It's Book Award Day! -- Part 2

It's all so exciting -- the waiting has ended!!! This morning, winners of the 2011 Newbery Medal, Caldecott Medal, and many other book and media awards were announced at the American Library Association's Midwinter Meeting in San Diego.

Below is a list of some of the winners. For a complete list, visit the American Library Association's Youth Media Awards press release.

John Newbery Medal:
Moon Over Manifest by Clare Vanderpool

Newbery Honors:
Turtle in Paradise by Jennifer Holm
Heart of a Samurai by Margi Preus
Dark Emperor and Other Poems of the Night by Joyce Sidman, illustrated by Rick Allen
One Crazy Summer by Rita Williams-Garcia

Randolph Caldecott Medal
A Sick Day for Amos McGee, illustrated by Erin E. Stead, written by Philip C. Stead

Caldecott Honors:
Dave the Potter: Artist, Poet, Slave, illustrated by Bryan Collier, written by Laban Carrick Hill
Interrupting Chicken, written and illustrated by David Ezra Stein

Coretta Scott King Author Award
One Crazy Summer by Rita Williams-Garcia

Coretta Scott King Author Honors:
Lockdown by Walter Dean Myers
Ninth Ward by Jewell Parker Rhodes
Yummy: The Last Days of a Southside Shorty by G. Neri, illustrated by Randy DuBurke

Coretta Scott King Illustrator Award
Dave the Potter: Artist, Poet, Slave, illustrated by Bryan Collier, written by Laban Carrick Hill

Coretta Scott King Illustrator Honor:
Jimi Sounds Like a Rainbow: A Story of the Young Jimi Hendrix, illustrated by Javaka Steptoe, written by Gary Golio

Robert F. Sibert Medal
Kakapo Rescue: Saving the World's Strangest Parrot by Sy Montgomery

Sibert Honor Books:
Ballet for Martha: Making Appalachian Spring by Jan Greenberg & Sandra Jordan, illustrated by Brian Floca
Lafayette and the American Revolution by Russell Freedman

Theodor Seuss Geisel Award
Bink and Gollie by Kate DiCamillo, illustrated by Tony Fucile

Geisel Honor Books:
Ling & Ting: Not Exactly the Same! by Grace Lin
We Are in a Book! by Mo Willems


What do YOU think of the winning titles? Were any of your favorites chosen?

Congratulations to the winning authors and illustrators!

It's Book Award Day!

We held the ACPL Kids Mock Caldecott Award Program Sunday at the Main Library and chose Knuffle Bunny Free, written and illustrated by Mo Willems, and City Dog, Country Frog, by Mo Willems, illustrated by Jon J. Muth, as our co-winners. Fifty-seven people took part. The REAL Caldecott Award will be presented Monday -- it can be awarded to only one book, and the American Library Association committee has only 15 members doing the choosing. Find the results here in future postings, or tune in for the live broadcast online at 10:30 a.m., Monday, January 10 -- follow the links found here: http://tinyurl.com/b9crfe .

Have You Read a Tumblebook Yet?

If not, you'll want to check out this new source of children's books -- available wherever you can access the Internet!



You can...

• read or listen to a story with your child, like One Duck Stuck, by Phyllis Root and Jane Chapman
• play games, like this virtual jigsaw puzzle
• download an e-book or audio book to your PC or Mac computer, Android phone or tablet
• read or listen to children's books in world languages, such as Spanish or French

Check it out -- it's free! It's easy! It's fun!

The REAL winners of the Youth Media Awards!

Do you want to be among the first to find out the winners of the Newbery, Caldecott, Geisel, Sibert & Coretta Scott King Awards?

You can watch a live webcast which begins at 7:45AM PST (that means, 10:45am YOUR TIME) or you can wait for the press release. For more information about the award announcements click here.

The Many Different Ways to Tell Rapunzel

Folk tales are one of my favorite things to read. I love the diversity of stories across cultures and I enjoy finding new stories with familiar twists and familiar stories with new twists. On the Children's Services booklist page we have several lists of folk tale variants.

While Paul O. Zelinsky's retelling of Rapunzel might be my favorite, there are many more on the variant list that are worth looking at. Read Sugar Cane: A Caribbean Rapunzel by Patricia Storace to appreciate a new setting, or try The Canary Prince by Eric Jon Nones for a Turinese version of the princess locked in the tower tale.

The Gingerbread Man is not just a cookie. He can be a tortilla, a matzo ball, or cornbread. If you are in the mood for a classic, straight retelling, try Paul Galdone's The Gingerbread Boy.

We also have booklists or variants for Red Riding Hood, Cinderella, Goldilocks and the Three Bears, Rumpelstiltskin, and Three Little Pigs. Speaking of folktale variants, if you have a sense of humor, please do yourself a favor and read The Stinky Cheese Man and Other Fairly Stupid Tales by Jon Scieszka. I won't go into how wonderful it is here, because I already went into how wonderful it is here.

Ruining Good Things

The new book Ten Ways to Destroy the Imagination of Your Child by Anthony Esolen caught my eye today as I was passing by the new book shelves because I am ALWAYS looking for ways to ruin good things.

I was hooked when I read this in the introduction:
"Here now for the first time, are ten sure ways to destroy the Imagination of Your Child...I am sure that a judicious application of even three or four of these methods will suffice to kill the imagination of an Einstein, a Beethoven, a Dante, or a Michelango." (from p.xiii)

Mind you, I haven't read the whole book, but what I have read, strangely enough, reminds me of Lemony Snicket and makes me want to put everything else aside so that I can give it my full attention. I imagine the message here will be similar to that found in Susan Linn's The Case for Make Believe: Saving Play in a Commercialized World which is a great parenting read.

Mock Caldecott Elections

Don't forget -- we have two Mock Caldecott programs coming up this weekend. You won't want to miss this opportunity to see, learn and talk about some of the best picture books published in 2010.

Saturday, January 8, 9:00 a.m. to 1:00 p.m.: Mock Caldecott for Adults
Sunday, January 9: 2:00 to 4:00 p.m.: Mock Caldecott for Kids

Did I mention that Indiana librarians will earn 4 LEUs and teachers will earn 4 professional development points? Registration is required; click on the links above to register.