Dear friends:

I know I’ve been sending you some rather lighthearted thoughts in this COVID-era newsletter but I just can’t do it this week. Instead I’ll simply direct you to Kekla Magoon’s contribution to our May/June 2020 Breaking the Rules special issue of the Magazine, “Our Modern Minstrelsy,” in which she says: “Regarding Black people as ‘just like’ white people is an incomplete first step toward true equality. The fact that we are equal biologically, intellectually, and in the fullness of our humanity does not equate to being treated equally in the world. These things must not be conflated. There are myriad experiences of life in America that are specific to Blackness; experiences of trauma, exclusion, and prejudice that feed a unique existence steeped in sorrow and struggle and a particular appreciation of joy.”

But go read the whole thing, and while you are there it might be worth another look at Christopher Myers’s two Horn Book essays about race in America, “Young Dreamers” and “Orlando.” Chris is one of my favorite thinkers, and I hope you will find something in his words that will help you better understand the deeply racist society in which we live.

I have a meeting this week about just how the 2020 Boston Globe–Horn Book Awards will be presented and celebrated in October, but in the meantime you can read up on the winners and honors and on their creators. Heck, go read the winners and honors; there is something for everyone. Otherwise, the Horn Book is moving next week. Not far, from one suite at Simmons to another, but while we knew this was going to happen this year, we only learned a little while ago that it would be happening now. The brave, resourceful, and indefatigable Cindy Ritter was earlier this week the first person in almost three months to enter our suite, where she met with the movers to get things moving. As Miss Midler sang, “Bienvenue dans mon cauchemar.”

Love,

Roger