Dear friends: Great day! (I write on Wednesday; those of you unhappy with my remarks about the former president last week can go ahead and hate me all over again, if you’re still reading.) We also announced a new Calling Caldecott mock vote winner on Thursday, but (it being Wednesday)...
from Deborah Stevenson: The 2021 Scott O’Dell Award for Historical Fiction goes to All He Knew by Helen Frost, published by Farrar Straus and Giroux. It’s 1939, and six-year-old Henry, rendered deaf by illness, has failed a ridiculous single evaluative test, so authorities officially classify him as “unteachable” and direct his straitened...
Dear friends: You know, with a panicking gangster/terrorist still occupying the White House, it’s not easy to write this letter on a Wednesday for publication two days later. Who knows what will happen between now and then? Please join me in looking forward to January 20th. Until then, join me...
Dear friends: Welcome to the end of this week! Better days are coming. Happy New Year to all and I hope you got some restorative time during the holidays, although who knew one would need it quite so quickly? Lori and Richard and I took our annual sojourn in Provincetown,...
Dear friends: The lights are up, the tree is up, the other lights are up, and the election is over. (Again.) It’s the holidays! This my last missive to you until after the New Year, but I wanted to make sure you had the opportunity to read the new articles...
Dear friends: Fanfare is here! (And I’m reminded, once again, of the Horn Book’s continued predilection for music metaphors. Sure, it started with “blowing the horn” and all, but now we have Cadenza, Impromptu…. I can see why the English teacher at our booth at an IRA conference took a...
Below is Fanfare, a list of the books that the Horn Book editors and reviewers have selected as the best of 2020. The annotated list will be published in the December issue of Notes from the Horn Book (sign up!) and in the January/February 2021 issue of the Horn Book Magazine...
Dear friends: I hope you all had a good Thanksgiving. Ours was quiet but did not lack for fellowship (Lori and Cooper were here and we Zoomed with the kids) nor for turkey (which I think I’m supposed to turn into soup today) nor for TV (Endeavour and The Crown,...
Illustration by Brian Pinkney, from Time for Kenny. The following books will receive starred reviews in the January/February 2021 Horn Book Magazine: Sato the Rabbit; written and illustrated by Yuki Ainoya (Enchanted Lion). Cave Paintings; by Jairo Buitrago; illus. by Rafael Yockteng (Groundwood). Me & Mama; written and illustrated by Cozbi A. Cabrera (Millner/Simon). Your House, My House; written...