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 ...

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.

Caldecott and Gemini

ALA literary awards were announced yesterday at the midwinter meetings in Seattle. One of the most prestigious awards for children's books, the Caldecott is awarded "to the artist of the most distinguished American picture book for children" (Caldecott Medal, ALA). This year's winner is Flotsam, by David Wiesner and is described on the ALA Caldecott page:

"Flotsam is a cinematic unfolding of discovery. A vintage camera washed up on the beach provides a young boy with a surprising view of fantastical images from the bottom of the sea. From fish-eye to lens-eye, readers see a frame-by-frame narrative of lush marinescapes ebbing and flowing from the real to the surreal." (ALA, Caldecott)

Though not surprised this book was deemed worthy for the award, Flotsam has been a favorite of mine (it's actually checked out to me now to use in a Mock Caldecott session), I was surprised the committee would award Wiesner a third Caldecott medal. Flotsam is a work of art in picture book binding.

It is always a fun exercise finding out if I previously purchased the award winning titles for the library collection, or if we have to wait for the second print run and get them with their ever important award stickers. I really missed the mark with Newbery Medal books, we do not have The Higher Power of Lucky or honor book Penny from Heaven, but I did very well with the remainder of award recipients (Printz, Coretta Scott King, Dr. Seuss Reader, and others). We will only need an award book, or two, and the 2007 Alex Award titles. The Alex Award books are a great way to get adult fiction into the library either as regular circulating and/or recreational reading.

On another note, I finished reading Gemini Summer, by Iain Lawrence at lunch today. I was first intrigued by this title because I have always been interested in the space program, airplanes, and the like. I do not like to fly in them, but movies about the space program (Apollo 13, The Right Stuff, From the Earth to the Moon mini-series), history channel series about the program, or visits to Florida and the cape are a definite draw (I have an old photo with two space shuttles on the launch pad!). This book was a natural for me to read.

Gemini Summer is a story about a family with two young boys that takes place in 1965. Danny and Beau are the sons of Old Man River and Flo and are in many ways typical of boys that age. They are sometimes embarrassed by their parents, Dad cleans septic tanks and Mom is enamored with all things Gone with the Wind. They have school friends, a neighborhood bully, and are interested in the buddy space program. Neatly juxtaposed with normal family happenings is the fact that this is also a time in history where the Vietnam war is looming and Old Man River is digging a hole in the family back yard. Old Man River is digging a hole in their back yard, preparing to make a bunker for the family's safety. Just an oddity with the neighbors, it becomes the sight of a terrible accident. The boys are playing and Beau falls into the hole, fatally wounded.

As the family struggles to deal with Beau's tragic death, Danny finds a stray dog who he believes is the reincarnation of his brother. After a letter arrives for Beau from Gus Grissom, Danny decides he must take Rocket, his brother, to see Gus at the Cape. By the time Danny begins his quest readers will be hooked. However, the sequence of events following Danny adventure as a runaway, including meeting Gus Grissom and being flown home in his T-38 going faster than the speed of sound, will be hard to believe. Realism aside, it is fiction after all, Gemini Summer is full of interesting space facts and believable family readers will understand.

Tags: David Wiesner,Flotsam, 2007 Caldecott, Gemini Summer, Iain Lawrence, Juvenile fiction, ALA