As the speeches and profiles arrived for this year’s ALA Awards special issue, we noticed a theme: so many of them address the idea of learning from others, especially those who came before. That’s part of the work of acceptance speeches, of course, as creators give credit to their influences....
This has been a notorious year of attempts to ban children’s books by authors of color. But 2022 is also the year that Donna Barba Higuera’s middle-grade novel The Last Cuentista won the Newbery Medal. Celebrating a novel that explores stories as a human imperative is the perfect counterpoint to...
"It could never happen for a kid like me." Photo courtesy of Donna Barba Higuera. If someone had told me as a child that not only would I one day write a book, but that book would sit alongside those “golden-sticker books” like A Wrinkle in Time or Mrs. Frisby...
What did winning the Newbery Medal mean to me? It has taken some time to wrap my head around this question. The Last Cuentista won the Newbery Medal! I’ve texted my editor, Nick Thomas, a few times with, “We won the Newbery” and “Did that really happen?” just to help...
Bright and early on Monday, January 24, the American Library Association announced the winners of its Youth Media Awards (known to some as the Oscars of KidLit), including the Newbery, Caldecott, Children's Literature Legacy, Coretta Scott King Author and Illustrator, and many others. Read Horn Book reviews of the winners, and...
Winner The Last Cuentista by Donna Barba Higuera Middle School Levine Querido 336 pp. g 8/21 978-1-64614-089-3 $17.99 When a solar flare knocks Halley’s Comet off course and sends it hurtling toward Earth, a small group of citizens is selected to leave the planet and colonize a new one to...
Winner The Last Cuentista by Donna Barba Higuera Middle School Levine Querido 336 pp. g 8/21 978-1-64614-089-3 $17.99 When a solar flare knocks Halley’s Comet off course and sends it hurtling toward Earth, a small group of citizens is selected to leave the planet and colonize a new one to...
The Last Cuentista by Donna Barba Higuera Middle School Levine Querido 336 pp. g 8/21 978-1-64614-089-3 $17.99 When a solar flare knocks Halley’s Comet off course and sends it hurtling toward Earth, a small group of citizens is selected to leave the planet and colonize a new one to ensure...
El Cucuy Is Scared, Too! by Donna Barba Higuera; illus. by Juliana Perdomo Preschool, Primary Abrams 40 pp. g 7/21 978-1-4197-4445-7 $17.99 e-book ed. 978-1-64700-311-1 $15.54 Ramón, a Mexican American boy, is scared of starting school in a new town. El Cucuy, the Bogeyman in Mexican folklore, lives in a...
This interview originally appeared in the May/June 2021 Horn Book Magazine as part of the Publishers’ Previews: Diverse Books Spotlight, an advertising supplement that allows participating publishers a chance to each highlight a book from its current list. They choose the books; we ask the questions. Sponsored by In the...