It's a happy mail day when the Horn Book Magazine shows up in my mailbox. The November/December 2016 issue came yesterday, the one with an illustration by Elisa Vavouri from Joel Edward Stein's A Hanukkah with Mazel (Kar-Ben, 2016) on the cover--it must be Mazel (and his cat) frying latkes. Lots of good things inside, too! Here's what caught my eye in this issue:

• A longer-than-usual list of starred reviews, including three middle-grade novels--The Inquisitor's Tale by Adam Gidwitz (Dutton), When the Sea Turned to Silver by Grace Lin (Little, Brown) and Cloud and Wallfish by Anne Nesbet (Candlewick)--that I like lots, too
• "An Interview with Deborah Ahenkorah: Torchbearer for African Children's Publishing" by Summer Edward, which also introduced me to the pan-African social enterprise Golden Baobab and Caribbean children's literature e-zine Anansesem
• Sarah Hannah Gómez's article "Decolonizing Nostalgia." SHG's childhood reading in the 90s (Betsy-Tacy, All-of-a-Kind Family, Little House) looked a lot like mine did in the 70s/80s
• Holiday High Notes. It's not too early!

What would you read first?