The July/August issue of the Magazine is always tricky, logistically, as it goes to press early and then sits and waits for its close-up on the morning after the ­Newbery-Caldecott-Legacy Awards Banquet at ALA Annual. By the time you’re reading this, hopefully you will have joined us at booth 1638 to pick up your copy, but if you didn’t make it to San Diego, our website, hbook.com, is the place to be. These speeches are ones to read, savor, contemplate, and revisit…as is that cover by Caldecott Medalist Vashti Harrison! Horn Book covers have pride of place among children’s book lovers, and our centennial has provided a wonderful excuse to show off. Follow Horn Book Cover Madness on Calling Caldecott to vote for your favorites.

One of the greatest pleasures of our HB100 celebration has been the sequence of proclaiming, fact-checking, and then questioning and wondering. For example: the Horn Book began publishing the Newbery speeches in 1934. But please don’t quote me on that, because while true, it’s a bit misleading. Our reference-volume index (known as “the pink book,” though mine is faded-white) starts listing them at 1934, skips 1935, and then goes on. Luckily, I have another reference volume — Newbery­ Medal Books, 1922–1955, published by the Horn Book in 1955 (we used to publish books!), with an illuminating preface by Bertha Mahony Miller. “It was in 1937 that The Horn Book first obtained permission from the Children’s Library Association of the American Library Association to publish annually the Newbery Medal Acceptance papers…[but] there were gaps, important gaps.” We’ll post the book’s front matter to hbook.com so you can see the creative ways the Horn Book addressed (minded?) those “gaps.” But fair warning: as with much good research, it raises even more questions. Be prepared to stay awhile.

We Horn Bookers are an inquisitive bunch, and with the invaluable help of consulting editor Summer Edward, Horn Book/Simmons fellow Renee Runge, Simmons University archivists, the Boston Public Library, and with efforts led by indefatigable managing editor Cynthia K. Ritter, we’ve been hard at work ­re-creating and expanding the Virtual History Exhibit that was established by ­former Horn Book creative director Lolly Robinson in 1999 and lives on our ­website. “­Controversies & Kerfuffles” is a particularly engaging virtual room (and it’s fun to say!), but there’s so much more to explore. It’s a living exhibit, with frequent updates, so visit often, stopping first at Cindy’s Horn Book Centennial landing page: hbook.com/page/horn-book-centennial.

And while we’re in showoff mode: maybe by now you’ve already heard our most exciting news, which I’ve known for a little while but was sworn to secrecy by Cathie Mercier, director of the Center for the Study of Children’s Literature at Simmons University, our frequent co-conspirator, and chair of this year’s Boston Globe–Horn Book Awards committee. The Horn Book Magazine has received the 2024 Carle Honors Mentor Award! We are entirely thrilled, a bit overcome, and eternally grateful to our friends at The Eric Carle Museum of Picture Book Art, to the Carle Honors founder and committee chair Leonard S. Marcus and the whole committee, and to absolutely everyone in this rewarding, challenging, and ­fulfilling field whose dedication and commitment to young people and their literature enables us to fulfill our one-hundred-years-old-and-counting mission of “­blowing the horn for fine books for young people.” Plus, there’s a fancy gala in NYC in ­September! Bow tie…no; hat…that’s been done. Signature accessory still TBD.

From the July/August 2024 issue of The Horn Book Magazine: Special Issue: ALA Awards. For more speeches, profiles, and articles, click the tag ALA 2024. For more Horn Book centennial coverage, click here.

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