Dear Horn Book Reader,

And how is everybody this week? It’s Teacher Appreciation Week, so thank a teacher. I must add my own (rather insensitive) thanks to the Curley School, across the street from our house. Its sadly empty grounds have given the four little boys downstairs and next door a nice space in which to run around — yesterday the two two-year-olds found an abandoned electrical car (for children) and kept busy commanding their parents to push it in the absence of a working battery. But what kind of neighborhood do I live in that people have pint-sized electric cars to throw away? 

I was even more grateful to have been reminded by Richard that the Curley has a pint-sized, two-lane running track I could get myself onto. And so I did on Sunday, for a mile-and-a-half of solitary rapture. That is fifteen times around the track, by the way, with institutional brick walls on three sides and chain link on the fourth. I pretended I was on Oz. But I do like the way a tiny track can reward new as well as ancient runners: even a novice will be able to say I went all the way around. 

Work-wise, I’m happy to share with you not just news of the May/June Special Issue of the Magazine titled “Breaking the Rules,” but the thing itself, digitized and free for the duration at our website. Free! What are you waiting for? 

There’s more. I love the interview Elissa’s son Josh did with Derrick Barnes. Even though it’s about baseball, which means I have no idea what they are talking about. And I talked to Young People’s Poet Laureate Naomi Shihab Nye, who had been rivaling David Sedaris in her fondness for picking up litter. What’s she doing now? And hey, stay tuned for the announcement of the Boston Globe-Horn Book Award winners. I will be revealing them on May 27 at SLJ’s virtual Day of Dialog and then shortly after on our website. 

In the meantime, stay as safe and comfortable as you can. Our recommendations for kids’ summer reading will appear in your inbox next Wednesday as Notes from the Horn Book, but don’t forget to read for yourself, for fun. I gave up on The Red Lotus and instead read The Ministry of Fear, a so-so Graham Greene thriller. And that has led me to Charlotte Yonge’s 1854 children’s story The Little Duke, from which Greene quotes throughout. Has anyone read that? 

Oh, and don’t forget to call Mom on Sunday. Happy early Mother’s Day!

With all best wishes,

Roger Sutton 
Editor in Chief 
The Horn Book, Inc.