Review of The Man from the Land of Fandango by Margaret Mahy. From the November/December 2012 issue of The Horn Book Magazine.
Review of One Times Square
January 2, 2013 By Leave a Comment
One Times Square: A Century of Change at the Crossroads of the World by Joe McKendry; illus. by the author Intermediate Godine 64 pp. 9/12 978-1-56792-364-3 $19.95 You are there at the birth, the decay, and the revival of Times Square, the “crossroads of the world” for a century. McKendry (Beneath the Streets of Boston, [...]
David Levithan on Every Day
December 26, 2012 By Leave a Comment
From the November/December 2012 issue of The Horn Book Magazine: Reviewer Christine Hepperman asks author and editor David Levithan about writing gender (and the lack thereof) in his YA novel Every Day. Read the full review of Every Day here. Christine Hepperman: Were there specific challenges in writing a character who is both genders and [...]
Review of Every Day
December 26, 2012 By Leave a Comment
Every Day by David Levithan Middle School, High School Knopf 325 pp. 8/12 978-0-307-93188-7 $16.99 Library ed. 978-0-375-97111-2 $19.99 e-book ed. 978-0-307-97563-8 $10.99 “A,” the narrator of Levithan’s brilliantly conceived novel, wakes up in a different sixteen-year-old’s body every morning and has to adjust to different physical characteristics, a different family, a different school, different [...]
Book Request Haiku
December 20, 2012 By 8 Comments
All I know is that The toad takes some kind of bath And lives forever. (Tuck Everlasting) My teacher read it To show why we should always Listen to spiders. (Charlotte’s Web) The illustrations Showed corks growing in bunches Like fruit on the trees. (The Story of Ferdinand) A single gold tooth, One of them [...]
Review of Bailey at the Museum
December 19, 2012 By Leave a Comment
Bailey at the Museum by Harry Bliss; illus. by the author Primary Scholastic 32 pp. 9/12 978-0-545-23345-3 $16.99 In his second adventure, the irrepressible titular hound from Bailey (rev. 11/11) — the only dog in Mrs. Smith’s class — is excited about the field trip to the Museum of Natural History. Though his classmates are [...]
Review of Pinned
December 5, 2012 By Leave a Comment
Pinned by Sharon G. Flake Middle School, High School Scholastic 231 pp. 10/12 978-0-545-05718-9 $17.99 e-book ed. 978-0-545-46984-5 $17.99 Ninth-grader Autumn is great at some things — wrestling, for one; cooking, for another. Reading is not one of her skills, due in part to multiple moves during her early childhood and parents who also don’t [...]
Holiday High Notes 2012
December 3, 2012 By 2 Comments
Deck the halls, spin the dreidels… and enjoy our annual selection of new holiday books, with reviews written by the Horn Book staff. Daddy Christmas & Hanukkah Mama by Selina Alko; illus. by the author Preschool, Primary Knopf 32 pp. 9/12 978-0-375-86093-5 $16.99 Library ed. 978-0-375-96093-2 $19.99 Sadie, happily ensconced in two cultures, describes her family’s [...]
Review of The McElderry Book of Mother Goose
November 28, 2012 By Leave a Comment
The McElderry Book of Mother Goose: Revered and Rare Rhymes compiled by Petra Mathers; illus. by the compiler Primary, Intermediate McElderry 96 pp. 8/12 978-0-689-85605-1 $21.99 e-book ed. 978-1-4424-5314-2 $12.99 Not since Leonard Marcus’s Mother Goose’s Little Misfortunes (rev. 11/90) has there been such a delightfully idiosyncratic selection. Drawn mostly from the canonical Opies (see [...]
Face Out: Picture Book Covers
November 28, 2012 By 5 Comments
A recent conversation about the current state of the picture book soon came around to the subject of book jackets. A senior art director in the group noted mournfully that as jacket designs have increasingly become the province of sales and marketing teams, covers have grown less representative of the books they trumpet. The disconnect [...]
