Roger Sutton

Last night I dreamed that Arthur A. Levine Books (of Harry Potter fame) was publishing a young readers’ edition of The Sensuous Woman, a sex manual published in ’69 (heh) by a “liberated woman” known only as “J” who taught women how to please their man and–and this was revolutionary–themselves. My dream makes sense in […]

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 . . . but that won’t stop speculation. While the winners (and honor books) of ALA’s Newbery and Caldecott Awards posed no surprises in themselves, everyone wants to know what happened to Mr. Tiger. As Calling Caldecott blogger Robin Smith sensibly says, it’s likely that the committee simply found four other books it liked more. […]

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Galloping off to ALA this weekend and hope to see some of you there. Hard to say exactly when I’ll be around the booth (#518) but lunchtime Saturday and Sunday seem the likeliest times. Bring snacks! And if I’m not there, introduce yourself to the charming Katrina Elmer, who will have you signed up for […]

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As of the beginning of April, the editorial office of the Horn Book and all its resident oompa-loompas will be moving to 300 The Fenway, Boston MA, 02115. Sharp-eyed readers will recognize the address as also being that of Simmons College, and we are delighted to be renting an office suite just down the hall […]

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The Battle Commanders have announced the contenders for SLJ’s Battle of the Books, which will itself commence–when? March-ish? It’s a good list, and brave, I think, of the Commanders to make their selections before the ALA awards show up to toss egg in everyone’s faces. While I have no plans to repeat my running commentary […]

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On the dust jacket for Jean Craighead George and Wendell Minor’s Galápagos George, forthcoming from HarperCollins, I see the following statement: “This book meets the Common Core State Standards for English Language Arts/Science and Technical Subjects.” You big fat liars: Galápagos George, whose virtues are indeed many, does NOT meet the CCSS Standards, because the CCSS […]

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So extemporized Trina Schart Hyman in her 1985 Caldecott acceptance speech, giving the vaffanculo gesture to her critics. Marc Nobleman has collected an entertaining array of children’s writers doing the same (metaphorically) in vivid performances of their worst Amazon reviews. (Kind of shooting fish in a barrel, though. Let’s see ‘em read a slam from […]

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Do we have any actual evidence that Peter Jackson has gone through puberty? Yes, there’s the beard, and the children, but his Tolkien movies all look like they were conceived and directed by a ten-year-old. I only saw The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey on TV but we saw The Desolation of Smowg in all its […]

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