National Book Award Winners

The National Book Award Winners were announced this month! They have a Young People's Literature category--it usually skews very YA, and this year is no exception.

Winner:
Phillip Hoose, Claudette Colvin: Twice Toward Justice

Finalists:
Deborah Heiligman, Charles and Emma: The Darwins’ Leap of Faith
David Small, Stitches
Laini Taylor, Lips Touch: Three Times
Rita Williams-Garcia, Jumped

All the books look like excellent choices for older teens. Claudette Colvin tells the story of the black teenager who was arrested for not giving up her seat to a white person--months BEFORE Rosa Parks did the same thing.

Charles and Emma looks at Charles Darwin's process of writing The Origin of Species from a new angle: how his beloved wife's Emma's Christian faith affected how he wrote about his ideas.

Stitches is a little controversial on this list because it was released as an adult title, not a YA; some people felt it was promoted as a YA book to the NBA committees because as a graphic novel, it had a better chance of winning in the Young People's category. The fact remains that it is a hard-hitting account of children's illustrator David Small's difficult childhood and emancipation as a young teen.

Lips Touch is not yet in Prospector, but you can get it at Douglas County. 3 novellas, linked by their fantasy genre and their shared kissing motif. I stayed up way too late reading them.

Jumped is a story about teen girl violence and the decisions that go into standing up--or not--to a bully. One girl decides to beat up another after school, and a third overhears. Should she warn the second girl? Should she get involved?

Beyond the Newbery

FYI, I'm teaching a class next week about children's and young adult literature awards. It's held on Wednesday, December 9 at Support Services. It's a fun class, and if you can't squeeze into this month's session, it is offered again on February 17, 2010.

Award lists are great readers' advisory tools. Here's the course objectives:

By the end of the training the learner will:
1. Be familiar with awards for fiction, picture books, non-fiction, poetry, and media
2. Be able to use award lists for professional development, collection development, reader’s advisory, and promotion
3. Be able to deal with issues regarding purpose, authority, inclusion, eligibility, quality, and availability
4. Be knowledgeable of booktalks of recent award winners
5. Be able to demonstrate how s/he can utilize useful resources

Tomas Rivera Award

I am so late to the party, since Hispanic American Heritage Month ended on Thursday, but here's the winners of this year's Tomas Rivera Award. This award is specifically for authors and illustrators who write about and show the Mexican-American experience in their works.

Database of Award Winning Children's Literature

I just taught my new-and-improved version of Beyond the Newbery, which is a class for staff on all the children's and teen youth literature awards. Next one is in December! Anyway, I was reminded (after the class, of course) about the great online resource The Database of Award Winning Children's Books and thought I'd remind you guys as well.

This site has a searchable database of over 70 award lists. You can look for award winners by setting, historical period, suggested age of the reader, race/ethnicity, all sorts of things. When you get a teacher who wants to read a good book to their class, you can point them here and see what comes up.

Inside Look at the Newbery Process

I just discovered (via a post from SLJ on Twitter) a blog from the University of Arizona, Worlds of Words: Currents. It is "a blog dedicated to current events, research, and issues pertaining to the use, publication, and reviews of children's and adolescent literature."

They recently had a 4 part interview with Nick Glass of TeachingBooks.net, about his experiences on last year's Newbery Committee.

Part 1: What's it like serving on the Newbery Committee? What is the process?
Part 2: About The Graveyard Book and the "popular v. distinguished" Newbery discussion.
Part 3: At this year's Awards Banquet, and thoughts on Neil Gaiman's acceptance speech.
Part 4: Is there a "Newbery" type of book?

New Award?

The folks over at readertotz would love to see an award created for the best board book for babies! Read a little more about why and vote for what it should be called...

Do you think there are too many awards? How do having awards fit in with the reality of publishing today? Do you like awards?

I have a "Beyond the Newbery" class scheduled for August 19--if you'd like to learn more about youth literature awards and see some recent winners, ask your supervisor for time to attend!

SOS BBYA!

Breaking news! Apparently YALSA is going to consider whether to stop publishing the Best Books For Young Adults annual list, in favor of a more reader's-choicy type of award or list.

This is so alarming! There is no other list, in ALA or elsewhere, that seeks to publish such a robust collection of the best and the brightest from the wide spectrum of what is published for teens. (The Printz and Horn Book only highlight a few books, Quick Picks is concerned only with reluctant readers, etc; BBYA general cites up to 100 great books of all genres for all readers.) It is an incredibly valuable tool for librarians and teens alike!

Read this great defense of BBYA from YA author Alix Flinn, as well as commentary from Booklist. And if you feel really strongly, you can add comments for the committee to consider here.

It's Baaaaaaaaaaaaaaack!

Allen County Public Library just posted their first Mock Caldecott list of the year!

Evansville has their first quarter list up as well.

What have they missed so far? Go to our GoodReads Caldecott Hopeful shelf and add your favorites.

Fuse has her own "halfway there" predictions, too.

Boston Globe-Horn Book Awards

The 2009 winners were announced Tuesday for the Boston Globe-Horn Book Award! These award looks at books published from June 2008 to May 2009, which puts it on a slightly different schedule than many other awards.

It's a fairly prestigious award, and always interesting to see how it differs from the ALA winners.

Winner of Fiction and Poetry is Nation, by Terry Pratchett
Winner of Nonfiction is The Lincolns: A Scrapbook Look at Abraham and Mary, by Candace Fleming
Winner of Picture Books is Bubble Trouble, by Margaret Mahy

Read more and see the honor books here.

Colorado Children's Book Award

The winners of the 2009 Colorado Children's Book Award were announced. The 2009 winners are Bad Dog Marley and Diary of a Wimpy Kid, with runners-up The Perfect Nest and The Sea of Monsters.

Kids nominate and vote on this award each year. The 2010 nominees were also announced. I will feature them all on Tales Treehouse when a couple more are on order.

Yes, Another Award!

This time it's the Sydney Taylor Award! This award is given by the Association of Jewish Librarians to outstanding books for children that authentically portray the Jewish experience. It's named after the author of The All-of-a-Kind Famiy books, which were pretty much the first mainstream children's fiction titles about a Jewish family.

This year's winner for Older Readers is Brooklyn Bridge, about a 14-year-old immigrant boy, in 1903 Brooklyn, whose life changes completely after his parents invent the teddy bear. (Based on a true story!)

Check out the full list here.

Happy Valentines Day!

Celebrate with an award winner: The Cybils were announced today!

"Cybils" is a loose acronym for "Children's and Young Adult Bloggers' Literature Awards." It was developed a few years ago to try to combine "kid appeal" AND literary quality in one award, so as you might expect, their finalists and winners don't always match those of awards like the Newbery, Printz, or National Book Awards. However, this year's Middle-Grade Fiction award goes to...The Graveyard Book!

I think it's a neat list to keep an eye on, in part because of all the categories: Easy Readers, Fantasy & Science Fiction, Fiction Picture Books, Graphic Novels, Middle Grade Fiction, Non-fiction Picture Books, Non-fiction: Middle Grade & Young Adult, Poetry, and Young Adult Fiction.

Kidlitosphere Central

Here's a great resource to bookmark!

Introducing Kidlitosphere Central, one-stop shopping for more youth literature blogs than you ever knew existed.

Don't want to keep your own blogroll or reader? Check the Members page from time to time and pick a blog, read a few entries, and see what people are talking about.

Curious about what's happening in the virtual world of children's literature? Read about annual events, resources, and competitions on the Resources page.

Can't wait to hear which books win the Cybils Awards? There's a page for that, too.

And if you absolutely need another blog to read, Kidlitosphere Central has its own, for news and notes about the children's book world.

Colorado Blue Spruce YA Book Award

The Blue Spruce book award for 2009 was announced!

It's Eclipse, by Stephenie Meyer!

The Blue Spruce is special, because unlike many other state youth readers' choice awards, adults neither nominate titles, nor vote for the winners. The whole process is in the hands of the teens from start to finish.

Want to see what teens choose when they're voting for the best books? Look at the list of past winners, or the 2010 nominees. Any surprises?

The Rainbow List

Right on the heels of the big ALA awards comes the announcement of the 2nd annual Rainbow List!

The Rainbow Project is a joint undertaking of the Gay, Lesbian, Bisexual, and Transgendered Round Table and the Social Responsibilities Round Table of the American Library Association. The annual Rainbow List presents current well-written and/or well-illustrated books, with significant and authentic GLBTQ content, which are recommended for people from birth through eighteen years of age.

Check out the titles on the 2009 list here.

Uncle Bobby's Wedding is included in the picture book section, as expected, but I am most intrigued by 10,000 Dresses...which is a picture book about a transgendered child!

Stories about transgender individuals are rare enough for teens (or even adults) so a picture book is a real step forward for inclusive literature. Boulder Public Library has a couple of copies in process right now, so as soon as I can I will order it & have a look.

Take a look at the list--you'll be ready when someone asks for help with this topic.

The Rainbow List joins The Lambda Literary Awards as a way to formally recognize & celebrate LGBTQ literature. The Lambda Awards will be announced in May, and include a Children's/Young Adult category: check here for winners in all categories for the last few years.

Happy Awards Day!

The ALA Youth Media Awards were announced this morning!

The Graveyard Book by Neil Gaiman, won the Newbery.

There were four Newbery Honors: The Underneath, The Surrender Tree, Savvy, and After Tupac and D Foster.

The House in the Night, illustrated by Beth Krommes and written by Susan Marie Swanson, won the Caldecott.

Of the 3 Caldecott Honors and 1 Medal winner, three of those titles were on our online Caldecott Hopeful poll! (How I Learned Geography and A Couple of Boys Have the Best Week Ever were the other honors on our poll, plus A River of Words, which we didn't pick.)

Full award info:

ALSC award list

Coretta Scott King awards

Ooops, forgot YALSA (including the new Morris award, for first-time YA author)

Horn Book has a nice round up.

Off the Cuff

The Cuffies were announced! Every year Publishers Weekly asks booksellers for their top picks in a number of categories. So...who won "Favorite Book Jacket"? What was the "Book You Couldn't Shut Up About?" or the "Book You Wish Everyone Would Shut Up About"? Follow this link to find out!

National Book Awards

The National Book Awards were announced yesterday!

The National Book Awards were first given in 1950, with a Children's Literature category added in 1969. In the 80s, the number of categories proliferated (Children's Fiction, Hardcover; Children's Non-Fiction; Children's Picture Books, Paperback; etc.) until 1983 when, in order to preserve the impact of the awards, the categories were reduced to only 3, with no category for youth literature.

In 1996, however, a Young People's Literature category was reinstated! This is cool because the NBAs are very highly regarded. It's great to have youth literature recognized at this level again. The NBA in this category is mostly, but not always, awarded to books for older readers...kind of in the upper-Newbery-to-Printz range. There's a fair amount of overlap between all three awards.

A short list is selected each year, from which the finalist is chosen. This year's short list was:

Laurie Halse Anderson, Chains
Kathi Appelt, The Underneath
Judy Blundell, What I Saw and How I Lied
E. Lockhart, The Disreputable History of Frankie Landau-Banks
Tim Tharp, The Spectacular Now

And the winner is...Judy Blundell for What I Saw and How I Lied!

The Young People’s Literature judges this year were:
Daniel Handler (Mr. Lemony Snicket to you),
Holly Black (1/2 of the Spiderwick team),
Angela Johnson (tons of awards),
Carolyn Mackler (of the esteemed The Earth, My Butt, and Other Round Things), and Cynthia Voigt (a Grand Dame of children's and YA literature).

Who's read any of these yet? Let us know what you think!

CAL Report!

I'm standing in the CyberCafe at CAL, trying to process all my sessions! Yesterday, Kris Chipps, Virginia Brace, Lori Romero, Pam Grover, donna geesaman, and I presented a full-day pre-conference workshop: "The Early Literacy Storytime: Putting It All Together." We took the backbone of the 4 Early Literacy Storytime classes we developed for ALD and turned them into a one-day show. It was very cool. We had a nice turnout with youth services staff from all over the state. Plus we stayed on schedule the whole day! (I was impressed--that never happens when I present solo...)

Today and tomorrow I'm back...no more presenting, I just get to sit and listen to other sessions all day!

I heard Mary Dempsey's keynote this morning--she's the Commissioner of the Chicago Public Libraries, which is doing some amazing stuff in terms of revitalizing neighborhoods, investing in local communities, and extending opportunities to all kids. They are also VERY big on early literacy and working hard to get library cards to all families. Very inspiring! If they can do it in Chicago, surely we can do it in Denver and our much smaller towns and cities?

I also went to "How Extreme Is Too Extreme? Pushing the Limits of Young Adult Literature." We discussed the book Nick and Norah's Infinite Playlist (I will add the link later, I promise) and the place it and other "edgy" YA lit has in our collections as public and school libraries. Read the book and see what YOU think.

I heard a school librarian talk about "Family Nights: Bringing Community Together" and I am hopeful about starting to work with schools and preschools to partner with them to offer family activity nights (or afternoons...or breakfasts! Why not?) to families who might not be in the "library habit."

Paul Wember from Wember, Inc did a slide show that toured us through 10 Colorado/Wyoming libraries with new/newer building projects. (He showed Castlewood both before and after the remodel and it was all I could do not to raise my hand and go, "Hey! I do storytime in that room every week!" :) ) These are beautiful libraries with lots of intriguing ideas about display space, furniture, shelving design, all that. I really, really loved the mobile furniture: in some of the newer libraries, everything, tables, chairs, public computers, desks, study carrels, everything is on wheels and can be scooted to wherever the patrons need them.

I tucked into the last fifteen minutes of Carol Edward's talk on what it's like to be on the Newbery Committee--she served last year. It was overwhelming--they easily read, carefully and critically, between 200-450 books (or more) in the year they are on the committee. Makes my excuses about not keeping up with my reading seem kinda puny!

OK--that's it--that's what I did today. It was fun and I'd love to hear from you if you were here! What did you see? If you did NOT come to CAL, why not? Let us know that, too.

Aesop Award

The Aesop Award is given out by the Children's Folklore Section of the American Folklore Society, to a book of folklore (go figure).

This year's winner is ....Ain’t Nothing But a Man: My Quest to Find the Real John Henry, by Scott Reynolds Nelson, with Marc Aronson.

What I think is so cool about the award is that it's not just for a well-told tale, but for excellence in documenting and annotating where the story is from. The winning title should "accurately reflect the culture and worldview of the people whose folklore is the focus of the book" and that "folklore sources must be fully acknowledged and annotations referenced within the bound contents of the publication."

For years, all that critical stuff was virtually ignored in books for kids. There are still books in our folktales section that we have no idea whether they are genuine folktales or just a story the author made up and set in another country. Or books where we have no clue whether or not the author has some familiarity and understanding of the story's culture.

So I like to keep this list in mind when I'm working with teachers who are looking for folktales for their classrooms, since I know I can trust that the stories on this list have been properly researched and cited.

Aesop Accolades (runners up)
Dance in a Buffalo Skull. Told by Zitkala-Ša.
The Adventures of Molly Whuppie and Other Appalachian Folktales. Anne Shelby.