Subscribe to The Horn Book

Library

Bringing young people and books together in the school and public library.

Mythology-themed books

The books recommended below were published within the last several years. Grade levels are only suggestions; the individual child is the real criterion.   PICTURE BOOKS Suggested grade level listed with each entry. Young Zeus by G. Brian Karas (Scholastic) Simple, colloquial language renders myth into farce, with cartoonlike characters ranging from the appealing boy […]

Picture books for Presidents’ Day

In time for Presidents’ Day observations, these new books give elementary-age readers insight into three towering figures in American history. In George Washington’s Birthday: A Mostly True Tale, Margaret McNamara debunks the famous cherry tree fable plus others, intermingling them with real facts to imagine Washington’s seventh birthday. Boxed notes distinguish truth from fancy, and […]

On black history

A picture book tribute to a seminal event in the civil rights story, a collection of poems about the Underground Railroad, and a nonfiction account of the civil rights era for older readers: three recent books pay homage to the struggles and triumphs of African Americans — just in time for honoring black history next […]

Snow daze

The next best thing to tromping around outdoors on a crisp January afternoon is snuggling up inside. Here are five winter-themed picture books that are just the ticket for those sub-zero days. In Keith Baker’s No Two Alike, two little red birds explore a snowy landscape. Rhyming text coaxes readers to look carefully at the […]

More fantastic books for older readers

One new sci-fi/fairy tale and three paranormal novels provide plenty of heart-pounding reading for middle school and high school fans. Sixteen-year-old vampire Pearl discovers she can withstand sunlight after an encounter with a unicorn in Sarah Beth Durst’s Drink, Slay, Love. Her family sends her up to the local high school to procure refreshments (i.e., […]

Letter to the Editor from Margaret Bush, January/February 2012

September/October 2011 Horn Book Barbara Bader’s series of articles on the “second generation” of prominent librarians in the children’s services field (“Virginia Haviland,” January/February 2011; “Augusta Baker,” May/June 2011; “Mildred Batchelder,” September/October 2011) has been enjoyable to read. For the small number of us who worked with these librarians or knew them, Bader stirs up […]

Notes from the Horn Book – November 2011

To view this email as a web page, click here. Hbook.com | Review of the Week | Interviews | Read Roger | Out of the Box | Calling Caldecott | Books in this issue | Subscribe November 9, 2011 Five questions for Melissa Sweet Picture book biographies Listen up, middle-graders Page-turners for older readers Holiday […]

Nonfiction: What’s Really New and Different — and What Isn’t

In the age of preschool princesses and teenage werewolves, nonfiction, conspicuously, has class. That came across buoyantly in the March/April 2011 issue of the Horn Book, where prominent persons in the field wrote about their work and what today’s nonfiction aspires to.

Their aims are admirable, their commitment is impressive, their enthusiasm is infectious; as a cadre, they have a lot to be proud of. But not because their work, however fine, surpasses the work of their predecessors. It isn’t better researched or better illustrated, as some of the contributors suggest, and it certainly isn’t more venturesome. In kids’ nonfiction, “going where no adult book has gone before” is nothing new.

Superior supernaturals

While much in the YA paranormal genre is formulaic, here are three novels that think outside the box. In Blood, the first installment in K. J. Wignall’s Mercian Trilogy, the eternally sixteen-year-old William, Earl of Mercia, has just awakened from one of his decades-long hibernations (he is of course undead), and he needs lifeblood; Eloise, […]

Boo to you!

Halloween’s not just for little boys and ghouls. Here are some funny, eerie, and downright creepy titles to scare up readers of all ages. The goofiest of the group is David LaRochelle’s picture book The Haunted Hamburger and Other Ghostly Stories. Ghost siblings Franny and Frankie demand a story before bed. Of course, one is […]
http://www.hbook.com/category/using-books/library/page/3/
www.hbook.com
crawl=CC-MAIN-2017-34
74217
application/http; msgtype=response
sha1:UB2VONXGBZIFPKD55WBF3PDKCN5TETQM
<urn:uuid:07222289-2fea-4cc5-aac9-b28231d3da52>
2017-08-22T20:44:56Z
216.70.86.237
application/xhtml+xml
sha1:TXNK74J43PMCOTJYAKEPD66DJZJHEK56
<urn:uuid:1c6e8682-3036-4ea1-86e7-3026bdabf1f8>
http://www.hbook.com/category/using-books/library/page/3/
length
response
<urn:uuid:90f2f983-97ca-44ca-95d6-8806eff2da12>
robots: classic
hostname: ip-10-145-171-220.ec2.internal
software: Nutch 1.6 (CC)
isPartOf: CC-MAIN-2017-34
operator: Common Crawl Admin
description: Wide crawl of the web for August 2017
publisher: Common Crawl
format: WARC File Format 1.0
conformsTo: http://bibnum.bnf.fr/WARC/WARC_ISO_28500_version1_latestdraft.pdf