Special Issue: Different Drummers March/April 2013 Volume LXXXIX Number 2 ® Features Barbara Bader 21 Z Is for Elastic: The Amazing Stretch of Paul Zelinsky A look at the versatile artist’s career. Roger Sutton 30 Jack (and Jill) Be Nimble: An Interview with Mary Cash and Jason Low Independent publishers stay flexible and look to the future. Eugene Yelchin 41 The Price of Truth Reading books in a police state. Elizabeth Burns 47 Reading: It’s More Than Meets the Eye Making books accessible to print-disabled children. Columns Editorial Roger Sutton 7 See, It’s Not Just Me In which we celebrate the nonconforming among us. The Writer’s Page Polly Horvath and Jack Gantos 11 Two Writers Look at Weird Are they weird? What is weird, anyway? And will Jack ever reply to Polly? Different Drums What’s the strangest children’s book you’ve ever enjoyed? Elizabeth Bird 18 Seven Little Ones Instead Luann Toth 20 Word Girl Deborah Stevenson 29 Horrible and Beautiful Kristin Cashore 39 Embracing the Strange Susan Marston 46 New and Strange, Once Elizabeth Law 58 How Can a Fire Be Naughty? Christine Taylor-Butler 71 Something Wicked Mitali Perkins 72 Border Crossing Vaunda Micheaux Nelson 79 Wiggiling Sight Reading Leonard S. Marcus 54 Wit’s End: The Art of Tomi Ungerer A “willfully perverse and subversive individualist.” (continued on next page) March/April 2013 ® Columns (continued) Field Notes Elizabeth Bluemle 59 When Pigs Fly: The Improbable Dream of Bookselling in a Digital Age How one indie children’s bookstore stays SWIM HIGH ACROSS T H E SKY afloat. What Makes a Good…? Claire Gross 64 What Makes a Good YA Coming-Out Novel? Caldecott at 75 Kathleen T. Horning 73 Prayer for a Child and the Test of Time Second in a series on the Caldecott Medal at seventy-five—one winner per decade, here the 1940s. 100 From The Guide 143 Novels in Verse A selection of reviews from The Horn Book Guide. Cadenza Raina Telgemeier 152 My Life in Comics The creator of Smile and Drama shares her passion for her art form. 11 Reviews 81 Book Reviews 141 Audiobook Reviews Departments 5 March/April Starred Books 145 Impromptu 150 Index to Advertisers 151 Index to Books Reviewed Cover © 2013 by Paul O. Zelinsky. Page 1 art from The Beast of Monsieur Racine. 86 © 1971 by Tomi Ungerer. Greenwillow Books An Imprint of HarperCollinsPublishers 2 The Horn Book Magazine March/April 2013 A Media Source Company Editor in Chief: Roger Sutton Executive Editor: Martha V. Parravano Starred Books Senior Editor: Elissa Gershowitz March/April 2013 Editorial Assistant: Cynthia K. Ritter Marketing & Editorial Assistant: One Gorilla Katie Bircher (Candlewick) by Anthony Browne (page 82) Principal Reviewers: Jennifer M. Brabander Have You Seen Betty Carter Sarah Ellis My New Blue Socks? Danielle J. Ford (Clarion) by Eve Bunting; Christine M. Heppermann illus. by Sergio Ruzzier (page 82) Jonathan Hunt Susan Dove Lempke My Father’s Arms Are a Boat Joanna Rudge Long (Enchanted Lion) by Stein Erik Lunde; Dean Schneider illus. by Øyvind Torseter (page 87) Robin L. Smith Online Content Editor: Elissa Gershowitz The Dark Executive Editor, Horn Book Guide: (Little, Brown) by Lemony Snicket; Kitty Flynn illus. by Jon Klassen (page 91) Assistant Editor, Horn Book Guide: Katrina Hedeen Benjamin Bear in “Bright Ideas!” (Toon/Candlewick) by Philippe Coudray (page 97) Editorial Assistant, Horn Book Guide: Shara Hardeson Maggot Moon Designer & Production Manager: (Candlewick) by Sally Gardner; Lolly Robinson illus. by Julian Crouch (page 100) Advertising Sales Representative: Al Berman Penny and Her Marble Circulation Director: (Greenwillow) by Kevin Henkes (page 104) James Marinaccio Yaqui Delgado Wants to Kick Your Ass President: Randall J. Asmo (Candlewick) by Meg Medina (page 114) Publisher: Ian Singer VP Marketing: Andrew Thorne Midwinterblood Business Manager: Rosalie Schweitzer (Roaring Brook) by Marcus Sedgwick (page 118) The Horn Book, Inc. 56 Roland St., Suite 200, Boston MA 02129 Hoop Genius: tel: 888-628-0225 • fax: 617-628-0882 How a Desperate Teacher and a [email protected] • www.hbook.com Rowdy Gym Class Invented Basketball . Illustrations © 2013 by Jon Klassen.. Illustrations © 2013 by (Carolrhoda) by John Coy; Volume LXXXIX Number 2 illus. by Joe Morse (page 134) The DarkThe March/April 2013 The Horn Book Magazine 5 Editorial THE AMAZING WORLDS OF NIC BISHOP See, It’s Not Just Me In an era in which books want to have sequels, sequels want to spawn series, series want to be like that other guy’s series, and those other guys become fewer and fewer as publishing consolidates itself, we thought it might be nice to take a time-out in favor of the outliers. Welcome to the Horn Book’s special issue on Different Drummers, in which we celebrate the odd, the marginalized, the independent, and the otherwise nonconforming among us. Business as usual, you might think, in an industry that just gave its two big- gest awards to books about a finger-painting gorilla and a larcenous fish—and you might have a point. As we planned the issue, I had what I thought was a clever idea to somehow graphically denote the reviews herein of books that we thought embodied and/or celebrated difference. Maybe we could have stickered ★ “Brilliant.” ★“Riveting.” ★“Intriguing.” them with a little Horn of Gondor or something. But that quickly revealed —School Library Journal, starred review —Booklist, starred review —Booklist, starred review itself as a ridiculous idea: notwithstanding the nine YA novels with one-word 978-0-545-20638-9 978-0-545-20634-1 978-0-439-87758-9 titles, the review section is bristling with nonconformity. Kittens in hard hats, rabbits on skates, a boy with twelve fingers, a wereopossum, and all manner of supernaturally or scientifically enhanced young heroes populate the picture book and fiction reviews; pioneers such as Tito Puente, Anne Carroll Moore, Elizabeth Blackwell, and Igor Stravinsky are subjects of books reviewed in the nonfiction section. Children’s literature takes all kinds. (In “Different Drums,” short pieces scattered throughout the issue, our contributors tell you about some of the strangest.) What this issue is aiming at are the books, the readers, the writers and artists, and the publishers who stand out from even the given otherness of our profes- sion. Polly Horvath and Jack Gantos address the accusation of being weird. Bar- bara Bader and Leonard S. Marcus allow Paul O. Zelinsky and Tomi Ungerer to let their freak flags fly. In an industry that survives by cannibalism, Elizabeth Bluemle, Mary Cash, and Jason Low discuss staying out of the pot. Liz Burns ★“Stunning.” ★“Irresistible.” ★“Dazzling.” and Claire Gross and Eugene Yelchin talk about books for kids who are per- —Booklist, starred review —Horn Book, starred review —School Library Journal, starred review fectly not-weird but whose way to reading may be complicated by circumstances 978-0-439-87757-2 978-0-439-87755-8 978-0-439-87756-5 weirder than they should be. As far as reading itself goes, it’s both a community and a private—sometimes Each: Ages 4–8 SCHOLASTIC™ Scholastic Inc. scholastic.com 48 pages • $17.99 March/April 2013 The Horn Book Magazine 7 CELEBRATING OUR secret—activity. Certainly, children of all stripes and sizes read in public with- out shame, and certain books foster social inclusion and even cachet. I remem- AWARD WINNERS ber our CEO Randy Asmo telling me how his son became king for a day at school by having scored an early copy of the latest Wimpy Kid title, and while I’m slightly squicked-out by the willingness of people to read Fifty Shades Freed on the subway, right out there for anyone to see, I admire their nerve. This is conventional reading in the best sense—books that tell the rest of the tribe that you’re keeping up and paying attention. At other times, we read as a way to distinguish ourselves, to commune with those parts of the self that don’t seem to keep pace with the daily parade. Ironi- cally, but of course, we discover by reading that there is in fact at least one other person who knows exactly how we feel. (There’s a great portrait of this kind of reading in Jo Walton’s Among Others, an adult book I’ve recently been urging upon everyone, my private reading become call to the faithful.) Independence is one thing, alienation is another; reading keeps the latter at bay while allowing the former to flourish. roger sutton Caldecott Honor Winner Newbery Honor Winner Batchelder Geisel Award Winner Award Winner Coretta Scott King Coretta Scott King Sibert Honor Winner Illustrator Honor Winner Author Honor Winner Penguin Young Readers Group penguinclassroom.com PenguinClassroom @PenguinClass The Writer’s Page Two Writers Look at Weird by Polly Horvath and Jack Gantos From: Polly Horvath To: Jack Gantos Roger wants us to answer this: “People—some people—say your books are weird. Do you think your books are weird?” This is what I plan to say. No, I don’t think my books are weird, filmmakers would waste their time and it hurts my feelings when people making such a weird little film. say they are. I was particularly hurt I settled in anyhow because I wanted recently when someone described one a place to sulk and frame responses of my books as “weird even for her.” to “weird even for her.” I figured I’d Right after reading that comment, just ignore the movie. But to my great I sat down to watch O Brother, Where surprise, I no longer found the movie Art Thou?It wasn’t really my choice.