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
photo by Philippe Matas
Neil Gaiman won the 2009 Newbery Medal for The Graveyard Book, the Jungle Book–inspired story of a living boy raised by ghosts. Guess which of these titles is his favorite Newbery winner.
a) Dead End in Norvelt by Jack Gantos (2012)
b) A Wrinkle in Time by Madeleine L’Engle (1963)
c) When You Reach Me by Rebecca Stead (2010)
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.
Coming soon: Jerry Pinkney, David Weisner, and Sharon Creech.
Photo by Nicole Haley
2012 BGHB honoree Erin E. Stead received the 2011 Caldecott for A Sick Day for Amos McGee (written by husband Philip C. Stead). When Amos, a kindly zookeeper, is stuck home with a cold, his charges visit to cheer him up. Guess which of the titles below is the illustrator’s favorite Caldecott winner.
a) Sylvester and the Magic Pebbleby William Steig (1970)
b) A Tree Is Nice written by Janice Udry and illustrated by Marc Simont (1957)
c) The Snowy Day by Ezra Jack Keats (1963)
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.
Coming soon: Susan Cooper, Linda Sue Park, and David Wiesner.
Photo by Marguerite Krommes
Beth Krommes received the 2009 Caldecott Medal for The House in the Night, written by Susan Marie Swanson. Her black, white, and gold scratchboard art perfectly complements the poetic bedtime tale. Guess which of the titles below is the illustrator’s favorite Caldecott winner.
a) Kitten’s First Full Moon by Kevin Henkes (2005)
b) My Friend Rabbit by Eric Rohmann (2003)
c) Owl Moon written by Jane Yolen and illustrated by John Schoenherr (1988)
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, and Linda Sue Park.
Coming soon: Susan Cooper, Jerry Pinkney, and David Wiesner.
Illustration by Devon Johnson
| Most likely to haunt award committees |
Anya’s Ghost by Vera Brosgol
Bone Dog by Eric Rohmann
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| Better luck next time |
Good Luck, Anna Hibiscus! by Atinuke,
illustrated by Lauren Tobia
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| Tragic and tragically overlooked |
America Is Under Attack: September 11, 2001: The Day the Towers Fell by Don Brown
Amelia Lost: The Life and Disappearance
of Amelia Earhart by Candace Fleming
The Watch That Ends the Night: Voices from the Titanic by Allan Wolf
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| Best Cold War book left out in the cold |
Life: An Exploded Diagram by Mal Peet
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Best year-round Christmas book
(think of the money you’ll save!) |
The Money We’ll Save by Brock Cole |
| Science made simple (youngest) |
Swirl by Swirl: Spirals in Nature by Joyce Sidman, illustrated by Beth Krommes
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| Science made simple (oldest) |
Feynman by Jim Ottaviani, illustrated by Leland Myrick
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| Best animal survival stories |
Can We Save the Tiger? by Martin Jenkins, illustrated by Vicky White
Naamah and the Ark at Night by Susan
Campbell Bartoletti, illustrated by Holly Meade
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| Best human survival stories |
Bluefish by Pat Schmatz
Blink & Caution by Tim Wynne-Jones
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| Best swamp survival stories |
Meadowlands: A Wetlands Survival Story
by Thomas F. Yezerski
Chime by Franny Billingsley
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| Batteries not required |
Press Here by Hervé Tullet |
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by Etsy seller Spoonful of Chocolate
I have a serious Etsy addiction, and an incredible shop I just discovered is not helping.
Spoonful of Chocolate sells recycled book purses and e-reader covers; now I am lusting over a Hunger Games handbag made from an actual copy of The Hunger Games. (They have other chapter book and YA selections, too.) My favorite, though, might be the ornate Pride and Prejudice bag complete with ladylike “pearl” handle.
The only downside is the handbags aren’t big enough to carry a book with you—not ideal for the daily grind. But how geek chic to carry one to an award ceremony or Kidlit Drink Night!
In honor of Dr. Seuss’s 108th birthday (happy birthday Ted!), the premiere of the new animated The Lorax film, and the annual Read Across America Day, I took a look at David A. Carter’s The Lorax Pop-up! book (Robin Corey Books/Random House, January). After all, I am a reviewer. I speak for the books!
This edition keeps the original text intact, which I appreciated. Reading the story aloud at my desk, I relished each Seussian rhyme in stanzas scattered across the eight colorful spreads. Seuss’s tall Truffula Trees and the Once-ler’s factory are perfectly suited to appear as pop-ups; gatefold panels offer additional pop-ups, pull tabs, and special effects to bring the story to life. As with any pop-up book, if read enough times this one will show its age eventually, but the spreads are well chosen and Seuss’s text and illustrations are creatively placed. I only wish Random House would have used recycled paper—it would have been appropriate given the book’s message!
And here’s another Lorax-related treat: check out Stephen Colbert’s discussion of the plethora of movie tie-ins that have been popping up everywhere (and in unlikely places). Enjoy his tribute to Seuss’s rhymes at the end of the clip!
photo by Lolly Robinson
Reigning (wait, is it incoming until he actually gets his mitts on the goods?) O’Dell and Newbery Medalist Jack Gantos stopped by the office last Friday for a bit of cake and champagne to celebrate the success of Dead End in Norvelt. (And to fortify himself for his daughter’s pajama party, which he was supervising that evening.) We were glad to learn he was already working on his Newbery speech, which is good because it’s due in less than a month.
If you were like me, you applauded Press Here, the ingenious book by Hervé Tullet, for its anti-app bravado. If the news that there is now an app version (Chronicle, April) of the book disgusts you, please don’t be too quick to judge.
The first thing to realize is that Press Here was translated from the French, in which it was called Un Livre—”A Book”—and in most of the many languages it’s been translated into, the original title stuck. The French version of the “Press Here” app came out about a year ago and was titled “Un Jeu,” or “A Game.” In other words, it was not necessarily an app of the book but was rather Tullet’s exploration of his yellow, red, and blue dots in a completely different format.
In its English translation of Un Livre, Chronicle Books chose a title that emphasized the book’s interactive nature. For obvious reasons, when Chronicle made the English-language version of the “Un Jeu” app, they chose to stick with the book’s title. A bit confusing, n’est pas?
Unlike the book, pressing dots in this app actually does make something happen, but what that is may not be what you were expecting. Tullet makes up his own rules and the player’s goal is not to win but to figure out what those rules are. There are fifteen separate games, each using the hand-drawn dot motif of the book. But to call them games is a bit deceptive. They start out seeming like little puzzles to solve, but in fact most have no fixed conclusion.
They are more like little scientific explorations perfectly suited to 2- to 5-year-olds. And adults. Remember those non-competitive games that became popular in the 1970s, intended to encourage youth groups and corporate retreaters to enjoy the journey rather than aim for a destination? That’s what Tullet does here.
The home screen shows five rows of three dots, lined up like app icons and jiggling around a bit. Pressing a dot reveals a game title. Press again and you enter that game (or diversion, experience, puzzle — whatever you want to call it). In each, the player must explore by tapping and dragging dots and blank screens. In some games, tapping a dot changes its color. In others, it makes the dot larger. One game gives the dots magnetic properties. You can make fireworks, play foosball (without numeric score), play with “rain,” test your memory with a lotto game, and more.
My personal favorites are the ones that create music. I still haven’t completely figured out what they are doing, but I find that playing around with them is both engrossing and relaxing. The game called “Music Box” has something to do with gears and old records. You tap to add dots that will connect to some extra-fancy dots (little round doodles) and when you have connected a certain number of them, music begins to play. As you connect more disks, more layers are added to the music — repeated bass riffs, treble, etc.
The other two music games are called “Many Roads” and “Free Play.” In the first, three open dots or circles (blue, yellow, red) are seen. Pressing on each plays a bit of music: blue is clarinet, yellow is oboe, and red is flute. As you press longer on the initial circles, additional dots fill in a grid and the music becomes more complex. When the music dots reach an impasse, a boing sound signals the star
Help! There is an onion trapped in this book, destined for certain death! It is up to us to save her from the Big Fry, the greatest fear of onions everywhere. But this onion has hope: “Yet I have been told / That there’s a way out / For an ONION who challenges, / Questions and doubts.”
All pretty mystifying and just plain weird, but readers interested in existential philosophizing may be tickled by the onion-like layers of meaning in Sara Fanelli’s interactive book The Onion’s Great Escape (Phaidon, May).
The book has no qualms about jumping into fundamental questions from the first peel. At the start of the volume, an onion’s face emerges from a series of solid red-washed double-page spreads. “WHO AM I?” the onion asks, soon followed by “WHO ARE YOU?” Faced with her imminent death, the onion leads us through an exploration of deep concepts like fear, time, memory, reality, imagination, and morality.
As we move from contemplation to contemplation, we punch out the onion’s perforated silhouette.
With each poignant question, we shed one more layer of the onion—or something like that.Then as we think about the onion’s thoughts and ask ourselves those same questions, we gradually free the onion from the book, and from her fate. (How exactly? I’m not entirely sure.) Then we can make a 3-D model of the onion that we’ve liberated from the prison of her pages.
Mechanically speaking, it’s hard to re-read the book once the onion has been freed, because a lot of relevant text and images appear directly on the form of the now-flown onion. But the self-actualization is worth it—at least to the onion.
"Who are you?"
The Horn Book Magazine asked Newbery and Caldecott Medalists Jerry Pinkney, Lois Lowry, Erin E. Stead, and David Wiesner (just to name a few!) to choose their favorite winning books from years past.
Over the next few weeks, we’re putting readers to the test with a Medalist matching game. For each author or illustrator, you’ll be given three possible titles. Click on the correct one and you’ll see that person’s writing about his or her fave; click on the other choices for surprises from The Horn Book.
We kick things off with 2009 Newbery Medalist and Boston Globe–Horn Book Award honoree Neil Gaiman.
To see all game entries, click on the tag matching game. Also check out the July/August 2012 Horn Book Magazine for all the answers, along with the 2012 Newbery, Caldecott, and Coretta Scott King Award speeches, The Horn Book‘s Mind the Gap Awards (books that didn‘t win), and much more!
