Know your audience

Emails to share book-review PDFs understandably don’t always come addressed to exactly the right person. A hopeful submitter might guess that “magazine at hbook dot com” goes to a different HB-er than myself, and I usually don’t think much of it. But a recent highlight of that very active inbox stopped me in my email-clicking tracks. It began: 

“Dear Bertha…”

I like to imagine that Bertha Mahony Millerwho founded the Horn Book in 1924 — would be as amused as I was. Ms. Miller, if you’re listening somewhere, we have a message for you...if we can ever figure out how to explain what it is.

Shoshana Flax

Shoshana Flax, associate editor of The Horn Book, Inc., is a former bookseller and holds an MFA in writing for children from Simmons University. She has served on the Boston Globe–Horn Book Award and Sydney Taylor Book Award committees, and is serving on the 2025 Walter Dean Myers Award committee.

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