Publications about books for children and young adults
PW‘s Elizabeth Bluemle (who, by the way, has a wonderful article coming up in the March/April Horn Book Magazine) visits our own Liza Woodruff, who unaccountably left work as a circulation assistant at the Horn Book to live in Vermont with her lovely husband and children and dogs while she pursues a full-time career as [...]
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 [...]
Don’t miss Leonard Marcus’s latest column about picture book covers, and speaking of that, SLJ stalwart Rocco Staino reports on a gallery of ‘em that would make Judy Blume blush. Or would they? The pictures were created by several well-known picture book artists in service of raising money for the National Coalition Against Censorship. They [...]
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 [...]
Jon Klassen’s This Is Not My Hat certainly encourages discussion– see Lolly’s review here, Robin’s review here and mine over here–but over at Amazon I discovered a rather breathtaking display of the strategic (psychotic?) deployment of the non sequitur as a tool. (By a tool? Discuss.): “This book is another in the long line of [...]
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 [...]
this Saturday, with “From Screen to Book” at the Cambridge Public Library, an afternoon’s discussion of picture books and digital media. The presenters include three illustrators, Candlewick art director Ann Stott, and agent Holly McGhee; the moderator is Jenny Brown from Shelf Awareness, who, incidentally, wrote a great account of the Horn Book at Simmons [...]
Trick or Treat by Leo Landry; illus. by the author Preschool, Primary Houghton 32 pp. 8/12 978-0-547-24969-8 $12.99 Landry’s cheery watercolor and pencil illustrations and calm palette signal that this Halloween story is more treat than trick; together, the straightforward text and simple compositions build suspense and inject humor [...]
Henry Cole’s Unspoken: A Story from the Underground Railroad (see the Review of the Week, by Betty Carter) presented us with some very complicated questions. It’s a terrific and intriguing book, a wordless, pencil-illustrated tale of a young girl feeding and protecting a person hiding behind the cornstalks in her family’s barn; soldiers and a [...]
Machines Go to Work in the City by William Low; illus. by the author Preschool Holt 32 pp. 6/12 978-0-8050-9050-5 $16.99 Books don’t get much better than this for machinery-loving preschoolers. Listeners are first introduced to a particular situation involving vehicles, from a garbage truck to a [...]
Newbery, Printz & Caldecott