Newbery books will win new readers

The four titles in Houghton/Sandpiper's welcome Newbery Collection boxed set (September) seem to belong together: Lois Lowry’s Number the Stars, Scott O’Dell’s Island of the Blue Dolphins, Linda Sue Park’s A Single Shard, and Elizabeth Speare’s The Witch of Blackbird Pond.

The publisher may have grouped these winners together simply because they’re all historical fiction. But their affinities go beyond that: they each contain sustained adventure or intrigue, moments of heroism, and an unusual depth of feeling, all channeled through a singularly relatable, empathetic main character. Can’t you just picture the avid readers, the introspective ten- and eleven-year-old girls eager to experience the wider world, who will gobble these books up? This collection may have been produced to spur sales, but it should also win hearts.

—Martha Parravano

Queen of the fake-out

“Nothing in Rosewood is ever really over,” reads the first page of Twisted (Harper Teen, July), the ninth book in Sara Shepard’s Pretty Little Liars series. No kidding. Back in 2006, the Horn Book Guide’s review of the kick-off volume refers to Pretty Little Liars as the “first book in a planned series of four” (wrong). After that, not once, not twice, but three times have we described the book-just-before-a-new-one as the concluding volume. Most recently we say (in reference to 2010’s Heartless and Wanted): “Readers say goodbye to the PLLs in these final books of the series… Wanted introduces the final, crucial plot twist.”

In our own defense, that plot twist was a doozy; it really did seem like a wrap-up. However, I can’t deny that this whole thing is our own fault; after each story, a concluding missive by “A” tantalizingly warns readers that more mayhem could be on the horizon. From now on we’re taking that to heart, especially since the end of Twisted is so definitive: “Did you really think it was over?...Stick with me, kids. It’s about to get so good…”

Sara Shepard, can you pretty please whisper in the Guide’s ear how many books in this series you plan to write? I’d like to believe, as The Who song goes, “We won’t get fooled again.” However, I’m sure you—and “A”—have some tricks up your sleeve.

While waiting for the inevitable book 10 (titled Gullible, perhaps?), series fans can keep their memories sharp by rereading Wicked through Wanted, newly available in a paperback box set. They can also feel smug about spoilers by watching the TV show, an Entertainment Weekly guilty-pleasure darling.

—Elissa Gershowitz

Alanna redux

As a Horn Book intern, I’m on the Out of the Box frontlines: I open the boxes and see what’s in them first. I recently came across the new paperback edition of Tamora Pierce’s The Woman Who Rides like a Man (left), the third book in the Song of the Lioness Quartet (Simon and Schuster, April). As a fan of the series, I was taken aback by the new cover, which features a photographed Alanna, the protagonist of the series, with magenta-dyed hair, in modern clothes and makeup, and flanked by two teenage boys. The Alanna I picture is a combination of my own imagination and Joyce Patti’s softly illustrated cover portraying a ginger-haired heroine (1997 Random House edition, right).

My discomfort with this new edition lies not in the decision to change the cover image, but with my worry that the new art does not accurately represent the story to a new generation of readers. If I were unfamiliar with the plot—about newly knighted Alanna’s journey to Tortall’s desert and her capture and acceptance by the Bloody Hawk tribe—I would guess from the new cover that it‘s about a contemporary teenage girl who has a magic pendant and is caught in a love triangle a lá Twilight.

Looking at this edition reminds me of some of my other favorite books that have been reissued with new covers, some of which I’ve grown to appreciate (the 2007 edition of Natalie Babbitt’s The Search for Delicious)

and some of which I have not (any post-Trina Schart Hyman editions of Patricia C. Wrede’s The Enchanted Forest Chronicles).

Which original cover art do you think shouldn’t be tampered with? Which new covers are welcome updates?

—Kazia Berkley-Cramer

Author Jay Asher in EW

Jay Asher and his YA bestseller Thirteen Reasons Why are featured in the new Entertainment Weekly, just in time for the novel's paperback release today. I read Thirteen Reasons Why shortly after it came out in 2007 and found it powerful; I'm not surprised that it has gained such a strong following. (I do have to wonder whether EW came up with article's title—"How This Guy's Mystery Novel is Saving Teen Lives"—before or after the recent "YA is too dark" vs."YA saves" brouhaha, though.)

In addition to discussing the inspiration for Thirteen Reasons Why, its impact on readers, and the upcoming film version, the article touches on Jay's latest project: a collaboration with Carolyn Mackler. Titled The Future of Us, the novel is about two teens in 1996 who somehow access the Facebook profiles they will have 15 years in the future. The book won't be out until November, but the movie adaptation rights to The Future of Us were recently acquired by Warner Bros.

While I have a hard time feeling any nostalgia for the dial-up internet of the '90s, I'm intrigued by the premise of The Future of Us. Social media profiles are pretty skewed representations of ourselves—it'll be interesting to see how accurately they predict the future for these characters.

—Katie Bircher

App Smackdown

Eileen Christelow’s Five Little Monkeys Jumping on the Bed (HMH) and Sandra Boynton’s The Going to Bed Book (Little Simon) are probably on most toddlers’ bookshelves. How do the app versions of these popular titles compare to the books and to each other?

Oceanhouse Media’s Five Little Monkeys takes the high road. Less about bells and whistles and more about improving reading skills, this app features unobtrusive monkey noises and other sound effects accompanying static illustrations. Tap objects on the screen and the word for said object appears briefly along with the narrator saying “pajamas!” or “ice pack.” Does that feature “promote reading in young children” (per OM’s website)? I’m no reading specialist, but I wonder why we need to "promote reading" among this book's audience. Read to your bunny, sure, but work on word recognition? Way to suck the life out of a good storytime. Even if the narrator wasn’t irritatingly chipper (which she is), I found this good-for-you route to be dull -- no improvement over or substitute for the old-fashioned book or audio book. And if you choose to turn off the narrator, why not just pick up the book, which is easier for little hands to hold anyway?

Loud Crow Interactive, in my admittedly limited experience with these things, knows how to produce book apps (check out their Peter Rabbit -- it’s superb), honoring the original book while adding just the right amount of special-effects pizzazz. With Sandra Boynton’s The Going to Bed Book, I'll even go so far as to say that Loud Crow’s digital interpretation is superior to the print edition. Blasphemy? I guess that depends on what you feel a book app should be. I’m not suggesting that this app replace the book, because once a child is distracted with rocking the boat, popping bubbles, and wiping steam off the screen (totally cool) they're not going to pay much attention to Boynton's verse. Speaking of which, Billy J. Kramer’s soothing, accented narration and the quiet, gentle background music enhance the whole experience. Like Oceanhouse, Loud Crow’s app highlights each word in the text as it’s being read, a harmless if pointless exercise for the board-book set. Here, however, when you slide out an onscreen drawer, instead of hearing and seeing the word drawer, a bunch of pajamas pop out of the drawer and fall all over the screen. Tip the screen side to side and the jammies tumble to the left and the right. Just the kind of surprise this audience likes, and just the kind of thing that apps do best.

-- Kitty Flynn

The board Book of Sleep

Knopf recently released a board book version of Il Sung Na's The Book of Sleep. In the original edition, a playful and spare text accompanies sweet illustrations that, upon closer look, contain a multitude of textural and illustrative details (including the protagonist owl as a search-and-find character on spreads where another character takes center stage). An engrossing and calm nighttime read, The Book of Sleep can withstand many re-readings.

The board book adaptation is a somewhat different story. Because the original encourages many readings, the concept of translating this book into sturdy board format seems a good one. The book suffers no abridgment in its new form and remains its whole, satisfying self. What does suffer in the new format is Na's multimedia mastery and tiny details in the illustrations. Compared to the picture book's 10" x 10" trim size, the 6" x 6" size of the new board book significantly reduces the images and, accordingly, their detail. While you might think that the glossy paper-over-board should make the details pop more than does the matte paper of the original, all of the art is instead much darker, forcing a loss of richness in both texture and depth.

A lap-sized edition would have been a better choice, allowing parent and child to share the book for bedtime read-alouds. It's difficult to imagine the toddler who needs a copy of The Book of Sleep durable enough for repeated solitary readings, especially when the tiny details that Na renders so beautifully are nearly invisible.

-- Natasha Gilmore