Love among the ruins: romance in YA fiction
Ask the Passengers by A.S. King, Little, 13 years and up.
Not Exactly a Love Story by Audrey Coloumbis, Random, 13 years and up.
Paper Valentine by Brenna Yovanoff, Razorbill/Penguin, 11 years and up.
Love and Other Perishable Items by Laura Buzo, Knopf, 13 years and up.

Board and flap books galore
I Can Do It Myself! and Now I Am Big! both by Stephen Krensky, illus. by Sara Gillingham, Abrams/Appleseed, 2–4 years.
I Say, You Say Animal Sounds! and I Say, You Say Opposites! both by Tad Carpenter, LB Kids/Little, 2–4 years.
What Happens Next? and Who Lives Here? both by Nicola Davies, illus. by Marc Boutavant, Candlewick, 2–4 years.
Boat Works: A Giant Fold-Out Book by Tom Slaughter, Blue Apple, 2–4 years.
Dinosaurs: A Giant Fold-Out Book by Simms Taback, Blue Apple, 2–4 years.

Down on the farm
Grumpy Goat by Brett Helquist, HarperCollins, 2–4 years.
Loopy Coop Hens: Letting Go by Janet Morgan Stoeke, Dial, 3–5 years.
Lucky Ducklings by Eva Moore, Scholastic/Orchard, 3–5 years.
I Spy Farm Animals by Edward Gibbs, Templar/Candlewick, 2–4 years.

Middle-school for Black History Month
Zora: The Life of Zora Neal Hurston by Judith Bloom Fradin and Dennis Brindell Fradin, Clarion, 11 years and up.
Spirit Seeker: John Coltrane’s Musical Journey by Gary Golio, illus. by Rudy Gutierrez, Clarion, 8–13 years.
Hand in Hand: 10 Black Men who Changed America by Andrea Davis Pinkney, illus. by Brian Pinkney, Disney-Jump at the Sun, 8–13 years.
Courage Has No Color: America’s First Black Paratroopers by Tanya Lee Stone, Candlewick, 11 years and up.

These titles were featured in the February 2013 issue of Notes from the Horn Book.

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But they never stop, not the books, not the battles, not the readers. The particulars change as themes and trends cycle and populations shift, but generations of young readers are alike in asking the same questions of themselves and the world, and “who will love me?” is a big one. Happy Valentine’s Day.

Roger Sutton
Editor in Chief

From the February 2013 issue of Notes from the Horn Book.

The post From the editor – February 2013 appeared first on The Horn Book.

Zora Neale Hurston presents a challenge to any biographer because she so often lied about herself in print, beginning with her birth date. In Zora!: The Life of Zora Neale Hurston, Judith Bloom Fradin and Dennis Brindell Fradin make these discrepancies part of the story, using Hurston’s autobiographical tall tales to give readers a strong sense of this “picturesque, witty, electric, indiscreet, and unreliable” woman. Illustrated with carefully selected photographs, this well-documented biography is pleasurable reading as well as informative. (11 years and up, Clarion)

In Spirit Seeker: John Coltrane’s Musical Journey, Gary Golio takes on the complexity of the gifted jazz musician and composer’s life. Having suffered more than his fair share of tragedy by adolescence, Coltrane found solace in his love of music — and in drugs and alcohol. Rudy Gutierrez’s sophisticated illustrations show human faces with a nearly photographic realism, while background scenes are abstracted into swirling shapes, capturing the intangibles of Coltrane’s story: his pain, his drug-addled mind, his spirituality, and his music. (8–13 years, Clarion)

Andrea Davis Pinkney’s Hand in Hand: Ten Black Men Who Changed America presents ten biographical vignettes in chronological order: Benjamin Banneker, Frederick Douglass, Booker T. Washington, W. E. B. DuBois, A. Philip Randolph, Thurgood Marshall, Jackie Robinson, Malcolm X, Martin Luther King Jr., and Barack H. Obama II. Each profile, fifteen to thirty pages long, includes an introductory poem, a watercolor portrait, and spot illustrations. Brian Pinkney’s illustrations are a perfect marriage of line, color, and medium, and complement the ebullient text. (8–13 years, Disney/Jump at the Sun)

All-black Army paratrooper unit the Triple Nickles never saw combat (white soldiers refused to fight alongside them, and they weren’t even allowed access to ammunition), but they helped to pave the way for a more integrated military in later wars. In Courage Has No Color: The True Story of the Triple Nickles: America’s First Black Paratroopers, Tanya Lee Stone explores issues of segregation and stereotypes as well as WWII history, all brought to life with archival photographs and clear prose. (11 years and up, Candlewick)

From the February 2013 issue of Notes from the Horn Book.

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Brett Helquist’s Grumpy Goat makes Sunny Acres farm an unpleasant place to live. But then he comes across a little yellow flower in a field. As he begins caring for it, the other animals discover that Goat’s nature is sweetening. The story, initially a humorous one, evolves into a tale about the power of caring for others. Luscious acrylic and oil paintings convey both the shifting moods of the animals and a gorgeous landscape. (2–4 years, Harper/HarperCollins)

In Janet Morgan Stoeke’s The Loopy Coop Hens: Letting Go, the three hen friends of Loopy Coop Farm are sitting under an apple tree, minding their own business, when apples start to rain down upon them. Who is throwing them? Could it be a fox? The brave hens decide to investigate, climbing up a ladder to the top of the tree and discovering…gravity! With a minimum of words, Stoeke manages to invest her characters with a maximum of personality and her story with energy and humor; vivid illustrations focus readers’ attention on the action. (3–5 years, Dial)

When Mama Duck takes her ducklings for a walk in Eva Moore’s Lucky Ducklings (based on a true incident), she passes easily over the grate of a storm sewer, but one by one each of the five ducklings trailing behind her fall through. Three firefighters and a bystander with a pickup truck and cable work together to rescue the ducklings. Nancy Carpenter’s realistic charcoal illustrations show the drama as it unfolds from many different perspectives, including that of the ducklings in the storm sewer. Expert use of pattern and repetition is nicely echoed in individual illustrated vignettes. A good choice for reading aloud. (3–5 years, Orchard/Scholastic)

Edward Gibbs’s innovative “I Spy” book, I Spy on the Farm, has extra-tough boards and binding, and the corners are rounded, enticing preschoolers to reach out for it and experiment. Preschoolers first glimpse a farm animal through a die-cut hole on the right along with three simple clues to its identity; turn the page, and they see the revealed animal, whole. Gibbs’s expertly rendered digital art combines scribbly, brightly colored animals with more subdued backgrounds in clean cutout shapes, providing an energetic payoff when the animal is revealed. (2–4 years, Templar/Candlewick)

From the February 2013 issue of Notes from the Horn Book.

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Stephen Krensky and Sara Gillingham’s I Can Do It Myself! and Now I Am Big! board books celebrate the increasing independence of toddlers and their pride in accomplishment. In I Can Do It Myself!, a little girl picks out her own clothes, blows her nose, eats, etc. In Now I Am Big!, a little boy presents before-and-after scenarios: “I used to be shy. / Now I am brave.” Gillingham’s retro illustrations add a sweetly nostalgic feel to Krensky’s rhyming texts. (2–4 years, Abrams/Abrams Appleseed)

I Say, You Say Animal Sounds! and its companion volume I Say, You Say Opposites! (both by Tad Carpenter) are fun participatory texts with oversize gatefolds. The art is colorful, though not always realistic (in Animal Sounds, the lion’s grassland is purple, and the duck’s green pond is situated on a field of blue grass), but this whimsical break from realism won’t detract from the pleasure of the shared reading experience these books afford readers. (2–4 years, Little/LB Kids)

These Flip the Flap & Find Out books introduce very basic science concepts to preschoolers. Who Lives Here? asks readers to figure out what animal (out of four choices) lives in a particular kind of habitat. The animal is then revealed on the following page. What Happens Next? is a study both of animal behavior and of cause and effect. In both volumes, Marc Boutavant’s illustrations are well cued to Nicola Davies’s content, depicting scene-setting scientific details while enhancing the fun of discovery. (2–4 years, Candlewick)

Tom Slaughter’s Boat Works: A Giant Fold-Out Book and Simms Taback’s Dinosaurs: A Giant Fold-Out Book are guessing-game books. Starting with a question on the left (Boat Works asks, “What am I?”; Dinosaurs asks, “Who am I?”) and a clue on the right, the right-hand page then folds out to reveal another piece of the picture and a second clue. A final fold reveals the answer in a gloriously large seventeen-inch square. Boat Works is bright and geometric, while Dinosaurs features Taback’s characteristic naive art with thick black lines. (2–4 years, Blue Apple)

From the February 2013 issue of Notes from the Horn Book.

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In A. S. King’s Ask the Passengers, Astrid would be the quintessential Q-for-Questioning in her LGBTQ support group if her small-minded school had such a thing, but the gay question is only one of many on her mind. Searching for answers, Astrid lifts up her concerns and her love to the passengers on passing airplanes. After deciding not to live closeted — and introducing girlfriend Dee to her family — she sends one final message skyward in a fine conclusion to this coming-out-and-of-age novel. (13 years and up, Little)

In Audrey Couloumbis’s refreshingly sweet and nostalgic novel Not Exactly a Love Story, Vinnie develops a crush on his new next-door neighbor, Patsy, but doesn’t have the courage to ask her out. When he finds her (unlisted) number, Vinnie seizes his chance and calls her every night around midnight. On the phone Vinnie and Patsy enjoy a flirty chemistry, and their in-person relationship also gradually develops. The 1970s setting, with its lack of cell phones, allows for a sense of anticipation to build around Vinnie and Patsy’s nightly calls. (13 years and up, Random)

Brenna Yovanoff’s Paper Valentine begins in the city of Ludlow during a suffocating heat wave and a series of mysterious murders. Lillian, Hannah’s best friend who died from anorexia, now haunts Hannah’s every move. As Hannah investigates the killings, she also begins a relationship with mysterious delinquent Finny Boone, giving her new confidence and strength to stand up for herself and to Lillian. This is equal parts taut sleuthing, ghost story, and coming-of-age novel. (11 years and up, Razorbill/Penguin)

Laura Buzo’s debut novel, Love and Other Perishable Items, delves into the romantic lives of both an adolescent and a youngish adult. Fifteen-year-old Amelia is smitten with her supermarket co-worker Chris (twenty-one). Her first-person narration alternates with Chris’s letters and journal entries, so readers are also privy to his growing attraction to “Youngster,” as he calls her. Like Amelia, readers will fall for Chris, but will they appreciate that he’s decent enough to realize that dating her would be inappropriate? (13 years and up, Knopf)

From the February 2013 issue of Notes from the Horn Book. Find more recommended love stories here.

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1. How did you divide the work on Eve & Adam?

Michael: We keep promising ourselves to pay attention to process when we work together so that we can answer these questions intelligently. But it never works out in an organized way. If you imagine the full list of all possible methods, we could probably tick off everything on the list.

Katherine: It’s actually simple. I did the good parts.

Michael: That’s what I meant to say. She did the good parts.

2. If you could genetically modify one little thing about yourself what would it be? Dare I ask what you might modify in each other?

Katherine: Hmmm. Normally I might say I’d get rid of my OCD gene, but everyone needs a little weirdness, so I might just keep it. Maybe I’d change my nearsightedness because I hate wearing glasses. As for changing Michael, I would genetically manipulate him to have a greater tolerance for small dogs and the cheerful noises they make.

Michael: What would I change about Katherine? Seriously, you expect me to suggest my wife might have a physical flaw? I know you’re newly married, Roger, but take some advice: don’t ever admit to a flaw in the spouse. You’ll never hear the end of it. No, no, no, I’m an experienced husband; I’m not falling for that. As for a change in myself, I might have once said I wish I hadn’t gone bald, but now I kind of like the shaved head look. So I would change my attraction to sweets. Is that genetic?

2.5 Eve finds love in Frankenstein’s lab. What’s YOUR story?

Katherine: The lab was in Austin, Texas, not Transylvania or Tiburon, which we used for Eve & Adam. Other than that, it was pretty much the Frankenstein story.

Michael: Katherine was just finishing college with some made-up major. I was just coming off a hobo phase where I’d been living under a freeway overpass off I35. I got a job waiting tables and rented the apartment next-door to hers on Pearl Street, just a few blocks off campus. One day I saw this girl through the window and decided I had to go meet her. So I knocked on her door and pretended I needed a can opener. We went to the late, lamented Les Amis for a beer and twenty-four hours later we were living together. And we’ve been together for thirty-three years.

Katherine: Love at first sight. It’s a bit cliché. We apologize for that.

From the February 2013 issue of Notes from the Horn Book.

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