I began Sarah, Plain and Tall long ago in my 1790 New England house, while missing my Wyoming home. I sat in the music room with my dogs, watching my children take the school bus. I worked on a typewriter, listening to the noisy eraser cartridge slap back and forth....
Oh, I remember that evening. We were entertaining dinner guests, and the phone rang. I answered it, and listened, and then the call was over, so I returned to the table to report, except — and I remember this vividly — that the mental tape on which I had always...
Two-time winner Katherine Paterson (far right) with her family, celebrating her 1981 Newbery for Jacob Have I Loved. Photo courtesy of Katherine Paterson. Most awards are given soon after or even when they’re announced, but winners of the Newbery Medal are told on a morning in January and have until...
The Waiting Place: When Home Is Lost and a New One Not Yet Found by Dina Nayeri; photos by Anna Bosch MiralpeixIntermediate, Middle School Candlewick 64 pp. g5/22 978-1-5362-1362-1 $18.99e-book ed. 978-1-5362-1854-1 $18.99“When home is lost and a new one not yet found, children are sent to the Waiting Place.”...
Susan Cooper at Pembroke College, Oxford, to give the Tolkien Lecture in 2017. Photo courtesy of Pembroke College Tolkien Lecture. The Newbery Award had no effect on my work, I believe — apart from making it temporarily harder, due to the mean little voice in one’s head that sneers: Okay,...
The Prisoner of Shiverstone by Linette Moore; illus. by the authorIntermediate Amulet/Abrams 160 pp. g4/22 978-1-41974-391-7 $24.99Paper ed. 978-1-41974-392-4 $14.99e-book ed. 978-1-68335-896-1 $13.49This debut graphic novel introduces readers to Helga Sharp, a unique and entertaining iteration of the plucky heroine. Tired of boarding school, Helga sets off to rescue the...
The Melchers at a Carnival of Books broadcast for the 1954 Newbery with winner Joseph Krumgold. Photo coutesy of the Melcher family. While my daughters and I are all avid readers who grew up enjoying award-winning children’s literature, we never had the opportunity to meet our relative, Frederic G. Melcher...
Every Dog in the Neighborhood by Philip C. Stead; illus. by Matthew CordellPrimary Porter/Holiday 40 pp. g6/22 978-0-8234-4427-4 $18.99e-book ed. 978-0-8234-5298-9 $11.99Louis tells his grandma that he wants a dog. When she replies that there are already enough dogs in the neighborhood, Louis goes door to door to get a...
Grace Lin, 2010 Newbery honoree for Where the Mountain Meets the Moon, created our stunning cover for the May/June 2022 Horn Book Magazine: Special Issue: The Newbery Centennial. Now here is a little backstory behind the creation of this very special cover: Back in early January, Grace agreed to take...
I Begin with Spring: The Life and Seasons of Henry David Thoreau by Julie Dunlap; illus. by Megan Elizabeth Baratta Intermediate, Middle School Tilbury 96 pp. g 3/22 978-0-88448-908-5 $18.95 Dunlap begins her illustrated biography with a question posed by Thoreau in a school report, his earliest known writing: “Why...