Renowned editor and publisher Ann Durell died May 6, 2018, in New York City. She was eighty-seven. She entered the children’s book field in the 1950s, first as an apprentice and secretary at Doubleday, then taking over as head of the Junior Literary Guild, then moving to Holt, Rinehart and Winston as a children’s book editor. In 1969 she joined E. P. Dutton & Company, where she remained for almost twenty years, retiring in 1987 as vice president and publisher of the children’s division. During her career she worked with a host of award-winning authors and illustrators, including Lloyd Alexander, Judy Blume (who turned Tales of a Fourth Grade Nothing from a picture-book manuscript into an episodic novel at Durell’s suggestion), Marc Brown, Diane Goode, Steven Kellogg, Blair Lent, David McPhail, Evaline Ness, and Ellen Raskin. She was also a frequent Horn Book contributor:

• "Who's Lloyd Alexander?" From the August 1969 Horn Book Magazine


• "Pollen in the Wind," marking the fiftieth anniversary of The Horn Book. From the December 1974 Horn Book Magazine


• "The Best Book I Ever Read." From the April 1979 Horn Book Magazine