Dear friends:

Congratulations to Jacqueline Woodson on winning everybody’s favorite fantasy prize, a MacArthur fellowship. This pairs very well with the Hans Christian Andersen Award Jackie picked up earlier this year; congratulations for both! In Jackie’s honor I direct you to her 2006 Zena Sutherland Lecture, “How Do I Come Home Again?” [Photo credit: John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation]

It’s currently Fiction and Poetry week for our 2020 Boston Globe–Horn Book winners; go over to the site and see videos of our wonderful judges “presenting” the awards to Elizabeth Acevedo, Tae Keller, and Kacen Callender; watch them “accept” in similar fashion. It may be a brave new world, but I am glad it has such people in it.

We’ve been having a bit of an Alfred Hitchcock festival at home, and this past weekend we watched Suspicion, Strangers on a Train, and To Catch a Thief. Always so much to enjoy, but I can’t help noticing that by today’s thriller standards, these all are missing a beat, another twist in the plot that brings the story to a conclusion. How did we all become so jaded? We also watched Ava, starring Jessica Chastain, the latest of the “serious” actresses going badass action hero on the screen (my favorite of these is Angelina Jolie’s Salt). Too violent for my taste and too little point — while I did lots of wincing, there was nothing near as scary as the merry-go-round coming off the rails in Strangers on a Train. Oops, spoiler!

Love,

Roger

P.S. Ooh, stop the presses, I just saw S. E. Hinton on Twitter trashing the idea of re-doing The Outsiders as a graphic novel. Remember that time she denied gay love between Johnny and Dally? PASS THE POPCORN.