Dear friends:

Great day! (I write on Wednesday; those of you unhappy with my remarks about the former president last week can go ahead and hate me all over again, if you’re still reading.)

We also announced a new Calling Caldecott mock vote winner on Thursday, but (it being Wednesday) I don’t yet know who it is as Martha keeps a hard lockdown on the ballots ever since…well, I don’t want Dominion to go after me so we’ll just leave it there. But MY vote, if you care, was for Hike by Pete Oswald. The actual Caldecott winner, along with CSK, Newbery, and all the other YMAs will be announced by ALA’s ALSC/YALSA/EMIERT* on Monday at 9:00 a.m. EST. Tune in here — and follow @HornBook on Twitter — to rejoice and weep along. And for one last look at the year that was, see our 2020 in review.

I’ve been reading Eva Björg Ægisdóttir’s mystery The Creak on the Stairs for fun, and fun it is, especially with the accompaniment I found on YouTube of a full-circle tour of Iceland’s Route One, more than eight hundred miles of gorgeous landscape set to the moody stylings of Sigur Rós. It’s certainly a far cry from our own strip-mall-lined Route 1, so memorably sketched in Jane Langton’s The Fragile Flag, which itself makes for exemplary reading as we welcome a new president. Cheers!

Love,

Roger

* My parish priest would fit right in with ALA’s acronym crowd, peppering his sermons with JTB, WAW, and most important, DBE. A free Hail Mary sent skyward for anyone who can spell ’em all out.