The Letter Q: Queer Writers’ Notes to 
Their Younger Selves
edited by Sarah Moon, with 
contributing editor James Lecesne
Middle School, High School    Levine/Scholastic    
282 pp.
5/12    978-0-545-39932-6    $17.99
Inspired by mentors in her own childhood, editor Sarah Moon asked sixty-four gay, lesbian, and bisexual writers, illustrators, and publishing professionals to write letters to themselves at a younger age — names such as Marion Dane Bauer, Jacqueline Woodson, Gregory Maguire, Brian Selznick, and a host of others. The resulting letters combine advice, reminiscence, funny stories, and encouragement for readers struggling with their sexuality. As with any collection with such a narrow focus, repetition is a problem, but panels from graphic novel creators help to break up the text and vary the pace, and a few of the writers arouse interest with truly surprising revelations (David Levithan, for instance, writes about bullying, but from the perspective of being the bully; Martin Moran writes about the sexual abuse that led to his award-winning book The Tricky Part). A mostly secular exploration of growing up gay, the book has regrettably little advice for gay and questioning teens grappling with religious dilemmas. Still, with its repeated exhortations to relax more and worry less, this book might be a life-saver for some — and could function as an author list, as well, for teens wanting to read more about People Like Us.

Robin McKinley won the 1985 Newbery for her high fantasy The Hero and the Crown, in which Aerin, the outcast daughter of the king, battles the great dragon Maur. Can you guess which of these Newbery-winning books is the author’s favorite?

a) Crispin: The Cross of Lead by Avi (2003)
b) Number the Stars by Lois Lowry (1990)
c) Smoky, the Cowhorse by Will James (1927)

This post is part of our ongoing game matching Newbery and Caldecott medalists to their favorite winning titles. To see more entries, click on the tag matching game.

Previously: Neil Gaiman, Erin E. Stead, Lois Lowry, Linda Sue Park, Beth Krommes, Susan Cooper, Jerry Pinkney, Paul O. Zelinsky, Russell Freedman, Sharon Creech, and Emily Arnold McCully.

Coming soon: David Wiesner and Laura Amy Schlitz.

Illustration by Devon Johnson

Author Donald J. Sobol died on July 11, 2012, in Miami, Florida, at the age of eighty-seven.

He is best known for his long-running and beloved boy detective series Encyclopedia Brown. The series was honored with a special Edgar Award in 1976 and inspired both a comic strip (1978-1980) and a television show (1989). Sobol’s twenty-eighth Encyclopedia Brown book will be published by Penguin in October 2012.

Sobol’s more than eighty books include children’s novel Secret Agents Four (1967) in addition to adult fiction and nonfiction.

Lies, Knives, and Girls in Red Dresses
by Ron Koertge; illus. by Andrea Dezsö
High School     Candlewick     88 pp.
7/12     978-0-7636-4406-2     $19.99
A much-honored poet and novelist retells, in free verse and from various points of view, twenty-three familiar tales (mostly Grimm, Andersen, and Perrault). With a contemporary sensibility and voice, Koertge pitches directly to teenagers. Beauty’s Beast, though allowing that “her love…transformed me,” is still nostalgic for the time when his teeth were fangs and Beauty “almost wanted / me to break her neck and open her / up like a purse.” For the Ugly Duckling, “Grief is a street he skates down”; the swans, surrogate parents, beg, “Please don’t go away like / that again. We were worried sick.” There are several eager risk takers here, like the queen who outwits Rumpelstiltskin, then exits in a red cape, seeking a wolf. A few stories later, Red Riding Hood’s condescending account to her mother is a perfect parody: “I’m into danger, / okay? What? You said to tell you the truth and be, like, frank.” It’s also a swell mix of the comical, concrete, and macabre: “Anyway, it’s weird / inside a wolf, all hot and moist but no worse than flying / coach to Newark.” Dezsö’s choice of cut-paper illustrations is brilliant, a nod to Hans C. Andersen’s skill in that medium despite the radically different tone. Her stark silhouettes are peculiarly appropriate to such gruesome scenes as “The Robber Bridegroom” dismembering a bride, though the lurid gore is in a comfortably distancing black and white. Need to grab a restive class’s attention? Seek no further. And take note: “Wolf ” has the last word: “This is our forest…Perfect again when all your kind is dead.”

Roger interviewed Melissa Sweet on Sunday, June 24, 2012, at the ALA Convention in Anaheim. Melissa Sweet’s book Balloons over Broadway: The True Story of the Puppeteer of Macy’s Parade is the 2012 Sibert Award winner, and she created the cover illustration for the July/August issue of The Horn Book Magazine.

Photo by Lyle Riggs

Sharon Creech received the 1995 Newbery Medal for Walk Two Moons, the tale of 13-year-old Sal’s quest to find her missing mother. Can you guess her favorite Newbery-winning novel?

a) Shiloh by Phyllis Reynolds Naylor (1992)
b) Bud, Not Buddy by Christopher Paul Curtis (2000)
c) Dicey’s Song by Cynthia Voight (1983)

This post is part of our ongoing game matching Newbery and Caldecott medalists to their favorite winning titles. To see more entries, click on the tag matching game.

Previously: Neil Gaiman, Erin E. Stead, Lois Lowry, Linda Sue Park, Beth Krommes, Susan Cooper, Jerry Pinkney, Paul O. Zelinsky, and Russell Freedman.

Coming soon: David Wiesner, Laura Amy Schlitz, and Emily Arnold McCully.

Illustration by Devon Johnson

Lolly has designed a beautiful PDF of our annual summer reading list–please download and distribute as you will. I hasten to add that this is the good kind of s.r.l., one designed for pleasure reading, not to Improve you.

I’m currently shuttling between (among?) Anna Karenina, William Langewiesche’s The Outlaw Sea, and Gillian Flynn’s Gone Girl (on audio). They’re all great and each a relief from the others. Gone Girl is driving me slightly crazy because it involves a fictional children’s book series that was allegedly wildly popular, but descriptions of and quotes from the “Amazing Amy” series make it sound like it would have been out of touch forty years ago, much less today. Maybe this will be explained in the end, because Flynn is an awfully cunning writer and otherwise sharply observant. What are YOU reading?

From the May/June 2012 issue of The Horn Book Magazine:
Reviewer Christine Hepperman asks Traction Man and the Beach Odyssey author/illustrator Mini Grey about a new favorite character. Read the full review of Traction Man and the Beach Odyssey here.

Christine M. Hepperman: Will Beach-Time Brenda reappear in future books, maybe headline a series of her own?

Mini Grey: Oooh—there’s an idea. Poor Brenda might have to wrestle with some undignified situations in the ordinary world, but perhaps save the day through the power of cocktail snacks, canapés, and optimism. I can see her battling household appliances and all sorts of other horrors and having to get very very dirty. But she’d need a sidekick—or could she share Scrubbing Brush?

Traction Man and the Beach Odyssey
by Mini Grey; illus. by the author
Preschool, Primary     Knopf     32 pp.
5/12     978-0-375-86952-5     $16.99
Library ed. 978-0-375-96952-2     $19.99
The adventuresome duo from Traction Man Is Here! (rev. 3/05) and Traction Man Meets Turbodog (rev. 9/08) hits the beach for a manly day of scuba diving, picnic security duty, and…makeovers? Once again Grey’s action-figure hero and his sidekick Scrubbing Brush inhabit the fanciful world-within-a-world of creative play. Though the boy who totes the pair along in his beach bag is nominally in control of their actions, once they’re underwater exploring a tide pool, or left alone together on the picnic blanket, they take on lives of their own. Traction Man’s valiant campaign to keep Grandma’s dog Truffles away from lunch while the family swims comes to naught when Truffles carries him off and buries him in the sand. Scrubbing Brush digs Traction Man out, but then a wave whisks them both away, landing them in the clutches of another young beachgoer, who has her own ideas of how to play. Grey takes obvious delight in poking fun at Traction Man’s machismo by dressing him in a pink sarong and plunking him into an ice-cream party with some Beach- Time Brenda dolls. As usual, the wry cartoon art is teeming with animate characters—even the picnic quiche has a face. In the end, there’s a refreshingly gender-neutral pooling of resources as Beach-Time Brenda and her pal help the boys dig an “exploration hole to the Center of the Earth,” after which the whole crew floats happily on a “pinkly paisley inflatable dinghy.” Relaxation accomplished!

I was out for a run the morning of the 4th when a squadron of Blue Angels came zooming across the sky in formation. The contrast between the Olmsted-ordered beauty of my surroundings (see above, near Ward’s Pond in Jamaica Plain) and the high-tech menace above made me feel like I was in The Giver. So then my thoughts wandered to Lois Lowry’s latest novel, Son, fourth and presumably last in what the publisher is now calling the Giver Quartet.

I like the book (it will be reviewed in the September issue of the Horn Book Magazine) but I do wonder about the wisdom (aesthetic if not commercial) of going to the same well too often. Any time I speak to an audience that includes library students, I plead with one of them to make a master’s thesis (do library school students still write master’s theses? Masters’ theses?) of the intersection of Newbery attention and sequel publication. There are tons of variables, including the fact that no fewer than five Newbery Medals have gone to books that were sequels to books that had previously won Newbery Honors. At least fifteen Newbery winners have spawned sequels, sometimes where you would expect (as with Susan Cooper’s ongoing Dark Is Rising series, or Cynthia’s Voigt’s further adventures of the Tillerman kids) but often where you would not, as with Julie of the Wolves or The Giver or Shiloh. None of these stories needed to keep going, and one thing I like about all those books is the way they end. Here’s hoping Dead End in Norvelt is true to its title.

Molly Bang has won many awards for her picture book illustration over the past forty years. She is also the author of Picture This, a book for adults about how pictures work. In 2009 Molly teamed with MIT ecologist Penny Chisholm on Living Sunlight, a picture book explaining how light interacts with the world around us. Their new book is Ocean Sunlight: How Tiny Plants Feed the Seas, an impressively complete and accessible look at how light collaborates with all the ocean’s systems. I wanted to find out how they collaborate with each other.

1. You share writing credit for Ocean Sunlight. How did you work together on the text?

Molly Bang. Photo by Jim Green.

Molly Bang and Penny Chisholm: Penny decided what she thought were the most important concepts to explain in order to understand how the oceans function as an integrated biological/chemical/physical system. Her goal was to cover topics that are not usually included in children’s books but that she feels are fundamentals for everyone (not just children) to understand. Once we had the key concepts down, we worked together to shape them into a story. This was the most difficult part. Where was the narrative? Where was the suspense? The drama? We were striving for that sense of awe at being part of nature, part of our world. When the language was too scientific, we tried to make sure the ideas could be understood in some other way. That’s where Molly’s pictures come in.

2. Molly, you’re the illustrator, but did Penny have a role in conceptualizing or editing the pictures?

Penny Chisholm. Photo by James Long.

MB and PC: The typical approach to collaborative children’s books is that there is an author and an illustrator and the two do not communicate until the book is finished. This is not that kind of book. Once we had a rough idea of the concepts and the general narrative, Molly made thumbnail sketches that we reworked until we were fairly sure about how the story would “move.” Then we started writing. Molly wrote a first draft, then Penny edited to make it more scientifically accurate. We went back and forth, over and over. Penny found wonderful examples of the ocean plants and critters for Molly to paint, and Molly often painted the same picture several times before we were both satisfied. The good news is that we almost always agreed on what changes were needed.

3. Penny, you usually teach college and graduate students. Was it difficult to distill this information for children?

MB and PC: Extremely difficult! But also very satisfying. There are fundamental scientific truths about how our planet works that most people, even college graduates, do not understand. This book (along with Living Sunlight) is our way of distilling these ideas and making them accessible to every

5 Questions for Molly Bang and Penny Chisholm
Ocean Sunlight: How Tiny Plants Feed the Seas written by Molly Bang and Penny Chisholm, illus. by Molly Bang, Blue Sky/Scholastic, 5–8 years.

Under-the-sea reading for kids
In the Sea written by David Elliott, illus. by Holly Meade, Candlewick, 3–6 years.
Water Sings Blue: Ocean Poems written by Kate Coombs, illus. by Meilo So, Chronicle, 5–8 years.
Dolphin Baby! written by Nicola Davies, illus. by Grita Grandstom, Candlewick, 5–8 years.
Life in the Ocean: The Story of Oceanographer Sylvia Earle by Claire A. Nivola, Foster/Farrar, 5–8 years.

Summer fun for little ones
Traction Man and the Beach Odyssey by Mini Grey, Knopf, 3–6 years.
Summer Days and Nights by Wong Herbert Yee, Ottaviano/Holt, 3–6 years.
The Best Bike Ride Ever by James Proimos, illus. by Johanna Wright, Dial, 4–7 years.
The Shark King [TOON Books] by R. Kikuo Johnson, Toon/Candlewick, 5–8 years.

Great escapes (some quite literal!) for middle-grade summer reading
Tracing Stars by Erin E. Moulton, Philomel, 8–11 years.
Summer in the City written by Marie-Louise Gay and David Homel, illus. by Marie-Louise Gay, Groundwood, 8–11 years.
Summer of the Gypsy Moths by Sara Pennypacker, Balzer + Bray/HarperCollins, 8–11 years.
Three Times Lucky by Sheila Turnage , Dial, 8–11 years.

Beach reads for teens
37 Things I Love (in no particular order) by Kekla Magoon, Holt, 14 years and up.
The Story of Us by Deb Caletti, Simon Pulse, 14 years and up.
Jersey Angel by Beth Ann Bauman, Lamb/Random, 14 years and up.
Seize the Storm by Michael Cadnum, Farrar, 14 years and up.

These titles were featured in the July 2012 issue of Notes from the Horn Book.

Warm weather and long days create the perfect conditions for one of summer’s greatest pleasures: playing outside. Three new picture books and one early reader offer fun-filled adventures in the great outdoors, from the everyday to the out-of-the-ordinary.

The action-figure hero of Traction Man Is Here!, along with his sidekick Scrubbing Brush, hits the beach in Mini Grey’s Traction Man and the Beach Odyssey. Traction Man’s valiant security patrol of the family picnic comes to an abrupt end when a wave whisks the pair away, landing them in the clutches of another young beachgoer. Once again, the duo entertainingly inhabits the world-within-a-world of creative play. (3–6 years)

A young girl celebrates summertime in Wong Herbert Yee’s Summer Days and Nights. During her busy day — which includes chasing butterflies, jumping into a pool, and taking an evening walk — she asks questions about the various insects and animals she encounters. Meticulously layered and blended colored-pencil art captures both the warmth of summer sunshine and the coolness of shade beneath trees. (3–6 years)

In James Proimos and Johanna Wright’s The Best Bike Ride Ever, Bonnie O’Boy is so eager to ride her new bike that she takes off before learning how to stop. She rides over mountains and elephants, through downpours and windstorms, up the Statue of Liberty and down the Grand Canyon. Careful observers will realize that this whole thrilling adventure takes place in the safety of Bonnie’s cluttered backyard. Energy springs off the page; it’s no wonder that Bonnie wants to ride off without training wheels…or even training. (4–7 years)

For primary readers, R. Kikuo Johnson’s graphic novel/beginning reader The Shark King retells the legend of an underwater shape shifter married to a mortal woman who bears their son, Nanaue. Nanaue’s aquatic superpowers make living among mortals a struggle, but eventually he discovers where he belongs. In the illustrations, the characters’ rounded black outlines convey strong energy and emotion, while the panels and spreads feature a lush, colorful Hawaiian setting. (5–8 years)

Here are some more great summer reading suggestions from The Horn Book.

From the July 2012 issue of Notes from the Horn Book. For bibliographic information please click here.

Being a big Disney/Pixar fan, I went to see the new movie Brave on opening weekend. Brave is the story of Merida, a young, independent, archery-loving Scottish princess who longs to control her own destiny despite her mother’s wish to marry her off. When a magic spell Merida buys from a witch turns her mother into a bear, it’s up to Merida to return Mom to human form and mend their bond. I appreciated the strong female characters and the complex relationship between mother and daughter, and I really must applaud Pixar for continuing to push the bounds of animation. (Merida’s curly red hair was so visually stunning that I couldn’t stop looking at it throughout the movie.)

When we received two new Brave apps by Disney Digital Books last week, I jumped at the chance to review them (and stare at Merida’s hair again). The first app I looked at was the Brave Read-Along Storybook (June, $6.99), a collaboration with developer Small Planet. A “Follow Along” option with automatic page-turns offers an abbreviated version of the story, narrated delightfully by Nolan North (he’s got a Scottish accent!) and featuring the voices of four of the film’s stars. Movie-quality animated clips, animation, and plenty of sound effects and Celtic music accompany the text. However, the pace of this version is agonizingly slow, alternating between narration and visual representation. I wouldn’t recommend it except for the most patient of young users.

Instead, go for the “Read and Explore” option, which allows you to interact with the story and control the pace. In addition to North’s narration, you can record yourself reading each passage. During the narrative, users can simultaneously explore the interactive aspects. In the “Play” section, users can seek-and-find Merida’s hidden arrows, color in images of the characters, complete six puzzles, and attempt archery in “Merida’s Challenge.” This multilevel game — in which you shoot your collected arrows while moving past targets in the forest — was by far my favorite feature of the app.

The Brave Interactive Comic app (June, $1.99) offers a digital graphic novel version of the story. Panels appear one at a time until each page is filled; an autoplay feature can be turned on or off depending on the pace you want to keep. Designed for a slightly older audience, this app includes sound effects and music but no option to have the story read to you. On the plus side, this format does allow for a more comprehensive retelling of the plot than in the Brave Storybook, with bonus sketches and animation stills to discover throughout the story.

A “How to Draw” tutorial features fierce bear Mor’du, the ursine Queen Elinor, and, of course, Merida herself. (Now you, too, can draw Merida’s curly tendrils!) However, it was a wee bit difficult to get the hang of this section, and I found it unwieldy to use with the touch screen. I’d recommend this app for older users who are ready for more of a reading — and drawing — challenge. Both available for iPad, iPhone, and iPod Touch.

The YA book boom seems to be continuing with no sign of abating, and I continue to be in awe of the Horn Book editors and reviewers who patiently (okay, maybe not always patiently — see this one trend Katie and Elissa spotted) go through them to tell you about the best. Here is some more help, and it sounds like fun, too. On August 9th from 10:30 AM to 5:30 PM, School Library Journal will be presenting SummerTeen: A Celebration of Young Adult Books. Headlined by the evergreen YA writer Caroline B. Cooney, the conference will include discussions and recommendations of many YA subgenres including romance, graphic literature, and science-fiction. And do you want to know what’s really cool? You can ever attend from the beach. The whole thing is going to take place online and will be accessible, I’m told, even from a mobile phone. For more information visit the SummerTeen site, and I hope to “see” you “there” on August 9th.

Roger Sutton
Editor in Chief

With friendship drama, summer flings, exotic locales, and even suspense, these novels offer teen readers of all tastes compelling summertime diversions.

Kekla Magoon’s 37 Things I Love (in no particular order) takes place during the last few days of sophomore year before summer vacation begins for Ellis. Along with typical high school issues—friends, dating, etc.—Ellis faces a more serious challenge: her father has been in a coma for years, and Mom wants to end life-support. What elevates this book above Afterschool Special is Ellis’s way with words as she describes juggling familiar teen concerns with life-and-death decisions. (14 years and up)

In Deb Caletti’s The Story of Us, Cricket’s future with longtime boyfriend Janssen is uncertain. Meanwhile, her mom is getting married, and college looms. Interspersed with a memorable week at a beach house are Cricket’s letters to Janssen in which she recalls the trajectory of their relationship. Authentically imperfect characters, clever dialogue, and observations that ring true will draw readers in. (14 years and up)

Angel, the star of Beth Ann Bauman’s Jersey Angel, is a confident, sexually experienced teen. She knows that her secret summer fling with her best friend’s boyfriend could inflict damage, but she rationalizes that she’s a good person and good people should be allowed to “fall” sometimes. This steamy beach book goes a level deeper as the characters find themselves faced with difficult choices. Angel isn’t sure whether she says or does the right thing—but she admirably tries her best. (14 years and up)

Michael Cadnum’s Seize the Storm chronicles seventeen-year-old Susannah and her family’s yacht voyage to Hawaii during which they sail into a deadly confrontation with professional criminals. Cadnum meticulously describes each character’s personality and motives, embedding them in an expertly constructed web of intrigue. Straightforward, elegant prose helps place the dramatic events into a grander scheme in which fortune, greed, fate, and death thrillingly play out. (14 years and up)

Here are some more great summer reading suggestions from The Horn Book.

From the July 2012 issue of Notes from the Horn Book. For bibliographic information please click here.

Tracking an escaped lobster; hiding a dead aunt; investigating a murder; and planning a “stay-cation.” The following four books present some unusual—to say the least—summertime escapades.

In Erin E. Moulton’s Tracing Stars, what begins as a typical last day of school for fifth-grader Indie Lee Chickory ends with a high-speed chase through her sleepy coastal town and the disappearance into the sea of her best friend (and pet), a rare golden lobster named The Lobster Monty Cola. Indie enlists the help of oddball new kid Owen, and the two hatch a plan to trap Monty. Moulton’s sensitivity to her characters’ emotions extends this quiet tale’s mood and setting. (8–11 years)

Sixth grade is almost over, and Charlie’s parents haven’t revealed the family’s summer plans yet. What great adventure is in store? Money is tight this year, so in Marie-Louise Gay and David Homel’s Summer in the City (the sequel to Travels with My Family and On the Road Again!), Charlie and his little brother Max will have a “stay-cation” in their hometown of Montreal. The summer begins relatively tamely—walking dogs, camping out in the backyard—but it quickly and humorously escalates. Energy and enthusiasm abound, and Gay’s black-and-white illustrations add visual appeal. (8–11 years)

Sara Pennypacker, acclaimed for her Clementine novels for younger readers, moves into middle-grade territory with Summer of the Gypsy Moths. Stella is living temporarily with her great-aunt Louise on Cape Cod (her mother has taken off—again); so is foster kid Angel. When Louise dies suddenly, the authorities-averse girls decide to hide the death—which means tons of subterfuge. The girls keep it up long enough to figure out what constitutes a home, and a family. Stella and Angel can be both irritating and endearing, and readers will cheer them on to the satisfying ending. (8–11 years)

In Three Times Lucky, Sheila Turnage places her unconventional characters—the inhabitants of Tupelo Landing, North Carolina—within a strong, well-plotted summertime story. Mo LoBeau, twelve, washed up during a hurricane when she was just a baby and was informally adopted by the Colonel and Miss Lana; now the three happily run the town’s popular café. Then a stranger comes to town, investigating a murder, and the book becomes a dandy mystery. Humor sweetens the mix; Mo’s colloquial narration will pull readers in, and the sustained tension will keep them engrossed. (8–11 years)

Here are some more great summer reading s

Photo by Rachel Zelinsky

Paul O. Zelinsky took home the 1998 Caldecott Medal for the lush oil paintings in his retelling of Rapunzel. Guess which of the following titles is the illustrator’s favorite Caldecott-stickered book.

a) Why Mosquitoes Buzz in People’s Ears written by Margaret Musgrove and illustrated by Leo and Diane Dillon (1977)
b) Make Way for Ducklings by Robert McCloskey (1942)
c) Where the Wild Things Are by Maurice Sendak (1964)

This post is part of our ongoing game matching Newbery and Caldecott medalists to their favorite winning titles. To see more entries, click on the tag matching game.

Previously: Neil Gaiman, Erin E. Stead, Lois Lowry, Linda Sue Park, Beth Krommes, Susan Cooper, and Jerry Pinkney.

Coming soon: Russell Freedman, David Wiesner, and Emily Arnold McCully.

Illustration by Devon Johnson