Illustration: Denise Maldonado.

Over the years, The Horn Book Magazine and I have crossed paths at pivotal times: when I worked as an elementary school librarian, during my graduate studies in child development, and — most recently — through research for the education chapter of my book on the history, worldwide uses, and importance of the ampersand. I hit the jackpot with the May/June 2016 editorial by Martha V. Parravano, titled “&.” Parravano used the symbol as visual shorthand for that special issue’s theme: ­“Collaborations,” which explored connections between artists, between characters, between authors & readers. I have always found the magazine to stand on four ­principles — connection, creativity, interaction, and rapport — and the approach of its centennial anniversary, in 2024, left me curious to learn more.

I located the magazine’s 1924 Volume I, Number 1. Reading founder Bertha E. Mahony [Miller]’s inaugural editorial struck me with the analogy: the new publication was an ampersand! Mahony wrote, “We hope to make our book notes and lists interesting to boys and girls themselves, to parents, to librarians, and to teachers…We also hope to give book news not covered elsewhere.” In other words, Mahony sought to make the Horn Book a connector between children’s books and their readers. In 2025, the Horn Book continues to value and promote collaboration as it strides into its second century.

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The ampersand arose in the first century CE when scribes joined the e and t of et, Latin for and, into a ligature. The need to ­communicate faster than by hand printing led to Roman cursive. By about 600 CE, scribes had merged the e-t ligature into the ampersand shape we know today. They called the shape the et sign. In the Middle Ages, as scribes copied page after page in their dimly lit scriptoria, the et sign was the character to which they could add the most artistic flair. The freedom that et signs gave them varied their work, turned the symbol into an aesthetic expression, and infused it with life beyond the alphabet.

In fifteenth-century Europe, the et sign leapt from the vellum page to the printer’s plate. From there, printers pressed it onto battledores, primers, and, yes, hornbooks as the twenty-seventh letter of the alphabet. When children recited their ABCs, teachers taught them to say: “ABC…XYZ and per se and,” meaning the symbol &, by itself, is the word and. That phrase — “and per se and” — turned into the dandy word ampersand.

While many scribal squiggles and shortcuts have fallen out of use, the ampersand has stayed and thrived because of its triple powers as word, decorative symbol, and indication of coming together. Mahony and collaborator Elinor Whitney [Field] intuitively filled their issues of the publication with all these metaphorical ampersand powers to establish the magazine as an essential connector to fine children’s literature. For example: their lists included books that nourished children’s curiosity, resourcefulness, and sensibilities for language and illustration. Mahony and Whitney themselves formed a successful business partnership. The hunting horn blared their brand. And the Horn Book enterprise flourished through collaboration with staff, parents, librarians, teachers, and “boys and girls themselves.”

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Since its founding, the theme of collaboration has marched through the Horn Book’s work. The magazine’s book recommendations and other writing reflect the theme and the creative results of working together. Characters working together is a perennial theme (see 1924’s All by Ourselves by Mabel L. Robinson, recommended in the very first issue, for an early example). Celebrated teams of creators make frequent appearances on Horn Book Fanfare lists, from Ingri d’Aulaire & Edgar Parin d’Aulaire to Jarrett Pumphrey & Jerome ­Pumphrey. So do works brought into being by such longstanding editor/­creator teams as Alvina Ling & Grace Lin. As Jason Reynolds & Brendan Kiely discussed in that Collaborations issue and Parravano noted in her editorial, books can serve as a bridge between people of different backgrounds and experiences.

Just as people work together to create a work of children’s literature, which is then shared with young people in our lives, so collaboration joins people and purpose to shape the Horn Book’s past, present, and future to promote one of our greatest human needs: the need to connect with others. The ampersand has endured for two thousand years because it stands for connection, creativity, interaction, and rapport. The Horn Book stands for the same principles. It is the children’s literature ampersand with exuberant powers.

From the March/April 2025 issue of The Horn Book Magazine.

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