In the summers of 1920 and 1921, Bertha Mahony had a truck outfitted to sell books and trained two booksellers from her Bookshop for Boys and Girls to drive and maintain it. Though the Book Caravan was a commercial flop, it got plenty of attention in its day, including featured stories by all the movie […]
Archives for January 1999
Treasure Island by the Roadside
January 1, 1999 by Leave a Comment
On a July morning in 1920, a strange, hybrid vehicle headed north out of Boston for a summer’s tour of New England towns and villages, for all the world like a traveling circus or a band of puppeteers. Aboard were a pair of young women with a working knowledge, between them, of auto mechanics, shopkeeping, […]
Old guest book entries
January 1, 1999 by Leave a Comment
Here are just a few of the guest book entries from the first version of the exhibit spanning 1999 to 2005. We’d love to hear from you on our current guest book. 7/14/99 Gayle Baar This is a wonderful addition to your website. I am planning to come back to see the new things you […]
Horn Book Guide history
January 1, 1999 by Leave a Comment
The children’s book business, only in its infancy when the Horn Book Magazine debuted in the 1920s, came of age in the 1980s as baby boomers stocked their children’s bookshelves and a new breed of teachers replaced their one-size-fits-all textbooks with classrooms libraries. Publishers responded to the growing market by producing more titles, a lot […]
Editorials from The Horn Book Guide
January 1, 1999 by Leave a Comment
The first few issues of the Guide featured editorials by founding editor, Ann A. Flowers, who commented on the state of the field from her unique vantage point of having seen an entire publishing season’s worth of books. Here are three samples from 1990 and 1991. A New and Original Venture by Ann A. Flowers […]
Selections from Hunt Breakfast
January 1, 1999 by Leave a Comment
Scroll down for transcriptions and more information Transcriptions: Auden house to let | Anonymous request | Eleanor Roosevelt | Future librarian? | Beatrix Potter | McCloskey’s mistake January 1937 Hunt Breakfast To Let—A Poet’s House in the English Lakes. Perhaps some one who plans to spend next summer in England will be interested to rent a delightful house near Keswick in the […]
A Little History of The Horn Book Magazine
January 1, 1999 by Leave a Comment
This promotional pamphlet was written by Karen Jameyson in the 1980s and later updated by the Horn Book. Beginnings Back in the early 1920s, before the ink of the first Horn Book Magazine was even dry on the page, the Boston YMCA announced a course in automobiles and engines. At a time when cars were still a […]
Why is it called “The Horn Book”?
January 1, 1999 by Leave a Comment
Back in the sixteenth century, English monks began to make hornbooks to help their pupils learn to read. Usually a wooden paddle with an alphabet and a verse glued to the surface, hornbooks derived their name from the piece of transparent horn protecting the verse. The picture to the right shows a modern replica of […]
