I was sorry to hear on Monday about the death of James Cross Giblin, editor, publisher, author, and friend--to me and countless others in the children's book business. Back before it was even a Thing, Jim was writing narrative nonfiction about the damnedest things--windows, milk--and had the gift for conveying his own enthusiasm for his topics to readers who never knew they could find, say, chairs, so interesting. He probably could have rattled on with such books of social history forever, but Jim's ambitions grew as he wrote a brave, early book about AIDS, and full-scale biographies of some of history's villains: John Wilkes Booth, Joe McCarthy, and Adolf Hitler. And while Jim is noted for his nonfiction writing, he also contributed a fine and surprisingly sexy short story to Marion Dane Bauer's 1994 gay YA anthology, Am I Blue?

The Horn Book remembers Jim Giblin--who would have enjoyed autocorrect's insistence that he be called Jim Goblin--with an excellent history of children's nonfiction he wrote for us in 2000 and a more recent Talks With Roger sponsored by the Highlights Foundation, which has founded a scholarship for writers in Jim's name. Give.