Our May Notes from The Horn Book newsletter, featuring an interview with illustrator Paul O. Zelinsky, is out! Here’s what else you’ll find in this issue:
- animal behaving badly in picture books
- nonfiction bug books
- mystery novels for middle-graders
- sci-fi and fantasy YA sequels
View the newsletter online, or subscribe to have it delivered each month. Make sure to check out our newsletter archives for more great recommended books and author/illustrator interviews.
Our Boston Globe-Horn Book Awards judges (Lauren Adams, Megan Lambert, and chair Thom Barthelmess) will finish their deliberations this month. I will be announcing the winners on Thursday, June 7 at 1:00 P.M. at BookExpo America in New York City. The press conference will take place in the Librarians’ Lounge (Booth #2148), and all BookExpo attendees are invited. There will be snacks and special guests, I am told. If you can’t be there, check out www.hbook.com later that afternoon, as we will be webcasting a video recording from the event.
Roger Sutton
Editor in Chief
Send questions or comments to newsletter@hbook.com
You know it’s spring when, in any available yard or park, kids can be found kneeling on the ground, inspecting the local bug population. These four picture books will help answer kids’ questions about their favorite neighborhood critters as well as about a bunch they’re unlikely to encounter in real life.
One insect you won’t find in your backyard (unless you live in the Amazon) is the titan beetle, with jaws “powerful enough to snap a pencil in half.” Kids have the opportunity to marvel over this and numerous other beetles in Steve Jenkins’s The Beetle Book. Colorful cut-paper beetles stand out crisply from the white backgrounds. They’re remarkably detailed, right down to the intricate patterns on wing casings and the delicate nature of the insects’ legs. (5–8 years)
Profiles of eight insects (and one spider) that make their own dwellings are presented in Roxie Munro’s Busy Builders. As always, Munro expertly employs perspective, on one page zooming in close enough to see the hairs on an insect’s legs and the shape of its antennae, and then on the next backing out to feature the geometric details of its home. Detailed explanations on the construction techniques and purposes of the structures are interwoven with facts about life cycles, food sources, and habitats. (6–9 years)
In Douglas Florian’s UnBEElievables: Honeybee Poems and Paintings, puns and wordplay enliven the poems, and rhythmic verse echoes bee behavior, as much with sound as with sense (“I’m a nectar collector. / Make wax to the max. / A beehive protector. / I never relax”). A paragraph of facts elucidates each spread, but the real energy here is in the deceptively casual watercolors that illustrate this offbeat and attractive book. (5–8 years)
As selected by Lee Bennett Hopkins, poets including X. J. Kennedy, Alice Schertle, and Kristine O’Connell George celebrate Nasty Bugs. Kids who love bugs for their yuck factor will appreciate these verses about lice, ticks, bedbugs, stink bugs, cockroaches, and more. Will Terry’s luridly vivid illustrations show the anthropomorphic critters up-close and personal. Three pages at the back provide scientific information about each bug. (6–8 years)
Five Questions for Paul O. Zelinsky
Z Is for Moose written by Kelly Bingham, illus. by Paul O. Zelinsky, Greenwillow, 4–8 years.
Perfect animal shenanigans
Animal Masquerade by Marianne Dubuc, trans. by Yvette Ghione, Kids Can, 2–5 years.
Silly Goose’s Big Story by Keiko Kasza, Putnam, 2–5 years.
Ballerina Swan written by Allegra Kent, illus. by Emily Arnold McCully, Holiday, 3–6 years.
No Bears written by Meg McKinley, illus. by Leila Rudge, Candlewick, 3–6 years.
Bug books
The Beetle Book by Steve Jenkins, Houghton, 5–8 years.
Busy Builders by Roxie Munro, Cavendish, 6–9 years.
UnBEElievables: Honeybee Poems and Paintings by Douglas Florian, Beach Lane/Simon, 5–8 years.
Nasty Bugs selected by Lee Bennett Hopkins, illus. by Will Terry, Dial, 6–8 years.
Middle-grade mysteries
The Case of the Deadly Desperados by Caroline Lawrence, Putnam, 8–12 years.
Two Crafty Criminals!: And How They Were Captured by the Daring Detective of the New Cut Gang by Philip Pullman, illus. by Martin Brown, Knopf, 8–12 years.
Fake Mustache: Or, How Jodie O’Rodeo and Her Wonder Horse (and Some Nerdy Kid) Saved the U.S. Presidential Election from a Mad Genius Criminal Mastermind by Tom Angleberger, illus. by Jen Wang, Amulet/Abrams, 8–12 years.
Rebel Fire by Andrew Lane, Farrar, 9–13 years.
YA sci-fi and fantasy you’ve been waiting for
A Million Suns by Beth Revis, Razorbill/Penguin, 12 years and up.
Bitterblue by Kristin Cashore, Dial, 14 years and up.
0 Comments on Books mentioned in the May 2012 issue of Notes from the Horn Book as of 1/1/1900
