Boston Globe - Horn Book Awards 2009

Tuesday, June 2nd, 2009 Boston Globe-Horn Book Awards were announced. "Presented annually since 1967, the Boston Globe–Horn Book Awards reward excellence in children’s and young adult literature and are given in three categories: Fiction and Poetry, Nonfiction, and Picture Book."

Fiction and Poetry
Nation, by Terry Pratchett
Check out the Terry Pratchett video on Amazon.com

Nonfiction
The Lincolns: A Scrapbook Look at Abraham and Mary, by Candace Fleming

Picture Book
Bubble Trouble, by Margaret Mahy

All three of the winning authors are widely renowned. Mr. Pratchett, perhaps best known for his raucous comic fantasies for children and adults, displays a philosophical bent with Nation, a young adult novel about two nineteenth-century children who create a new society from the ground up. Candace Fleming’s dual biography of the President and Mrs. Lincoln employs the intricate scrapbook format that distinguished her earlier Ben Franklin’s Almanac and Our Eleanor. Margaret Mahy, winner of the Hans Christian Andersen Award and a two-time recipient of Boston Globe–Horn Book Award honor book citations, has written scores of novels, easy readers, and picture books. Bubble Trouble, a tongue-twisting tale about an airborne baby, marks the New Zealander’s second collaboration with English illustrator Polly Dunbar.

Judges also selected two honor books for each category as well. In the fiction and poetry category; The Astonishing Life of Octavian Nothing, Traitor to the Nation, Volume Two: The Kingdom on the Waves, by M.T. Anderson and The Graveyard Book, by Neil Gaiman; in the nonfiction category The Way We Work, by David Macaulay and Almost Astronauts: 13 Women Who Dared to Dream, by Tanya Lee Stone; and in the picture book category, Old Bear by Kevin Henkes, and Higher, Higher, by Leslie Patricelli.

I was happy, and a bit smug, to find all of the books honored are part of the library juvenile collection (whew). If you are interested in more information about these awards, the Boston Globe-Horn Book Awards includes links to past and present award winners, audio and video of acceptance speeches, and criteria and submission guidelines.

Caldecott , Newbery & more

Falling under the category of better late than never, here are the Caldecott and Newbery Medal announcements from ALA:

John Newbery Medal for the most distinguished contribution to children’s literature. Neil Gaiman, author of “The Graveyard Book,” illustrated by Dave McKean and published by HarperCollins Children’s Books, is the 2009 Newbery Medal winner.

Four Newbery Honor Books were named: “The Underneath” by Kathi Appelt, illustrated by David Small, and published by Atheneum Books for Young Readers, an imprint of Simon & Schuster Children’s Publishing; “The Surrender Tree: Poems of Cuba’s Struggle for Freedom” by Margarita Engle and published by Henry Holt and Company LLC; “Savvy” by Ingrid Law and published by Dial Books for Young Readers, a division of Penguin Young Readers Group in partnership with Walden Media, LLC; “After Tupac & D Foster” by Jacqueline Woodson and published by G. P. Putnam’s Sons, a division of Penguin Books for Young Readers.

Randolph Caldecott Medal for the most distinguished American picture book for children. Beth Krommes, illustrator of “The House in the Night,” written by Susan Marie Swanson and published by Houghton Mifflin Company, is the 2009 Caldecott Medal Winner.

Three Caldecott Honor Books were named: “A Couple of Boys Have the Best Week Ever,” written and illustrated by Marla Frazee and published by Harcourt, Inc.; “How I Learned Geography,” written and illustrated by Uri Shulevitz and published by Farrar Straus Giroux; “A River of Words: The Story of William Carlos Williams,” illustrated by Melissa Sweet, written by Jen Bryant and published by Eerdmans Books for Young Readers, an imprint of Wm. B. Eerdmans Publishing Co.

- American Library Association Announces Literary Award Winners, 1/26/09

A quick look at the library catalog from home reveals we have the Newbery award winner and all but one of the honor books (After Tupac and D Foster); all are currently checked out and three of them have had holds placed on them. It never takes long for word to get out and requests to appear in the catalog. I've seen the Neil Gaiman title but not had the opportunity to read it.

We have the Caldecott winner and all but one of the honor books (River of Words). I have to admit though we have The House in the Night, I do not remember even seeing it come through technical services and cataloging. I will be interested to see it tomorrow (unless the person who checked out the book was not the cataloger).

YALSA announced their Alex Award winners as well and I will be ordering those tomorrow. Alex award winners are a bit harder to add into the collection as they fall in to several purchasing/budget categories, recreational, literature, and juvenile, some of which overlap. With general money I have opportunity to look at books for older young adults and starred reviews for recreational, but some lines within the purchasing hierarchy are not to be crossed. We do have Just After Sunset and Over and Under in the recreational collection. I have a bit of general funds remaining and will be able to purchase the other Alex winners.

Lastly, I will need to verify which of the Coretta Scott King winners need to be added to reserves, the author or the illustrator award titles. My best guess is the illustrator title, but it will take time as The Blacker The Berry was ordered just this morning. All of these titles were checked out today; if they are not being held for course reserves, the instructor made a quick trip to the library and checked out the books for her class today. Either way works as then she will be able to make the determination what gets added to her course reserve collection.

Not having read any of the above, at this point I can only report the winners. I guess those months of library web site work exacted it's toll in regard to my reading habits. Tomorrow I will post the results on the resource center and library blogs with links to our catalog.

Wonder what the children's literature blogosphere will have to say?

Live from Denver via Twitter

Had I been twittering all along, I would have had information in real time with the web cast. ALA has a Youth Media Award site, ALAyma Twitter, and the number of readers/followers (myself included) on the site jumped from 780 to 895 in the last five minutes. At this point things appear to have stalled a bit with an almost 20 minute lag with no information beyond the Laura Ingalls Wilder Award - congratulations Ashley Bryan.

I don't know about the other 900, oops 910, followers, but the twitter excitement has worn a bit thin for me. You can see the awards announced up to this point, including the Alex Awards and the Coretta Scott King Awards, on the ALAyma Twitter page.

ALA Live Webcast

I succumbed to the inevitable siren's call and visited the ALA web site at 9:45 am this morning. Prominently displayed on the main page was their live webcast for the Youth Media Awards; however the dial-up dinosaur kept me from viewing the actual announcement. I am now lurking between the ALA News & Press Center and the ALA home page for the web announcement to be posted ...

Followed by, It's my Sunday

The ALA Youth Media Award will be announced tomorrow morning @ 7:45 Mountain Time from Denver, Colorado and the 2009 midwinter meetings. I always envision the announcement in Groundhog Day terms when the members of the Groundhog Club grab Punxsutawney Phil from his warm dark home to pronounce six more weeks of winter (I think he's a bit spiteful). The committee will emerge from it's dark cave, er meetings, announce the winners, and set off a buying frenzy. Librarians who have not already purchased the titles will be logging in to their book seller of choice placing frantic orders.

Even though the announcement time translates roughly to 9:45 ET, tomorrow is my day off and I am not sure where I'll be. Curiosity will compel me to see if we have any of the winners at some point during the day. I do have a contingency plan in place, I've asked the technical services librarian to monitor the announcements. If we have the Caldecott winner she will pull it from the shelves so it may be placed on reserve for our children's literature class. I do not have any strong feelings about a particular children's book this year, or a prediction of any kind (though I did like three of our recent purchases Louise, The Adventures of a Chicken, Sour Puss and Sweetie Pie, and Too Many Toys) but two different SLJ articles predicted winners in March of 2008 and again in June 2008.

Here are a few of the awards to be announced tomorrow:

• Alex Awards
• Coretta Scott King Book Awards
• John Newbery Medal
• Michael L. Printz Award
• Pura Belpré Award
• Randolph Caldecott Medal
• Theodor Seuss Geisel Award

I need to email the technical services librarian and ask if she'll get the Coretta Scott King Award winner to place on reserve for the same children's literature class.

Chain win's O'Dell Award

Over at Read Roger,this year's Scott O'Dell Award for Historical Fiction winner has been announced; Chains by Laurie Halse Anderson.

Horn Book Magazine reviewed Chains in their 2008 November/December issue:

"Despite protests that her former owner’s will had freed them, Isabel Finch and her five-year-old sister Ruth are sold and shipped from Newport, Rhode Island, to New York City in May 1776. Their new owners are fierce Loyalists, and one young African American rebel sees Isabel as a potential spy: “You are a slave, not a person. They’ll say things in front of you they won’t say in front of the white servants. ’Cause you don’t count.” At first, Isabel isn’t keen to help: “I’m just fighting for me and Ruth. You can keep your rebellion.” But when she overhears her master’s scheme to kill George Washington, Isabel reports it to a Patriot colonel. The rebels foil the plot; Isabel, however, is forgotten. Finally, Isabel realizes that it’s up to her—and her alone—to find freedom. Anderson’s novel is remarkable for its strong sense of time and place and for its nuanced portrait of slavery and of New York City during the Revolutionary War. A detailed author’s note separates fact from historical fiction." - TANYA D. AUGER

For more information:

• Scott O'Dell Award
• Award (2009) Press Release
• Laurie Halse Anderson's web site
• Publisher's Weekly: Chains Wins Scott O'Dell Award
• School Library Journal: Chains Wins Scott O'Dell Award

I haven't read Chains, I did read and enjoy Andersons previous novel Twisted, but am pleased to report it is part of the library's juvenile collection. It's nice this was announced before the mother ship awards on Monday (it's not lost in the hoopla).

Announcements of ALA's Youth Media Awards are pending this weekend's midwinter meetings in Denver.

What controversy?

Surviving a hectic first week of classes filled with signing course "add" slips and my first evening shift, following busy ALA midwinter meeting travel, has kept me from posting about the meetings let alone talk about the ALA book awards. I spoke with several children's literature professors who were relishing the opportunity of controversy surrounding the Caldecott Award; but it has been minimal to non-existent. There has been discussion concerning the size of Hugo and YA appeal/readership, it was on the YALSA best books short/long list, but the worthiness of the illustrations for Caldecott recognition is wondrously absent (with good reason, have you seen the illustrations in this book? STUNNING!) Unless there is undue talk after the dust has settled, seems it was much ado about nothing.

Publisher's Weekly, specifically The Children's Book Shelf, posted interviews with Selznick and Schlitz regarding their wins; Selznick and Schlitz Discuss Their Award-Winning Books. Additionally, PW has an interesting piece from the book store prospective; Booksellers React to Top Children's Prizes.

I have yet to read the Newbery winner, our copy is out and a second copy on order, my thoughts regarding it are moot.

Caldecott blog notes

Lunchtime blogging provided me an opportunity to peruse my bloglines account and tag check what some of them are saying about the Caldecott award announcement. I am a bit surprised, and definitely pleased, to see very little significantly negative chatter regarding Hugo (even within some of the comments).

ALSC Blog: 2008 Youth Media Awards
Likely Stories - Booklist
Buried in the Slushpile: And the award goes to ...
Dulemba.com: ALA Award Announcements
The Winners: Read Roger
Eyes Behind the Prize: Shelftalker (PW)

Our copy of The Invention of Hugo Cabret has been placed on reserves for a children's literature class and a second copy has been ordered (as per our library policy regarding Caldecott and Newbery award books). This same class will be arriving next week to do a short Mock Caldecott session. In preparation for possible questions regarding the length of Hugo and age of intended audience as they apply to this title, I printed the Caldecott Terms & Criteria page that states, in part, three very pertinent things about the Caldecott:

1. A "picture book for children" as distinguished from other books with illustrations, is one that essentially provides the child with a visual experience. A picture book has a collective unity of story-line, theme, or concept, developed through the series of pictures of which the book is comprised.

2. A "picture book for children" is one for which children are a potential audience. The book displays respect for children's understandings, abilities, and appreciations. Children are defined as persons of ages up to and including fourteen and picture books for this entire age range are to be considered.

3. "Distinguished" is defined as: marked by eminence and distinction: noted for significant achievement; marked by excellence in quality; marked by conspicuous excellence or eminence; individually distinct - ALA/ALSC Caldecott Terms

The second criteria is one of note, "childrens are defined as persons of ages up to and including fourteen and picture books for this entire age range are to be considered." This criteria definitively opened the door for Hugo.

Let the discussion begin

This morning the biggies were announced, ALA children's book awards that is; Caldecott, Newbery,Printz, Coretta Scott King, and Geisel. I was not able to make the announcement ceremony at the convention center, time to pack and head to the airport. Even on the way to the airport, many librarians were part of the Monday mass exodus from Philadelphia, buzz centered around Caldecott Award winner The Invention of Hugo Cabret by Brian Selznick.

"From an opening shot of the full moon setting over an awakening Paris in 1931, this tale casts a new light on the picture book form. Hugo is a young orphan secretly living in the walls of a train station where he labors to complete a mysterious invention left by his father. In a work of more than 500 pages, the suspenseful text and wordless double-page spreads narrate the tale in turns. Neither words nor pictures alone tell this story, which is filled with cinematic intrigue. Black & white pencil illustrations evoke the flickering images of the silent films to which the book pays homage." - ALSC, Caldecott Medal Page 1/14/08

A personal favorite, I even bought the audio book and accompanying author DVD for the library, I feel the book is simply spectacular. Much of the discussion I overheard concerned it's hefty size and the break from traditional picture book (32 pages) stature. Some felt this would have been a better selection for the Newbery award, but when you take into consideration the illustrations in Hugo are an integral part of the story, removal of them would make it difficult for the text to stand alone. Regardless, I am anxious to see what various children's literature blogs have to say about this year's selection. It could be interesting.

Read the Press Release: ALA Announces Literary Award Winnersand view the Caldecott Medal Page.

ALA Award webcast

This sounds interesting, too bad I'll be either on the plane or headed to the airport when the announcement is made. I really should look at my travel plans soon.

ALA to provide live Webcast of top children/teen literary awards announcement January 14

"(CHICAGO) The American Library Association (ALA) will provide a free live Webcast of its national announcement of the top books, video and audiobooks for children and young adults - including the Caldecott, King, Newbery and Printz awards - on January 14 at 7:45 a.m. EST. The award announcements are made as part of the ALA Midwinter Meeting, which will bring together more than 10,000 librarians, publishers, authors and guests in Philadelphia from January 11 to 16."

Early lunch blogging: Collection development

Instructors at the university take advantage of the opportunity presented with library reserves, both electronic and book. One of the children's literature professors routinely places juvenile award book winners on reserve for class projects; included are Caldecott (10 years), Coretta Scott King, and in years past Children's Choice and Teacher's Choice from the International Reading Association. Each year in November, The Reading Teacher publishes an annotated list of these selections. This means each year in December I work with the reserves person, I search and pull the new titles and order additional selections as needed, she pulls the old titles and prepares the new titles for reserves. I also print out and bind hard copies of the award lists for the reserves student workers (saving wear and tear on our hard copy of the journal).

• Teacher's Choices 2007
• Children's Choices 2007
• Young Adults' Choices 2007

Though part of the IRA Choices booklist, the annotated copy of Young Adults' Choices is made available in the November issue of Journal of Adolescent & Adult Literacy.

What I need to accomplish this afternoon is note what we have, do not have, and/or need to add to the juvenile collection from these booklists. While not traditional collection development, this is a quick way to make sure the juvenile section has books that will definitely be used by students this spring (2008) and next fall (2008). Before I hit the ground running with this project, ordering titles, I have contacted the professor who teaches the children's literature class to verify she is indeed going to use these books for her course.

Lunch is early today, so I am multi-tasking making good use of time left before Christmas break begins tomorrow at noon!

National Book Awards

Paper Cuts: A Blog About Books, posted the 2007 National Book Award finalist list this morning. I gleefully scrolled down to the Young Peoples Literature category hoping for books I had either read and enjoyed, or at least had a passing familiarity with the title. Here is the young peoples literature finalists from the National Book Foundation:

• Sherman Alexie, The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian (Little, Brown & Company)
• Kathleen Duey, Skin Hunger: A Resurrection of Magic, Book One(Atheneum Books for Young Readers)
• M. Sindy Felin, Touching Snow (Atheneum Books for Young Readers)
• Brian Selznick, The Invention of Hugo Cabret (Scholastic Press)
• Sara Zarr, Story of a Girl (Little, Brown & Company)
  Young People’s Literature Judges: Elizabeth Partridge (chair), Pete Hautman, James Howe, Patricia McCormick, and Scott Westerfeld.

Of this list, I've only read The Invention of Hugo Cabret (and just got in the audio book and accompanying DVD!), and have purchased Story of a Girl and The Absolutely True Diary for the library. Hugo is a favorite of mine, so I naturally am hoping Brian Selznick wins the award. As with any other book award, there will be plenty of discussion concerning the selection and eventual winner.

Tags: Paper Cuts: A Blog about books, National Book Awards

ALA Conference: Children's & YA Literature Sessions

Due to poster presentations and scheduled ACRL and EBSS meetings I missed several of the author sessions scheduled during the course of the conference, most notably Judy Blume and Julie Andrews. I did attend three very good sessions, one on picture book collaboration, sponsored by the Association for Library Services to Children (ALSC), and two young adult literature presentations by the Young Adult Library Services Association (YALSA).

Collaborative Techniques Between Authors & Artists: The Inside Story of How Picture Books Are Created (ALSC) took place Saturday morning, 8:00 am - 10:00 am in the Convention Center. This panel discussion was moderated by Catherine Balkin of Balkin Buddies and featured three sets of well-known picture book author and illustrator collaboration partners; Eloise Greenfield and Jan Spivey Gilchrist, Eric Kimmel and Leonard Everett Fisher, and Patrick O’Brien and Kevin O’Malley. Each author and illustrator “team” fielded questions from moderator Balkin and offered not only prepared remarks on their art and writing, but also samples of works in progress. The panel was delightfully engaging and forthcoming about their techniques and partnership history. It was especially interesting to listen to Jan Spivey Gilchrist after just adding the vibrant book she co-illustrated, My America, to the library juvenile collection.

The Alex Award Winners 2007 (YALSA) session was held Saturday afternoon from 4:00 - 5:30 p.m. One of my favorite sessions last summer, I made sure to get this one on my schedule early on in the decision-making process. I was slightly disappointed that half of the session consisted of panelists reading their book talks for the 2007 award winners (especially when they were given to us in handout form), but speakers Ron Rash, author of 2007 Alex Award winner The World Made Straight, and Jeannette Walls, author of The Glass Castle (2006 winner) were definitely worth the wait.

Walls discussed how her life had changed since winning the Alex in 2006, specifically the acceptance and resiliency of young adults in regards to her memoir; where adults were horrified by her parents action in the books, teens were more understanding and willing to take the actions in stride. She recounted several touching moments where teens thanked her for writing the book and helping them understand they were not alone in dealing with this type of situation. I enjoyed hearing the update from Walls, especially after hearing her speak in NOLA last summer.

Rash began his portion of the program with an anecdote about his grandfather. As a child, he often went to his grandfather requesting a book to be read and the stories were fantastic, yet never the same. As he grew older, he realized the lack of story continuity was because his grandfather could not read, he was telling the story through pictures. Rash never forgot the magic of his grandfather’s storytelling. In this same manner, the afternoon session highlight was, when in storytelling tradition, Rash read a chapter from One Foot in Eden to the audience. It was a powerful rendition that held us enthralled with both the story and the author’s eloquence. You could have heard a pin drop in the room during the reading and when at the chapter’s conclusion he stopped, the collective sigh by a disappointed audience was indicative of being left wanting more. (This morning I requested a copy of the book so I could read it myself!) An extra perk for this session was a copy of the 2007 Alex Award winning title, The World Made Straight. It’s one more book that I have started reading.

The final children’s and/or young adult literature session I attended was Trend Setters in Teen Literature (YALSA), Sunday morning, 10:30 am to noon. This was a multi-pronged gathering featuring Holly Keolling, editor of the soon to be released (August) third edition of Best Books for Young Adults, and two separate panels of young adult authors and editors. I was most interested in Keolling’s portion of the session as she discussed different trends in YA literature and how they have changed since 2000. Specifically mentioned were the feminization of literature (even graphic novels), the maturation of teen readers and the topics they are attracted to reading, the current trend of adult authors writing specifically for the YA field, and the growing international flavor of YA literature. This morning I located an article Koelling mentioned during her presentation, “Ten Things that Tick Me Off!” by Peter D. Sieruta (Horn Book Magazine, March/April 2005). It’s an interesting statement regarding children’s literature trends from a reviewer’s point of view.

The window for conference posts is fast closing. I have one more ARC finished, ready to blog about, as well as Janet Evanovich’s Lean Mean Thirteen that I devoured on the plane (and finished in my hotel room Friday evening - before reading again). I’ll blather about the tech services session I attended on my other blog and post about ARC’s as I finish reading them over the next few weeks.

Books, books, and more books … isn’t life grand? It reminds me of a sweatshirt I have somewhere in the depths of my closet; so many books, so little time.

Tags: ALA Conference, YALSA conference sessions, YALSA, Children's literature, YA literature

The Floor of the Sky

It has been quite some time since I have posted about lunchtime reading. Not because of a lack of books, far from it, but I have really been looking for something that would hold my interest after I finished reading. Last week I perused the 2007 Alex Award winners in our collection, these books are generally shelved with the recreational books due to their content and the fact that we do not have a specific YA collection.

"The Alex Awards are given to ten books written for adults that have special appeal to young adults, ages 12 through 18. The winning titles are selected from the previous year's publishing" (ALA, Alex Awards).

This afternoon I finished reading 2007 Alex Award Winner The Floor of the Sky, by Pamela Carter Joern. Toby Jenkins is a sister, mother, and grandmother Nebraska farmer facing the all too familiar reality of many family farmers; she's on the verge of either losing her family farm to the bank for back taxes or being sold to an outside conglomerate. Toby's pregnant 16 year old granddaughter Lila arrives to spend the summer and during the course of her stay uncovers long buried family secrets that show both women have more in common than either thought. This thoughtful novel, told in short, poignant chapters, from different character points of view, allows readers to experience their lives and understand how families are woven together through good times and bad.


Tags: The Floor of the Sky, Pamela Carter Joern, Alex Awards, YA literature

Book lists and Academic Libraries

YALSA, the Young Adult Library Services Association, announced several interesting book list with the last few weeks. Included are:

• 2007 Best Books for Young Adults
• 2007 Alex Awards
• Michael L. Printz Award
• 2007 Top 10 Great Graphic Novels for Teens
• 2007 Popular Paperbacks for Young Adults
• 2007 Quick Picks for Reluctant Young Adult Readers

As with the Newbery and Caldecott award announcements, I peruse each list to locate which of these books currently exist in the library collection. While I follow the trend and automatically include Newbery and Caldecott books to the collection, it is after all, "expected," I look more closely at the YALSA lists before making any determination as to what should be purchased. Alex award winners are great picks for the library as they are often cataloged in the recreational reading area (they are not juvenile) and more closely fit with the library director's vision of having a more literary sampling in that collection. I have to admit I think many of the titles listed are suited more for a public library than an academic library.

We have a strong literature program, both early childhood and middle grade/young adult, at the university and it is important the library collection reflect equally upon various award winning titles. The books are being read by pre-service teachers, distinct literary value is constantly balanced with popular fiction. It is a struggle I do not have when purchasing picture books or juvenile fiction (in general). For example, I looked at the graphic novel list with interest; while this is a small portion of the library collection, reflected both in juvenile and regular circulating sections and it needs to be represented. We have, on order, only one of the top ten titles for teens.

It could be I simply missed several good titles, or this is one of the myriad of academic library - public library collection differences. I'm betting a combination of both (though I am not usually that far off the mark when it comes to having award winning titles). Nevertheless, some collection development elements overlap, others are very dissimilar, but there is no doubting the fact that population served by both libraries differ. I've worked as a children's librarian in a public library and probably would not have hesitated on the YALSA lists if the patron population supported and read the materials.

Tags: YALSA, ALA, YALSA book lists, YA fiction, YA literature