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.

New Blog?

By all accounts there appears to be a new blog in town. I was sifting through my Galleycat and found the following bit o' info regarding Publisher's Weekly's revamped website; "The jury's still out on the other blogs, though Alison Morris's "ShelfTalker" can no doubt feed into the growing children's lit blog presence and market."

Growing kidlit blog presence? Why that applies to me!

So I hopped on over and saw that this Alison Morris person writes mighty well. Mighty. She has a piece (only one) in which she discusses the weird trend currently going on where publishers will change not just the cover but the NAME of a youth novel when it goes from hardcover to paperback.

The three novels I’ve recently purchased for our store that were apparently (in the eyes of their publishers) lamed by their own names are: Naughts and Crosses by Malorie Blackman, now appearing in paperback as Black and White; Gideon the Cutpurse by Linda Buckley-Archer, soon to appear in paperback as The Time Travelers; and Olivia Kidney and the Exit Academy by Ellen Potter, coming soon to a bookshelf near you as a paperback entitled Olivia Kidney Stops for No One.

Woah woah woah woah. They're renaming Gideon the Cutpurse? Children, if you didn't read that book last year it was one of the finest children's fantasies of 2006. Beautiful cover too (we'll forgive Ms. Morris for putting it down). This trend seriously disturbs me to the core of my soul and I didn't even know it was going on. And that, in essence, is why a Publisher's Weekly kidlit blog is going to turn out to be mighty important. Let's all keep our eye on this one for a while, shall we?

Thanks to Galleycat for the link.