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The beau mec who brings Elizabeth her croissant each morning.

In international news, French President François Hollande announced today that in gratitude for our loan of Elizabeth Law to La Ville-Lumière, he is sending some of his country’s most esteemed illustrateurs to New York City for a series of public pourparlers avec some of our own. Here’s the full lineup and schedule.

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Jane Austen (Mansfield Park) and Garth Nix (A Confusion of Princes) accompanied me on the Limoliner and were very pleasant companions. As was my hostess Elizabeth, who coached me in taking the subway all by myself from her apartment on the UES down to the office. (“Let’s start you at a station that only has one line,” she tactfully suggested.)

Jason, Roger, Mary; photo by Mark Tuchman

The main purpose of the trip was to interview Holiday House‘s Mary Cash and Lee & Low‘s Jason Low for the Magazine’s upcoming special issue, themed “Different Drummers,” due in March. Mary and Jason had a lot to say about the joys and challenges of independent publishing, and the issue will also feature a cover by Paul O. Zelinsky and contributions by Barbara Bader, Eugene Yelchin, Polly Horvath, and Jack Gantos, different drummers all. I only wish we could continue our motif of unconventionality into the review section and refuse, on thematic grounds, to cover anything that’s part of a series. ONE issue out of SIX, is it too much to ask?

I did NOT go to the National Book Awards dinner (too rich for my blood/wallet) but honored the occasion by reading the fiction winner, Louise Erdrich‘s The Round House on the trip home. It’s good, and with enough YA interest to make me feel like I was (happily) on the job.

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If you need to get in touch with us, our office phones are working and you can reach us on Twitter at @hornbook (general queries) or @RogerReads (if you need me). Or just pop any questions at the bottom of this post. We soldier on: Look in your email this afternoon for the debut issue of Nonfiction Notes from the Horn Book, which is being sent to all subscribers of Notes from the Horn Book; and tomorrow begins our celebration of Picture Book Month (yeah, who knew?) with the online-only publication of Barbara Bader’s “Absorbing Pictures and What They Say,” an invitation to look closely at what different artists can make of the same scene or theme. And next Wednesday, I’ll be hosting a live webcast with Lois Lowry; tune in.

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illustration by Pat Marriott, from The Wolves of Willoughby Chase

Joan Aiken’s daughter Lizza is hosting an evening in New York to celebrate the 50th anniversary of The Wolves of Willoughby Chase. You should go.

The anniversary has also prompted a new audio edition of the novel (Listening Library) about which Martha says:

“I’ve just started listening to it, narrated by Joan Aiken’s daughter Lizza, and it’s superb. The combination of the author’s masterful storytelling and the narrator’s assured and intimate reading is mesmerizing.  I hope Lizza goes on to read the whole Wolves sequence – it’s wonderful to be subsumed into that world again! I just want to drop everything and listen. (Maybe I could have the day off?) As an added bonus, Lizza introduces the audiobook with a brief story about how her mother came to write the book—a huge treat for Aiken fans.”

You should listen.

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And breakfast with Barbara Marcus, late of Scholastic and currently a Media Source board member and consultant for the Open Road ebook venture; she gave me advice about wedding rings, for which R and I are currently in the market. I’ve never worn a ring but Barbara says they don’t interfere with writing, which is what I was afraid of. A special treat was lunch with Lillian Gerhardt, editor emerita of SLJ, who gave me my start in this opining biz when she hired me in 1983 as a YA columnist. She had a few juicy items re ALSC and ALA that I am now going to check out.

Two plays with Richard: The Normal Heart, which I found underwhelming, and Jerusalem, which I recommend to any fan of the great Brit fantasists. Same material, very different spin (nobody but the English uses the c-word with such gusto and versatility).

Okay, back to work (and sneaking in glimpses at Roland Garros on the side. Have you seen my new wallpaper?) Allez!

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Back from a weekend in New York–Lost in the Stars at Encores! (terribly worthy and high-minded), Billy Elliot (LOTS of fun) and a double-dip at MOMA with Andy Warhol’s movies and the Abstract Expressionists (my favorite pictured, Jackson Pollock’s Easter and the Totem).

I wonder when we learn to be willingly (if grudgingly) edified. Watching Lost in the Stars, I thought, “well, this is dull and preachy and the singing isn’t all that exciting, but I’m glad to have finally seen an Encores! production and to add to my knowledge of Kurt Weill’s music, which in the main I like.” I guess it’s a form of delayed gratification, never my favorite concept, but perhaps I’m growing up.

As far as “Modern Art” goes, I just stick with Gertrude Stein’s considered response: “I like to look at it.”

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Off to New York to see some shows, walk in the bamboo forest and spy on our little sister for a couple of days.

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. . . and she’s got SLJ on her plate! Today Chelsey Philpot becomes the former editorial assistant at the Horn Book Guide as she begins her reign as assistant editor for School Library Journal‘s book review section and managing editor for the Second Helpings newsletter. We sent Chelsey off to New York with all our best wishes, a membership to MOMA and a dvd set of the first season of That Girl. Brian, Trev, Luann–be NICE. You are very lucky to have her.

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