Caroline Fraser examines the sordid publishing history of The Tale of Peter Rabbit.

The post Preview May/June 2013 Horn Book Magazine appeared first on The Horn Book.

Special Issue: Different Drummers

• The Writer’s Page: Authors Polly Horvath and Jack Gantos exchange ideas on what it is to be weird. In their own unique ways.
• Barbara Bader discusses the work of versatile illustrator Paul O. Zelinsky (whose original art graces the March cover).
• Roger Sutton interviews two independent children’s book publishers: Mary Cash of Holiday House and Jason Low of Lee & Low Books.
• Eugene Yelchin on growing up reading in the former Soviet Union.
• Elizabeth Burns argues for books for print-disabled children.
• Sight Reading: Leonard S. Marcus on Tomi Ungerer.
• Field Notes: Independent bookstore co-owner Elizabeth Bluemle on the challenges and rewards of bookselling in a digital age.
• “What Makes a Good YA Coming-Out Novel?” asks librarian Claire Gross.
• Caldecott at 75: Scholar-librarian Kathleen T. Horning continues a multi-part series of articles looking back at the Caldecott Medal by decade, here focusing on the 1940s with Rachel Field’s Prayer for a Child.
• Throughout the issue: Authors, publishers, and reviewers answer the question: “What’s the strangest children’s book you’ve ever enjoyed?”
• From The Guide: Novels in Verse.
• Cadenza: “My Life in Comics,” an original comic by Raina Telgemeier.

The post Preview March/April 2013 Horn Book Magazine appeared first on The Horn Book.

Horn Book Fanfare: our choices for the best books of 2012.

The post Preview January/February 2013 Horn Book Magazine appeared first on The Horn Book.

In his 2012 Zena Sutherland Lecture Neil Gaiman poses the question: “What the [Very Bad Swearword] Is a Children’s Book Anyway?”

The post Preview November/December 2012 Horn Book Magazine appeared first on The Horn Book.

• Philip Nel illuminates 1950s America in an adapted excerpt from his new book about Crockett Johnson, Ruth Krauss, and the FBI.
• Christine M. Heppermann on her experiences as a work-for-hire writer of series nonfiction.
• Susan C. Griffith calls for a reframing of discussion surrounding racism and The Cay.
• Susan Dove Lempke answers the question: “What Makes a Good Manners Book?
• Sight Reading: Leonard S. Marcus on picture-book fonts.
• Books in the Home: Andrea Fox finds parenting advice in The Secret Garden.
• Minjie Chen and Betsy Hearne discuss a growing new trend in China: private children’s libraries.
• From The Guide: Re-imagined Classics.
• Cadenza: Elizabeth Thomas spoofs court TV in “Judge Judy in Storybook Land.”

The post Preview September/October 2012 Horn Book Magazine appeared first on The Horn Book.

Special Issue: Awards

• Jack Gantos’s Newbery Medal Acceptance Speech for Dead End in Norvelt and a profile of Gantos by his editor Wesley Adams.
• Chris Raschka’s Caldecott Medal Acceptance Speech for A Ball for Daisy and a profile of Raschka by his wife Lydie Raschka.
• Coretta Scott King Author Award Acceptance Speech by Kadir Nelson for Heart and Soul: The Story of America and African Americans and a profile of Nelson by his editor Donna Bray.
• Coretta Scott King Illustrator Award Acceptance Speech by Shane W. Evans for Underground and a profile of Evans by actor Taye Diggs.
• The Year in Pictures: Caldecott 2012: “everything…which is yes” by Joanna Rudge Long.
• Newbery 2012: The Year in Words by Nina Lindsay.
• Kathleen T. Horning revives a decades-old Newbery debate about “distinguished” books.
• Cadenza: Horn Book editors present the 2012 Mind the Gap Awards: The books that didn’t win.
• Previous medalists reveal My Favorite Caldecott / My Favorite Newbery.

The post Preview July/August 2012 Horn Book Magazine appeared first on The Horn Book.

Roger Sutton’s “What Hath Harry Wrought?” examines children’s publishing, post-Harry Potter.

The post Preview May/June 2012 Horn Book Magazine appeared first on The Horn Book.

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 Yaccarino
• Borderlands: Aidan Chambers on flash fiction
• Field Notes: Angela J. Reynolds surveys the new technologies in audiobooks
• Cynthia K. Ritter on children’s book–based board games
• Ann Dixon defends the printed book
• Katie Bircher answers the question: “What Makes a Good Picture Book App?”
• Horn Book staff and reviewers offer their assessments of children’s books transferred into new media
• Cadenza: Sarah Hamburg and Denis Roche’s board game “YA-manji: The Game of Up-Market Places”

The post Preview March/April 2012 Horn Book Magazine appeared first on The Horn Book.

• Horn Book Fanfare—our choices for the best books of 2011.
• 2011 Boston Globe–Horn Book Awards: Speeches from Nonfiction winner Steve Sheinkin, Picture Book winner Salley Mavor, and Fiction winner Tim Wynne-Jones.
• Richard Peck adapts his keynote address from the Horn Book at Simmons colloquium, “Books to Unite the Digitally Divided Family.”
• Sight Reading: Leonard S. Marcus on his favorite picture books of 2011.
• Deirdre F. Baker considers the recent spate of YA novels written in the present tense.
• Benjamin Goulet rides the highway to heck with “What Makes a Good Rock-and-Roll Book?” for young children.
• Patrick Jennings presents “The Chocolate Games,” a deliciously thrilling remix of Charlie and the Chocolate Factory and The Hunger Games.
• Original cover art by Salley Mavor.

The post Preview January/February 2012 Horn Book Magazine appeared first on The Horn Book.