Jonathan Hunt
151 Articles
Last 30 days
Last 6 months
Last 12 months
Last 24 months
Specific Dates
From:
To:
Full of Beans
Look here, Mac. I’m gonna give it to you straight: grown-ups lie. Sure, they like to say that kids make things up and that we don’t tell the truth. But they’re the lying liars. Take President Roosevelt. He’s been saying on the radio that the economy was improving, when anyone with two eyes could see […]
Underdogs?
We’ve often worried that we create a bit of an echo chamber effect here, picking a shortlist to focus on at the expense of many other wonderful titles. Previously recognized authors along with highly praised books tend to dominate our shortlist, exacerbating the effect. Sometimes, I wonder if we should do some radical like exclude […]
When Green Becomes Tomatoes
I was pleasantly surprised to see WHEN GREEN BECOMES TOMATOES tied with WOLF HOLLOW atop our recent Top Five tally. We liked Fogliano’s previous books, AND THEN IT’S SPRING and IF YOU WANT TO SEE A WHALE, but being picture books, they were somewhat of a hard sell. This longer work, a poetry collection, should […]
Makoons
MAKOONS by Louise Erdrich is the fifth book in this cycle, but only the second one about this new generation in the family. I have to admit that I am not a natural reader for this series, that the slow episodic plots do not speak to my needs as a reader, and I believe I […]
Samurai Rising
Having reread SAMURAI RISING, I can say that it has unequivocally secured a place on my ballot, and depending on the will and disposition of my hypothetical committee, I could even spend my first place vote on it! First of all, I want to say that whatever you think of this book (and we were strongly divided on […]
2017 Heavy Medal Shortlist!
We have settled on the shortlist for our mock Newberys (and we will release specific details and dates and times once we have arranged them). We typically chose 8 titles, but have occasionally stretched to 9 titles (as we have done this year). When we do 9 titles then length is always a consideration, and it makes it […]
Black Power!
“In the midst of the human ugliness of racism, there is the human beauty in the resistance to racism.” Ibram X. Kendi The National Book Awards had a bit of a 2015 ALA Midwinter moment with African Americans winning three of the four categories, and for decidedly political works, no less. Joining John Lewis and […]
Top Five
We used to check in with our readership several times a year about their top choices, mimicking the nomination process that the real committee experiences wherein they nominate three books in October, two in November, and a final two in December. Since we don’t post quite as frequently now as we used to, we are […]
Chapter Book Roundup
Now it’s time to discuss an underappreciated body of literature for children, what are often called chapter books. Since I think that term is still fairly vague, I’d call them transitional chapter books. That is, books that bridge the gap from the more challenging easy readers to the easiest novels. On the younger side, these […]
ALREADY A SUBSCRIBER? LOG IN
We are currently offering this content for free. Sign up now to activate your personal profile, where you can save articles for future viewing
ALREADY A SUBSCRIBER? LOG IN
Thank you for visiting.
We’ve noticed you are using a private browser. To continue, please log in or create an account.
