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Between Fiction and Reality: The Playground of Metafiction

In 2024, Mercier guest curated "Pictures at Play: Metafiction in Art" at The Eric Carle Museum of Picture Book Art. It featured picture-book images that "illustrate how artists experiment with styles, typography, and page design to disrupt the rules of how books usually work." The following article is inspired by...

Preview May/June 2025 Horn Book Magazine

Special Issue: Perception and Reality Original cover art by Edel Rodriguez. Cathryn M. Mercier on the “playground” of metafiction in picture books. A Publisher’s Perspective: Charlesbridge editor Karen Boss reflects on the “two-brained intersection” between creativity and commerce. “Reality Reimagined”: essays and comic from Tracey Baptiste, Kamilah Cole, Adrianna Cuevas,...

The Horn Book & the Ampersand

Illustration: Denise Maldonado. Over the years, The Horn Book Magazine and I have crossed paths at pivotal times: when I worked as an elementary school librarian, during my graduate studies in child development, and — most recently — through research for the education chapter of my book on the history,...

When Fingers Are Fearless

My name is Shifa, spelled S-h-i-f-a, for most of my life pronounced shee-fa, sometimes said Shiff-a, but really in Arabic it’s she-faa’ with an emphasis at the end like a silent t, although usually I just stay quiet and nod however it’s said, because for some reason, my ears have...

Generational Ties in Children's Book Translation

I first met Cuban-born translator Emily Carrero Mustelier through poet and translator Alexis Romay. I was working on my middle-grade novel Sofía Acosta Makes a Scene, a book about a girl whose family danced with the Ballet Nacional de Cuba. Alexis read a draft of the book and immediately put...

Ruth Krauss and Crockett Johnson: Scenes from a Remarkable Marriage

I recently picked up Philip Nel’s 2012 dual biography of ­children’s literature luminaries, Crockett Johnson and Ruth Krauss: How an Unlikely Couple Found Love, Dodged the FBI, and Transformed ­Child­ren’s Literature, and was immediately riveted. Nel did amazing due diligence: eighty interviews! Nearly six hundred (unobtrusive) footnotes! Research at three...

The New Brownies' Book: Karida L. Brown and Charly Palmer's 2024 BGHB Special Citation Speech

CHARLY PALMER: We want to start by thanking the committee for this incredible honor. We are truly surprised, humbled, and so grateful to be standing here today, receiving this special citation. It’s a rare acknowledgment — given only seven times in the entire history of the Boston Globe–Horn Book Awards...

Kin: Jeffery Boston Weatherford's 2024 BGHB Poetry Award Speech

First and foremost, I would of course like to thank the Boston Globe–Horn Book Awards Committee for this honor, the entire creative team at Simon & Schuster, and our agent, Rubin Pfeffer, for catalyzing this project in the first place. Rubin, you have been a light in this journey, always...

Kin: Carole Boston Weatherford's 2024 BGHB Poetry Award Speech

I’d like to thank the Boston Globe–Horn Book Awards Committee for this honor. Thanks also to Reka Simonsen, my editor at Simon & Schuster, for your faith in bringing this project to life. Last but not least, I am indebted to my agent, Rubin Pfeffer, for planting the seed for...
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