Read Roger News Today

Dear friends: Today is my sixty-fifth birthday, and my present to myself (and maybe some of you!) is my retirement from the role of Editor in Chief of the Horn Book, Inc., effective December 31 of this year. Why? Because I’ve been at it for more than twenty-five years and it’s time for someone else to have a turn.

Everybody here at the Horn Book is deeply saddened by the death of Jerry Pinkney, a great Friend of the Horn Book for many decades.

Hello my long-neglected friends: What’s that sad excuse for an excuse we use nowadays? Oh yes: “…but LIFE got in the way.” That. Sorry I have been absent from your inboxes these past several weeks. (I’m reminded of how Joan Didion would begin letters that had lain too long unanswered: “During my absence from the country these past eighteen months…”).

David Proeber / The Pantagraph (Pool) The last of five former officials charged with misconduct related to their oversight of Bloomingtons city-owned arena pleaded guilty to misdemeanor theft on Friday and agreed to pay $20,500 restitution to the city. Bart Rogers, 50, who served as general manager of what was formerly known as U.S. Cellular Coliseum, was among a group of staff named in more than 100 indictments accusing them of theft, money laundering, tax evasion and other felony charges...