I’m generally a fan of ambiguous stories. As satisfying as it can be to have narrative closure, or to reread for the hundredth time a book you know is a favorite and won’t suddenly shift out from under you, it can also be weirdly comforting to reach the conclusion of a story and be left with some questions, even big ones. To not have everything explained all along the way but instead rely on your interpretation and imagination, and — key — to have trust in the book’s creator that they are not messing with you but instead share an understanding that, as in life, there can be many right answers. Maybe it’s a sign of the times: anyone who is not feeling a little off-kilter nowadays, please tell us your secret (though naturally I’d be suspicious).

If you look at our star list on page 4, and throughout the magazine, you’ll see more than a few books that fit the bill, notably The House That Floated by Guojing, whose art graces this issue’s cover. That glorious illustration (those colors!) appears midway through the enigmatic wordless picture book and, despite the image’s seeming serenity, reflects a moment of conflict and transformation. (Maybe there’s something in the water, pun intended, because it reminds me of the jacket for Tuck Everlasting, celebrating its fiftieth anniversary this year.) Guojing is also the author-illustrator of Oasis, which was starred in our March/April issue and is a 2025 Boston Globe–Horn Book Honor Book. See page 93 for the complete list of winners and stay tuned for details about this year’s celebration.

It seems like only yesterday, but it was fall 2012 when Mac Barnett and Jon Klassen won a Boston Globe–Horn Book Award for their first collaboration, Extra Yarn. Now, after nearly seventy books, including a dozen or so with Klassen, Barnett is the 2025–2026 National Ambassador for Young People’s Literature. The inauguration ceremony happened in February of this year (which, conversely, seems like a million years ago, as Dr. Carla Hayden was still our Librarian of Congress and remains forever so in our hearts). See page 8 for an adaptation of Barnett’s speech, including an homage to Jon Scieszka, the first National Ambassador for Young People’s Literature and author of The Stinky Cheese Man and Other Fairly Stupid Tales. “Here was a book that respected kids and was fresh and experimental. And it’s only right that children’s literature be experimental because childhood is e­xperimental. You’re trying to figure things out…”

People still “trying to figure things out” would be lucky to have such mentors as Tracey T. Flores and Carla España, whose Field Notes column appears on page 16. Both are professors and Latinx KidLit Book Festival Educator Council members who share how their work with Latinx literature, in addition to bolstering educators, young people, and communities, helps “heal our inner niñas.” In her Writer’s Page column on page 12, Monique Duncan argues for children being exposed to difficult topics (“While they don’t yet understand all the complexities of the world, children are more aware than adults realize and could actually benefit from learning the hard truths that they are often shielded from”) and describes how metaphor can be used to deepen understanding.

Rachel G. Payne’s Writer’s Page, on page 21, is about the seeming “impossibility” of writing board books, even for people who know board books. While adults might prefer the lovey-dovey greeting-card or age-inappropriate STEM stories, what can make a board book endure, Payne argues, is a sense of play. “Crayon Drawing,” Shawn Harris’s Cadenza on page 24, picks up on this theme and provides a reminder for us all to internalize and share. Art and creativity should be for everyone, no matter the materials or the media — and with plenty of room for interpretation.

From the September/October 2025 issue of The Horn Book Magazine.

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