Your July/August Horn Book Review

The most recent The Horn Book carried the Newbery and Caldecott Medal acceptance speeches. Now, I have read the text of speeches and enjoyed them. But I thought I'd skip award acceptance speeches. They just seem like long, awkward ways to say thank you.

Then I noticed that the Newbery speech was by Lynne Rae Perkins. Lynne Rae Perkins, I thought. Shouldn't I know that name?

Of course, I should have. She wrote Criss Cross, which I totally loved. So, of course, I had to read her speech. My favorite lines:

"But writers write because they want to connect." Yes!

"It takes two people to make a book--a writer and a reader--" Yes, yes again!

Virgina Duncan, Perkins' editor, contributed an article about Perkins that made her sound exactly like the counter-culture-type I fantasized about becoming when I was young and didn't realize how great middle class life could be.

What was reviewed this issue?

Clay by David Almond, who also wrote Skellig

Gregor and the Marks of Secret by Suzanne Collins, who wrote all the other Gregor books

The Love Curse of the Rumbaughs by Jack Gantos

Aliens Are Coming!: The True Account of the 1938 War of the Worlds Radio Broadcast by Meghan McCarthy Seriously, when I was a kid I read anything I found about that radio broadcast. (This book was already reviewed at Bartography and A Fuse #8 Production, by the way.)