A Family of Readers

Many thanks to the folks at the Horn Book, who recently sent me a copy of A Family of Readers: The Book Lover's Guide to Children's and Young Adult Literature (Candlewick, 2010), signed by editors Roger Sutton and Martha V. Parravano. I've been dipping into A Family of Readers here and there since it arrived, concentrating on the chapters about genre, nonfiction, and Girl and Boy Books in Part Three: Reading on Their Own. Each section closes with a list of More Great books of that particular sort, and since I tend to like what the Horn Book likes (see: this year's Boston Globe-Horn Book Award winners), I'm usually either nodding my head in agreement or adding titles to my TBR list. [Roger and Martha were at Seven Impossible Things Before Breakfast when A Family of Readers first came out to note which new books they would have liked to include, too.]

On a related note, the Horn Book is starting a new blog, Calling Caldecott. A companion to SLJ's Newbery blog, Heavy Medal, Calling Caldecott will also run from early fall through the winter (basically award season for children's books). And now that I've taken KT Horning's Caldecott class, I hope to be able to contribute something to Calling Caldecott other than its name.

Why couldn't I have come up with something catchier when I named this blog, though?

Thank you, Greenwillow!

I was the lucky winner of this big box of Greenwillow books last December.  Can you see what's in there?  Everything from Kitten's First Full Moon by Kevin Henkes, winner of the 2005 Caldecott Medal, to The Thief by Meghan Whalen Turner, which won a Newbery Honor in 1997.  I read Turner's Attolia books, of which The Thief is the first, for the first time last year (no, I have no idea why I waited so long), and it was definitely a Peak Reading Experience--sort of a combination of Dorothy Dunnett's House of Niccolo books and C.S. Lewis's Til We Have Faces.  The latest, A Conspiracy of Kings (2010), is my favorite in the series.

But my very favorite Greenwillow book is this one: The Hero and the Crown by Robin McKinley. It was the first book I bought in hardcover, probably before it won the Newbery in 1985 (my copy, a first edition, doesn't have the gold sticker); and it still sets the standard against which I judge high fantasy for young readers. By now I've read it so many times that I can remember certain passages and fragments of dialogue almost word-for-word: Aerin's centuries-long climb up the spiral staircase to Agsded's chamber; Aerin and Luthe (their final scene together is Martha Mihalick's favorite, too); the lovely last lines. Thank you, Greenwillow!

Sydney Taylor Book Award Blog Tour

Announcing:  The Sydney Taylor Book Award will be celebrating its 2010 gold and silver medalists and special Notable Book for All Ages with a Blog Tour, February 1-5, 2010.  I'm especially happy to be hosting Margarita Engle, author of Tropical Secrets: Holocaust Refugees in Cuba (Henry Holt, 2009), on Monday, February 1.  Tropical Secrets was the SBTA winner in the Teen Readers category; my regular readers already know that I think it's an outstanding book, haunting and ultimately hopeful.

The full schedule for the STBA Blog Tour appears on People of the Books, the official blog of the Association of Jewish Libraries.  I hope you'll join me on Monday for a short interview with Margarita, and then follow the tour throughout the week.  Thank you!

Booklights

There are a lot of great children's book blogs out there, but Booklights, the new children's book blog at PBS Parents, promises to be one of the best and brightest.  Booklights contributor Jen Robinson has the details:

"I [Jen] am delighted to announce the launch of a new children's book blog from PBS Parents, Booklights. Pam Coughlan (MotherReader), Susan Kusel (Wizards Wireless), and I will be working with Gina Montefusco from PBS, along with various guest contributors, to bring literacy and reading content to the PBS Parents audience. The goal of Booklights, in line with the goals that Susan, Pam, and I have for our personal blogs, is to help people to inspire a love of reading in children."

[Me again.]  Up for discussion now are Pam, Susan, and Jen's top ten picture book lists (see mine here, although it's up to 13 books and still missing a few).  Check them out!