I’ve known Jacqueline Woodson for years, but even before we met, when I read Last Summer with Maizon (1990), Jackie’s first book, I knew a special writer had arrived on the children’s literature scene. Although the full extent of the depth and breadth of her talent may not have been clear, what was apparent from […]
2018 Mind the Gap Awards: The books that didn’t win at ALA
July 26, 2018 by Leave a Comment
Not all deserving books bring home ALA awards. The books that didn’t win. Shuttered Windows by Julia Denos, illus. by E. B. Goodale Silenced The Rooster Who Would Not Be Quiet! by Carmen Agra Deedy, illus. by Eugene Yelchin Cracked Egg by Kevin Henkes Rained out A Perfect Day by Lane Smith Derailed Clayton Byrd […]
2016 in Review: The Year in Words
June 27, 2017 by Leave a Comment
For fans of children’s literature, social media has enabled a community of kindred spirits to collectively speculate about what might win the year’s biggest awards at the American Library Association’s Youth Media Awards — which determine the cream of the crop, the most excellent books, the most distinguished contributions to literature. The excitement that starts […]
Horn Book Magazine articles in the Virtual History Exhibit
January 1, 2016 by Leave a Comment
Here is a selection of articles from our archives 1990s Barbara Bader examines six milestones in the Horn Book’s first seventy-five years: Treasure Island by the Roadside (January/February 1999) Selling children’s books off the back of a truck. Peter Says Please (March/April 1999) Beatrix Potter befriends the Horn Book. Politi for Christmas (May/June 1999) An […]
Beatrix and Bertha
July 8, 2006 by Leave a Comment
Beatrix Potter’s resistance to critics and fans writing about her books is well documented. In 1939 Margaret Lane, who would later become Potter’s first biographer, received a classic brush-off: So I wrote to Beatrix Potter, as politely and respectfully as I knew how, telling her of my lifelong pleasure in her work, and my admiration, […]
Letters to the Editor from September/October 2001
September 8, 2001 by Leave a Comment
These Letters to the Editor are in response to Marc Aronson’s article in the May/June 2001 Horn Book Magazine, “Slippery Slopes and Proliferating Prizes.” In the September/October 2001 Magazine, Andrea Davis Pinkney responded with her article, “Awards that Stand on Solid Ground.” Marc Aronson says he wants to debate the merits of what he calls […]
Awards that Stand on Solid Ground
September 8, 2001 by Leave a Comment
It was with great interest that I read Marc Aronson’s article, “Slippery Slopes and Proliferating Prizes,” in the May/June 2001 issue of this publication. I appreciate the author’s insight into ALA awards, such as the Coretta Scott King Award (CSK) and the Pura Belpré, that celebrate the cultural and ethnic diversities of authors and illustrators. […]
Slippery Slopes and Proliferating Prizes
May 8, 2001 by Leave a Comment
I’m sure that nearly every reader of this magazine is in favor of supporting a more diverse children’s literature that is in tune with the increasingly multi-ethnic environment in which we and our children live. I am equally convinced, though, that ALA’s sponsorship of three awards in which a book’s eligibility is determined by the […]
Horn Book Reminiscence from Elizabeth Orton Jones
September 7, 1999 by Leave a Comment
by Elizabeth Orton Jones Tchrr-r-r-r! The phone would ring. I’d answer, and after a considerable while I’d hear a faint little quavery voice, as if someone were calling me from beyond the Pleiades…“E-li-i-izabeth?” It would be my dear friend Bertha Mahony Miller, calling from Ashburnham, Massachusetts, about seventeen miles from Mason, New Hampshire, where I […]
Horn Book Reminiscence from Lee Kingman
September 7, 1999 by Leave a Comment
By Lee Kingman My earliest memory of Bertha Mahony, before she added Miller to her name, begins with her feet. Small feet, proportioned to her small frame. As I was a lanky nine-year-old, I was almost as tall as she was. Her lack of size, however, had nothing to do with her authority, which was […]
