Publications about books for children and young adults
From the November/December 2012 issue of The Horn Book Magazine: Reviewer Ashley Waring asks Ed Young, illustrator of Nighttime Ninja, about the inspiration for his mixed-media artwork. Read the full review of Nighttime Ninja here. Ashley Waring: When preparing your collages, do you start with an idea for a scene and find the right materials [...]
Nighttime Ninja by Barbara DaCosta; illus. by Ed Young Preschool Little, Brown 32 pp. 9/12 978-0-316-20384-5 $16.99 Silently, in the dark of night, a ninja creeps through a house. While the family sleeps, he stealthily embarks on his mission. “Hand over hand, the ninja climbed and clambered. Step by step, he balanced and leapt.” It’s [...]
Dodger by Terry Pratchett Middle School Harper/HarperCollins 360 pp. 10/12 978-0-06-200949-4 $17.99 Library ed. 978-0-06-200950-0 $18.89 e-book ed. 978-0-06-219015-4 $9.99 Who would have the skill, the sensibility, and the sass to put Charles Dickens into a novel and then proceed to write that novel in full-octane Dickensian style? Terry Pratchett, of course. Like his namesake [...]
This September, contemporary portrait artist Chuck Close’s unconventional autobiography, Chuck Close: Face Book (rev. 5/12), was awarded the 2012 Boston Globe–Horn Book Award for nonfiction. The following are Horn Book Guide–recommended books (including BGHB Nonfiction Honor Award–winner Georgia in Hawaii) for elementary-age readers — some biographical, others historical and artistic overviews, still others instigators for [...]
Electric Ben: The Amazing Life and Times of Benjamin Franklin by Robert Byrd; illus. by the author Intermediate Dial 40 pp. 9/12 978-0-8037-3749-5 $17.99 With a jacket showing Benjamin Franklin as a cross between a mad scientist and a superhero standing amid wild lightning bolts and surrounded by all manner of electrical devices, this book [...]
Neil Gaiman has his own, very good, reasons for asking, “What the [Very Bad Swearword] Is a Children’s Book Anyway?” and you can read all about them, starting on page 10. The question is great, but he doesn’t really have an answer. Don’t feel bad, Neil: here at the Horn Book, we’ve been asking that [...]
Like many writers, I had a reading childhood, but I’ve only recently understood how countercultural my mother was about my reading. My brother and sister and I are close in age, so when I was a child there were no big-kid books and little-kid books; no girl books and boy books. All the books belonged [...]
Unspoken: A Story from the Underground Railroad by Henry Cole; illus. by the author Primary Scholastic 40 pp. 11/12 978-0-545-39997-5 $16.99 This wordless picture book opens with a calm scene: a quilt hangs over a rural split-rail fence. A young girl enters the scene on the next double-page spread, leading a cow and watching a [...]
Editors’ note: this inaugural column will be followed by twice-yearly roundups to be published on the Horn Book website, www.hbook.com — and don’t miss Viki Ash’s primer, “What Makes a Good Board Book?” online and in the March/April 2010 Horn Book Magazine. My fascination with board books began in 1987 with a quartet of them [...]
In his 2012 Zena Sutherland Lecture Neil Gaiman poses the question: “What the [Very Bad Swearword] Is a Children’s Book Anyway?” Susan Cooper remembers Margaret Mahy. Board book roundup: aficionado Viki Ash recommends some recent titles. Foreign Correspondence: Horn Book designer and production manager Lolly Robinson tours some of London’s illustration archive sites. Books in [...]
