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Web Extras
Online connections to the January/February
2009 Horn Book Magazine
From
the current issue
• Horn
Book Fanfare
• Boston Globe–Horn
Book Awards
• Reading &
Community
• A Second
Look: Free to Be . . . You and Me
• More Web
Extras
Horn
Book Fanfare
One of the best ways to ride
out an economic storm is with a good book, or better yet,
twenty-three good books, as Roger Sutton cheerfully reminds
us in his editorial.
Find them all on the Horn
Book Fanfare list for 2008. Follow links at the bottom
of the page for a decade-by-decade overview of Fanfare selections.
Boston
Globe–Horn Book Awards
The speeches by Jonathan
Bean (At Night), Shaun
Tan (The Arrival), Sherman
Alexie (The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-time Indian),
and Peter Sis
(The Wall) make for superb reading — and great
listening, too. Tune in to the audio
and video of the awards ceremony via the Boston Globe–Horn
Book Award main page. You’ll also discover reviews
of all the honored books and links to material from earlier
ceremonies. (Speaking of which, here is Peter
Sis’s 1999 acceptance speech for Tibet.)
For different some different
perspectives, don’t miss Sherman Alexie considering
his high school
regrets or Shaun Tan recalling (or maybe inventing) the
Book Monster.
Peter Sis contemplates
creativity (in three acts), ponders his art
materials, recalls Teaching
Art in America, and marvels at his good
fortune. Also up is our review
of The Apple Pie that Papa Baked, written by Lauren
Thomson and illustrated by picture book winner Jonathan Bean.
When is a book in a class by
itself? Anita Silvey, former Horn Book Editor in Chief and
a recent Boston Globe–Horn Book judge, surveys the recipients
of the award’s occasional Special Citation, including
2008’s The Arrival. We’ve posted our
original reviews.
Reading
& Community
Middle-schoolers are an ornery
lot, claims veteran teacher Dean Schneider, but that doesn’t
mean they don’t love books. More about reaching
these readers can be found in Lelac Almagor’s report
on the Mary Sue
project and a Notes
from the Horn Book
interview with Dean Schneider and his wife and teaching
colleague (and Horn Book reviewer) Robin Smith. The
couple also prepared a tongue-in-cheek checklist for How
To Raise a Non-Reader.
A
Second Look: Free to Be . . . You
and Me
Thirty-five years after her
son’s copy arrived, GraceAnne DeCandido reopens
the iconic anthology, now revised. Additional time travel
is available via second looks at Nancy Garden’s Annie
on My Mind, Peter Dickinson’s Eva,
and Ted Hughes’ The
Iron Man (aka The Iron Giant).
More
Web Extras
In short essays, several eminent
critics confess to being confounded by certain books. How
did the Horn Book handle these puzzlers? Our reviews
are here and so is Eliza Dresang and Kate McClelland’s
illuminating appraisal of Black
and White. For additional insights on the fine (and
tricky) art of book reviewing, try Roger
Sutton on picking stars, Betsy
Hearne on considering what’s new, and Deborah
Stevenson on the multiple meanings of what’s good.
Another eminent critic, Barbara
Bader, is an unabashed fan of Jean Craighead George. George’s
delightful 1959 essay, Summer
and Children and Birds and Animals and Flowers and Trees and
Bees and Books, shows us why. Be sure to read Ms. Bader’s
earlier appreciations of Patricia
and Fredrick McKissack, Tana
Hoban, and Barbara
Cooney.
Inuit writer Michael Kusgak
is the focus of our Foreign Correspondence column. Canadian
critic Sarah Ellis talks up his Baseball Bats for Christmas
in News from
the North. For another cross-cultural perspective, check
out this look at a prominent writing
team in Australia.
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