Horn Book - Now in Paper!

Roger Sutton poses the following query:

What could the Horn Book Magazine do better, or more of, or more interestingly? I always have this question running around in my mind (this is not necessarily a sign of dedication; it stems as much from my default anxiety as anything else) and I've come up with plenty of ideas that usually involve money we don't have. Like becoming a monthly, or printing in color, for example. Some ideas don't cost anything, but they do collide with Tradition: changing the logo, say, or making the magazine a standard size (which would actually save money).

Ix-nay on the ize-say ange-chay, I say.

Got me thinking though. What's a literary mag to do in this era of digital updates? In many ways Horn Book was ahead of the pack by having their own resident blogger. Publisher's Weekly and School Library Journal are following suit, but HB was the first of its kind in this respect. One wonders if Kirkus has thought much on the subject. What a blog THAT could be!

But in terms of the actual physical magazine you hold in your hand, I like how Roger has phrased this question. What can they do, "more of, or more interestingly?" You'd have to look to the adult equivalent of Horn Book to find an answer to this, perhaps. Worth thinking about, just the same. Brian Kenney of SLJ recently gave a talk at Dominican University (yay, my graduate degree's pseudo-alma mater!) entitled Does Print Still Matter?. Spoiler Alert: It does. His talk didn't concern itself specifically with SLJ's status in print, but in terms of the immediate future it may tie in nicely with Roger's query. And back and forth it goes.