Dear friends:

ALA is behind us but the speeches remain, as ever, in the July/August issue of The Horn Book Magazine. (Has anyone seen a copy yet? I have not.)

The September/October issue is already bearing down upon us, and I don’t even want to think about the amount of work I’m supposed to get done before the end of the day, so I’m going to keep this short. But please don’t miss Henry Lyman’s poem “O Say Can You See,” which we are publishing today in honor of the 4th of July, and, in a last salute to Pride Month, Megan Dowd Lambert’s take on nonbinary pronouns in picture books…oh, God, that’s another thing I’m supposed to do, write an intro to Megan’s new book for adults, about reading with children, forthcoming from Charlesbridge.

And please take a minute to remember Bernette Ford, who died on June 20th but whose legacy as a pioneer in creating and publishing Black books for children is secure. Somebody should name an award after her.

Now it’s back to editing reviews, writing reviews (I wonder how much leeway with the deadline Shoshana will give me), and coming up with twenty-five questions for the September/October Publishers’ Previews spreadvertorials*, a portmanteau-neologism-fingerplay introduced to me by our Al. I still love him.

And you,

Roger

*But word of the week, and maybe my favorite neologism ever is metaphorphosis, spotted as a typo in this week’s reviews editing. Typo-shmypo, it’s brilliant.