JLG selections shine in 2019 Boston Globe-Horn Book awards
By: Rhonda Mihalic | June 05, 2019 |
The 52nd-annual Boston Globe-Horn Book Awards (BGHB) were announced at the end of May, showcasing nine outstanding books—seven of which are JLG Gold Standard Selections!
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Tooting The Horn Book's Horn (and JLG's too)
By: Deborah B. Ford | June 01, 2017 | Shelf Life
Yesterday marked the beginning of the award season for 2017 titles. The Boston Globe-Horn Book Award winners were announced at School Library Journal's Day of Dialog in NYC. This award was first presented in 1967. A winner and two honor books were selected for each of the three categories: Nonfiction, Picture Book, and Fiction and Poetry. And the winners are... Read More
Egg-Cellent Books for Young Readers
By: Deborah B. Ford | April 26, 2017 | Shelf Life
Spring. Flowers and bunnies. Baseball and hotdogs. National Library Week. National Poetry Month. Earth Day. Tax Day. And book--spring releases are here! From stories about eggs that don't hatch to those that do, you won't want to miss what's coming for young readers. Read More
You've Got the Winners, Now What?
By: Deborah B. Ford | February 02, 2017 | Shelf Life
The Youth Media Awards for 2017 have been announced. Your favorites won. Your favorites lost. There were surprises. Is there anything out there to help sell the books to the winners? And if I already have the books, how can I get those shiny stickers to add to their marketing charisma? What about programming should that be part of what I do with these winners?
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What Makes a Good Picture Book?
By: Deborah B. Ford | December 07, 2016 | Shelf Life
Do you remember when The Invention of Hugo Cabret (Scholastic, 2007) won the medal? I recall being both delighted and shocked that a 500-plus-page novel could win a picture book award. After a little investigation, I learned that the Caldecott (like the Newbery) considers books for readers through age fourteen. Length of book is not a factor. Instead, a "picture book for children" is defined by the committee as something distinct from other books that have illustrations—it's one that "essentially provides the child with a visual experience." Read More
Reading, Writing and 'Rithmetic? What Makes a Good School Story?
By: Deborah B. Ford | August 24, 2016 | Shelf Life
Between back-to-school sales and the calendar itself, it's not terribly difficult to see that the end of summer is almost here. It's time for school to return to session. I remember when school ended at Memorial Day and restarted after Labor Day. Today's schools often go into July and resume in August. What happened to June, July and August? Read More
PPP- Lies, Spies, and All that Jazz Webcast
By: Deborah B. Ford | July 12, 2016 | Shelf Life
On today's webcast Roger Sutton and I talked about the Boston Globe Horn Book award winners. Celebrating its fiftieth year, winners of the award will be celebrated at a ceremony at Simmons College in Boston on September 30. The following day, a colloquium will be held. This event allows you to be "up close and personal" with the amazing authors and illustrators of these multi-award winning books. Here are the titles from today's webcast. Read More
There IS No Good Stopping Place: What Makes a Good Page Turner?
By: Deborah B. Ford | July 06, 2016 | Shelf Life
"If your teacher has to die, August isn't a bad time of year for it." (The Teacher's Funeral: A Comedy in Three Parts by Richard Peck; Dial, 2004) What kid isn't going to keep reading with an opener like that? You can read Richard Peck's Horn Book Magazine article "In the Beginning: What Makes a Good Beginning?" from the 2006 summer issue. And who wouldn’t keep reading if a chapter ended like this: “It wasn’t about saving us. And it wasn’t about enslaving us or herding us into reservations. It was about killing us. All of us.” (The 5th Wave by Rick Yancey; Putnam, 2013) Read More
And the Winners Are...Boston Globe Horn Book 2016
By: Deborah B. Ford | June 01, 2016 | Shelf Life
And you thought you'd have to wait for 7 months to pass before you heard a book win A Big Prize! Remember: The 2016 Boston Globe-Horn Book Awards will be announced on Thursday-- via video for the first time! --by Horn Book editor in chief Roger Sutton and Linda Pizzuti Henry, managing director of the Boston Globe. Check back at 11 a.m. Thursday, June 2. Read More
Roses are Red and Poems Don't Have to Rhyme: Celebrating Poetry All Year
By: Deborah B. Ford | April 25, 2016 | Shelf Life
As a college English major, I took plenty of literature courses. Short stories were read. Novels were pored over. Poetry was analyzed. In one class we dissected a poem, learning "exactly" what the writer from hundreds of years ago was saying. In a later course, I was delighted to revisit the same poem with a different instructor. Perfect, I thought, I already know just what the poem means. I quickly volunteered my vast knowledge and was told that I was absolutely wrong. "It means no such thing," the instructor adamantly declared. Read More
Stars So Far: JLG Webinar Series PPP
By: Deborah B. Ford | April 12, 2016 | Shelf Life
On today's webcast Leslie Bermel and I talked about 20 of the JLG selections that are getting the star buzz. With well more than 150 books to choose from, we had a tough time selecting our featured authors and illustrators. (So stay tuned to the summer webcast schedule.) Remember that in addition to providing you with great selections, we are building resources to help you use these titles. Check out the NEW JLG Spring 2016 Booktalks to Go LiveBinder for resources for these and other great JLG titles. JLG BTG titles are added to our Pinterest board and tweeted out by following Deborah B. Ford. Look for book trailers and archived webcasts on our JLG YouTube Playlist. This webcast will be archived and posted on the JLG website at a later date. Your certificate of attendance can be reprinted by watching the archived video for at least ten minutes. Read More
PPP-Webcast Debut Authors and Illustrators of 2016
By: Deborah B. Ford | March 17, 2016 | Shelf Life
On today's webcast Roger Sutton, Editor-in-Chief of The Horn Book, and I talked about some of the rising stars for the Class of 2016 for the spring season. With almost forty books to choose from, we had a tough time selecting our featured authors and illustrators. (Thanks again for joining us, Roger) If you haven't purchased your Horn Book subscription already, remember that JLG members get a discount on the journal. (It's a celebration of wonderful-must-be-purchased books!) Read More
Get to Know Spring's Hottest Debut Authors and Illustrators!
By: Deborah B. Ford | February 23, 2016 | Shelf Life
From a picture book about reading and surfing (What?!) to a middle grade novel about Manzanar, readers will love the new stories from the Debut Class of 2016. Can you guess which new writer or illustrator used to be in publishing? Which one had an award-winning novel? Which author has a collection of deerstalker caps? Which illustrator is an assistant professor of illustration in Detroit? Which author/illustrator works for The New Yorker? Which illustrator was born in India and now teaches second grade? Who is director of biodiversity and wildlife solutions at RESOLVE? Which author is fourteen-years-old? How can you find the answer to these and other burning questions? Read More