The Horn Book » musings http://www.hbook.com Publications about books for children and young adults Tue, 14 May 2013 13:27:31 +0000 en-US hourly 1 http://wordpress.org/?v=3.4.2 Dorothy, how does that make you feel? http://www.hbook.com/2012/02/blogs/out-of-the-box/dorothy-how-does-that-make-you-feel/ http://www.hbook.com/2012/02/blogs/out-of-the-box/dorothy-how-does-that-make-you-feel/#comments Thu, 16 Feb 2012 19:41:50 +0000 Elissa Gershowitz http://www.hbook.com/?p=10077 The formidable Kenneth Kidd explores the entwined history of children’s literature and psychoanalysis in Freud in Oz: At the Intersection of Psychoanalysis and Children’s Literature (Univ. of Minnesota, November). Essays include “Three Case Histories: Alice, Peter Pan, and The Wizard of Oz,” “’Maurice Sendak and Picturebook Psychology,” and “T Is for Trauma: The Children’s Literature [...]

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]]> freud in oz Dorothy, how does that make you <i>feel</i>?The formidable Kenneth Kidd explores the entwined history of children’s literature and psychoanalysis in Freud in Oz: At the Intersection of Psychoanalysis and Children’s Literature (Univ. of Minnesota, November). Essays include “Three Case Histories: Alice, Peter Pan, and The Wizard of Oz,” “’Maurice Sendak and Picturebook Psychology,” and “T Is for Trauma: The Children’s Literature of Atrocity.” The book, with its extensive endnotes, thorough bibliography (The Horn Book makes a cameo), and well-organized index, is a psychoanalytic literary critic’s dream.

out of oz Dorothy, how does that make you <i>feel</i>?On a related note (sort of), I’m reading Out of Oz (Morrow, November), the last in Gregory Maguire’s cycle of adult books that began with Wicked. Has anyone psychoanalyzed those? Galinda and Elphaba: more than friends? Liir and Nor: mommy issues? Animals and animals: identity crisis? Master’s thesis, anyone?

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]]> http://www.hbook.com/2012/02/blogs/out-of-the-box/dorothy-how-does-that-make-you-feel/feed/ 5 Those happy golden years http://www.hbook.com/2012/01/blogs/out-of-the-box/those-happy-golden-years/ http://www.hbook.com/2012/01/blogs/out-of-the-box/those-happy-golden-years/#comments Wed, 18 Jan 2012 17:03:47 +0000 Martha V. Parravano http://www.hbook.com/?p=9222 Raymond Bial, well-known author of nonfiction for children (Ellis Island: Coming to the Land of Liberty; Tenement: Immigrant Life on the Lower East Side; Amish Home; Frontier Home), has just published a novel, one “intended primarily for adults,” according to the promotional copy on the back of the (attractive) paperback. Set in small-town 1959 Indiana [...]

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]]> chigger Those happy golden yearsRaymond Bial, well-known author of nonfiction for children (Ellis Island: Coming to the Land of Liberty; Tenement: Immigrant Life on the Lower East Side; Amish Home; Frontier Home), has just published a novel, one “intended primarily for adults,” according to the promotional copy on the back of the (attractive) paperback.

Set in small-town 1959 Indiana and unashamedly nostalgic, it’s aimed at Baby Boomers who remember their own idyllic childhoods: “We rode our bikes everywhere—to the Tastee Freez for ice cream cones, to Pearson’s Grocery for jawbreakers, to the Roscoe Cigar Store & Fountain for cherry Cokes, and to Harold’s Barber Shop with the liars’ bench out front to hear stories about the old days…” But Chigger (Motes, January) is also an involving coming-of-age story, focused on a fifth-grade boy changed forever when an unconventional new girl moves to town and disturbs his protected universe.

So it’s left me wondering: was Bial’s novel published for adults rather than children because of its heavy nostalgia element? Because if that’s the criterion, it would sure as heck clean out a lot of publishers’ children’s lists.

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]]> http://www.hbook.com/2012/01/blogs/out-of-the-box/those-happy-golden-years/feed/ 1 Learning in the age of apps http://www.hbook.com/2011/05/blogs/out-of-the-box/learning-in-the-age-of-apps/ http://www.hbook.com/2011/05/blogs/out-of-the-box/learning-in-the-age-of-apps/#comments Tue, 24 May 2011 19:32:00 +0000 Katie Bircher http://nyad1/wp-thb/?p=3830 While our sister publication School Library Journal tracks major national changes in school library technology, local news also emphasizes that “things are changing fast”: Boston’s free daily newspaper The Metro reports that area public schools are turning to iPads for their classrooms. Boston Public elementary schools are trying a pilot program offering iPads to students [...]

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]]> Learning in the age of appsWhile our sister publication School Library Journal tracks major national changes in school library technology, local news also emphasizes that “things are changing fast”: Boston’s free daily newspaper The Metro reports that area public schools are turning to iPads for their classrooms. Boston Public elementary schools are trying a pilot program offering iPads to students on the autism spectrum, while Burlington High plans to purchase an iPad for each student.

Which sparks some fascinating—if as-yet unanswerable—questions: how will e-publishing evolve as digital resources become a bigger part of public school curriculum? What criteria will (or should) administrators and teachers use to select ebooks and apps for their students? And, as SLJ editor Brian Kenney asks, what do we do about the “digital divide” between schools that can afford to keep up with ever-changing educational technology and those that can’t?

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