I'm just back from ALA in San Francisco (conveniently also home to my two adorable grandchildren), where the term I kept hearing throughout the exhibit halls was narrative nonfiction (last year it was bullying). As is so often true of these trends, the term meant different things to different people, with definitions ranging from "like Steve Sheinkin" to "informational books with a beginning, middle, and end" to "Core Standards–ready with a story besides." Me, I just kept thinking of Henrik Van Loon's The Story of Mankind, but I suppose reinvention is what keeps us young!

Van Loon won the first Newbery Medal in 1922, too early for us to have included his acceptance speech in the Horn Book Magazine's pages. But this year's winner's speech (along with those for the Caldecott, Wilder, and Coretta Scott King awards) are all in our current July/August issue, itself graced with a cover created by 2015 Caldecott Medalist Dan Santat. I think it's quite one of the most spectacular issues we've published; go here for information about how to get a copy for yourself.



Roger Sutton
Editor in Chief