Features
I am filled with gratitude because I know that none of this had to be: not the eighty-plus books, not the nineteen American Library Association Youth Media Awards, not the NAACP Image Awards, not the nomination as Young People’s Poet Laureate, not the opportunities to travel across the country and...
Under the white eyelet drapery of my canopy bed, I sat, naming my dolls: Annabelle, Clara, Elizabeth. My dolls and I traveled to worlds within worlds that stretched far beyond our peaceful cul-de-sac in Norman, Oklahoma. Cabbage Patch Kids and China dolls: the first characters in my paintings. Every night...
Photo courtesy of Erin Entrada Kelly. I’ll start with thank-yous. I’d like to thank the ALA and ALSC, especially the Newbery committee and its chair, Maeve Visser Knoth. I’d like to thank my editor, Virginia Duncan, and the entire team at Greenwillow Books and HarperCollins, including art director Sylvie Le...
On January 27, 2025, the Youth Media Awards were announced, as usual, during what was long known as the American Library Association’s Midwinter Conference (in recent years: LibLearnX). It seems likely that this was the last wintertime conference in that form. With so much upheaval and uncertainty (e.g., book bans,...
From the May/June 2025 special issue of The Horn Book Magazine: Perception and Reality. Single copies of this special issue are available for $15.00 including postage and may be ordered from: Horn Book Magazine Customer Service hbmsubs@pcspublink.com Full subscription information is here. ...
Every fantasy novel I write is grounded in our world. That’s no secret. Elatsoe, Sheine Lende, and A Snake Falls to Earth all occur in an alternate version of Texas (in the present, the past, and the future, respectively). Their worlds are similar to ours; however, they also harbor impossibilities...
Every day, I dread picking up my phone in the morning and looking at my newsfeed. Doomscrolling, they call it. We don’t want to do it, and yet somehow, we feel compelled. Most of the time those headlines seem like something from some other reality, all strung together by pet...
Fantasy is a broad genre (and broader still if you stretch the category to include science fiction). It can range from stories set firmly in real life with just the barest hint of the uncanny to those that take place in entirely imagined worlds or universes. Personally, I have always...
Photo: Collin Griffiths. When I was a child, reality was a thing to escape from. I had an imaginary friend. I constructed elaborate soap opera plots featuring my Barbie dolls. I read books and wrote, and wrote, and wrote. In the worlds I created, bullies were humiliated and defeated. Handsome,...
282 articles
ALREADY A SUBSCRIBER? LOG IN
We are currently offering this content for free. Sign up now to activate your personal profile, where you can save articles for future viewing.
ALREADY A SUBSCRIBER? LOG IN
Thank you for visiting.
We’ve noticed you are using a private browser. To continue, please log in or create an account.
