfriend) to seeing the earth from space. In varied, plausible ways he accomplishes all his goals, and with each one he grows as a person. The world record involves his friend Felix and their construction of the world's smallest nightclub, a classic vignette of a middle-grade project gone awry. Sam's achievement of a girlfriend (a relationship that lasts as long as a single kiss) reveals the further quirky kindness of Felix. The texture of the narrative, with lists, clippings, footnotes, and doodles, allows for quick shifts in tone. In all the events recorded by Sam we see his degenerating physical condition without Nicholls ever once explicitly alluding to it. The overarching story is the hard-won rebuilding of Sam's relationship with his father, a man who simply denies the tragedy of Sam's illness. Most original of all is Nicholls's handling of the religious questions that Sam faces. Nobody provides him with easy or doctrinaire answers, but in his passionate exploration of spiritual issues he reveals himself to be fully alive until the moment of his death, engaged with the world, trying to make sense of it, being and becoming a unique, thinking, questing human. The energy and joy of this novel is a remarkable feat.S.E.

Sarah Prineas  The Magic Thief; illus. by Antonio Javier Caparo
    HarperCollins
    (Intermediate)
    Reviewed 9/08
Precocious Conn becomes a wizard’s apprentice when he pickpockets a locus magicalicus stone off of “bent, bearded, cloak-wearing old croakety croak” Nevery Flinglas and, to the wizard’s astonishment, isn’t killed. Despite Conn’s mysterious affinity for magic, one thing stands in the way of his new status — he doesn’t possess a locus magicalicus of his own. Searching through the neighborhoods of Sunrise (affluent) and Twilight (a slum), Conn picks up information useful to his new master, who’s trying to stem the catastrophic loss of magic from the city of Wellmet. An amiable tale akin to that of another well-known boy wizard, The Magic Thief sports a large font and generous leading; young readers will also find the familiar character types and straightforward plotting easy to grasp, while the evolving conflicts and distinctive setting draw them on. ANITA L. BURKAM

Robert Paul Weston  Zorgamazoo; illus. by the author
    Razorbill/Penguin
    (Intermediate)
    Reviewed 11/08
Katrina Katrell believes in "creatures of many remarkable shapes," such as ogres and hippogriffs, despite the chagrin of her guardian, Mrs. Krabone. Morty Yorgle believes in such creatures because he is one (specifically, a zorgle), and it's up to him to find the missing zorgles of Zorgamazoo. Luckily, scaredy-zorgle Morty meets the adventurous Katrina, who's on the run from Mrs. Krabone's plans to have the whimsy lobotomized out of her. In rhymed anapestic tetrameter — 171 pages of it! — Weston brings readers to planet Graybalon-4 and back, showing them the dull gray horror of Tedium Steam and the joy of its colorful opposite, Enchantium Gas. Though written in a form virtually unseen since the days of epic poetry, Zorgamazoo does not rely on its gimmick: Weston tells a well-constructed story with fully realized characters and plenty of humor. Still, the form stands out. The rhyme is almost flawless, the meter less so, but some lines are gems: "The phoenixes then set their bodies ablaze, / and took to the sky like a flock of flambes." Fancifully frightening spot illustrations and typographical trickery create an inviting visual package. Zorgamazoo will have readers thinking in rhythm long after they have come to "the finish / the curtain, / The End." SHOSHANA FLAX

Martin Wilson   What They Always Tell Us
    Delacorte
    (High School)
    Reviewed 9/08
Brothers James and Alex, a high school senior and junior, respectively, live in Tuscaloosa, where reputations are “so damn important” and “people’s secrets are like well-guarded jewels.” Alternating chapters in a third-person voice that reflects the boys’ distance from their surroundings, James and Alex reveal their well-guarded secrets. James disassociates from friends and acquaintances, hoping only to get out of town, preferably to Duke University. Alex, who swallowed a bottle of Pine Sol at a party several months ago, also feels out of place with a discontent he can’t quite understand. The catalyst that brings the two together is James’s friend Nathen, who sees Alex’s potential as a runner and encourages him in sports. Alex and Nathen become friends and then boyfriends in a tender exploration of first love: the initial feelings of joint euphoria, the not-quite-accidental touches, the secret glances, and the beginnings of an affectionate sexual relationship. A subplot involving a neighbor boy resolves too quickly, but the concepts tied to both boys’ social suffocation develop at an unhurried pace as the two brothers take their first steps toward adulthood.B.C.

Hyewon Yum, illustrator  Last Night
    Foster/Farrar
    (Preschool)
    Reviewed 1/09
Whether this wordless book was meant as an intentional homage to Where the Wild Things Are or is just displaying Sendak's pervasive influence, the treatment is wholly original. A girl is given a time out, presumably because she will not eat her dinner. In her room, she fumes alone and then reaches for the comfort of her stuffed bear. Either in a dream or reality, the small bear becomes life-sized and animated, leading her into the woods where they meet and play with wild animals. Over several spreads, the girl becomes increasingly sleepy until she and the bear fall asleep. Waking up in her own bed, she sees that her bear is back to his original size. The final spread shows the girl descending the stairs to her mother and a big hug. Yum's linocut illustrations with their foggily stippled blocks of color are appropriate for the open-ended mystery, while her palette hints at the mood of each illustration. Faces are revealed with the simplest curved lines but never fail to indicate a precise mood. The technique used, employing several blocks of different color combinations for each illustration, requires much planning and time-consuming execution, yet the result looks spontaneous and intimate. LOLLY ROBINSON