Book Reviews
Winner: Guadalupe Garcia McCall for Under the Mesquite (Lee & Low Books)Review in The Horn Book Guide, spring 2012Eldest Lupita leads her seven younger siblings through the uncertainty of their mother's cancer. Lupita endeavors to keep her Mexican American family together while attempting to reach her own goals for college...
The most prestigious honors in children's literature, the Newbery and Caldecott Medals, were awarded to Jack Gantos and Chris Raschka on January 23, 2012, at the American Library Association's midwinter meeting in Dallas. Also announced at the gathering were the winners of the Coretta Scott King, Belpre,...
Winner: Kadir Nelson for Heart and Soul: The Story of America and African Americans (HarperCollins/Balzer + Bray)“Most folks my age and complexion don’t speak much about the past,” begins the unnamed narrator of this graceful and personalized overview of African-American history. But this doesn’t stop her from telling the story...
Winner: Shane W. Evans for Underground (Roaring Brook/Porter)Review in The Horn Book Magazine, January/February 2011With dramatic images and minimal narrative, Evans projects a “we-are-there” experience of fugitives on the run, escaping slavery. The figures are eerily disembodied, and many of the double-page spreads feature a two-word text such as “The darkness”...
Winner: Where Things Come Back by John Corey Whaley (Atheneum)Review in The Horn Book Guide, Fall 2011When Cullen Witter was seventeen, his younger brother disappeared from their rural Arkansas town. Meanwhile, the suicide of Cabot Searcy's college roommate has sent him on a quest to save mankind. The two parallel...
Winner: Balloons over Broadway: The True Story of the Puppeteer of Macy’s Parade by Melissa Sweet; illus. by the author (Houghton)At Macy’s department store, marionette maker Tony Sarg started inside and worked his way out. He designed mechanical storybook figures for Macy’s window displays before inventing the giant balloon characters...
Winner: A Ball for Daisy by Chris Raschka; illus. by the author (Schwartz & Wade/Random)Starred review in The Horn Book Magazine, September/October 2011The wordless story begins on the title page, where we see a scruffy little black-and-white dog about to be given a big red ball. It's clear from the...
Winner: Dead End in Norvelt by Jack Gantos (Farrar)Starred review in The Horn Book Magazine, September/October 2011Who but Jack Gantos would get a summer job typing up obituaries for his arthritic neighbor, the town’s unofficial historian; have a best friend who “grew up in a house full of dead people”;...
Roger Sutton: Your new book, Heart and Soul: The Story of America and African Americans, weaves together historical facts—about slavery, the Emancipation Proclamation, real people like Rosa Parks and Dr. King—with the stories of the relatives of your fictional narrator. It must have been quite complicated to do. What was...
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