ALA Book Awards

Yesterday was huge, HUGE! That is, in the world of children's books. I will give a shout-out to Twitter here: it's the fastest way to find out the winners of the ALA book awards, hands-down!

Now, I'll draw a rather snowy veil over the busyness of last night and list some of the winners here this morning. For more honor awards and a few I had trouble finding, please visit the ALA book and media awards page.

If you were expecting Gary D. Schmidt's Okay for Now to win the Newbery, think again! Jack Gantos won with Dead End in Norvalt. Honors went to Inside Out and Back Again by Thanha Lai and Breaking Stalin's Nose by Eugene Yelchin.

The Caldecott Award winner is A Ball for Daisy by Chris Raschka, though I was pleased to see my personal favorite get an Honor: Me...Jane by Patrick McDonnell. Other Honor books are Blackout by John Rocco and Grandpa Green by Lane Smith. Lovely books, all!

The Geisel (Dr. Seuss) Award for easy readers goes to Tales for Very Picky Eaters by Josh Schneider, with Honors to Mo Willems' I Broke My Trunk, Jon Klassen's I Want My Hat Back, and Paul Meisel's See Me Run.

The Sibert Award for nonfiction is awarded to Balloons over Broadway: The True Story of the Puppeteer of Macy's Parade by Melissa Sweet. I really want to read that one! The Honor list includes Black & White: The Confrontation between Reverend Fred L. Shuttlesworth and Eugene "Bull" Connor by Larry Dane Brimner, Drawing from Memory by Allen Say, Witches! The Absolutely True Tale of Disaster in Salem by Rosalyn Schauzerand, and The Elephant Scientist, written by Caitlin O'Connell and Donna M. Jackson with photos by O'Connell and Timothy Rodwelland.

The Schneider Family Award, given to outstanding books about kids with disabilities, goes to Close to Famous by Joan Bauer (reviewed here last spring) and Wonderstruck: A Novel in Words and Pictures by Brian Selznick in the Middle School category. The Teen winner is The Running Dream by Wendelin Van Draanen.

The Pura Belpré Award for excellent fiction featuring Latinos is given separately to authors and illustrators. The author winner this year is Guadalupe Garcia McCall for her book Under the Mesquite. The illustrator winner is Duncan Tonatiuh for Diego Rivera: His World and Ours.

The Coretta Scott King Award author award winner is Kadir Nelson for Heart and Soul: The Story of America and African Americans. The illustrator award winner is Shane W. Evans for Underground: Finding the Light to Freedom.

For teen fiction, our Printz award winner is Where Things Come Back by John Corey Whaley, with Honors awarded to Daniel Handler's Why We Broke Up, Christine Hinwood's The Returning, Craig Silvey's Jasper Jones, and Maggie Stiefvater's The Scorpio Races. A good year for YA titles!

I was disappointed that Franny Billingsley's Chime didn't win an award, but fantasy is often a long shot at the ALA's. The only one I see here at a glance is The Scorpio Races.

The good news is that we have so many wonderful new books to read!

Announcing the Winners!

And once again, the Newbery committee baffles everybody... No, really, the ALSC awards were just announced, and as promised, there were a few surprises. Though in my opinion, the Newbery winner does fit a certain profile: realistic fiction, often historical, and not a book in a series. (Think Criss-Cross, Kira-Kira, The Higher Power of Lucky, etc.) Here's a partial list of the award winners.

Newbery Award: Moon Over Manifest by Clare Vanderpool

Newbery Honors: Dark Emperor by Joyce Sidman (poetry collection), Heart of a Samurai by Margi Preus, One Crazy Summer by Rita Williams-Garcia, and Turtle in Paradise by Jennifer L. Holm

Caldecott Award: A Sick Day for Amos McGee by Philip C. Stead, illustrated by Erin Stead

Caldecott Honors: Dave the Potter by Laban Carrick with illustrations by Bryan Collier; Interrupting Chicken by David Ezra Stein

Printz Award (teen/YA): Ship Breaker by Paolo Bacigalupi

Printz Honors: Stolen by Lucy Christopher, Nothing by Janne Teller (translated by Martin Aitken), Revolver by Marcus Sedgwick, and Please Ignore Vera Dietz by A.S. King

Geisel Award (early reader): Bink and Gollie by Kate DiCamillo and Alison McGhee, illustrated by Tony Fucile

Geisel Honors: We Are in a Book! by Mo Willems and Ling and Ting: Not Exactly the Same by Grace Lin

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

Pura Belpré Award: The Dreamer by Pam Muñoz Ryan

Edwards Lifetime Achievement Award: Terry Pratchett

Random Thoughts for Your (Possible) Edification:

--One Crazy Summer was much talked about for the Newbery win and didn't get it, but the book is still an astonishing winner overall, garnering a Newbery Honor, the Coretta Scott King award, and the Scott O'Dell award for historical fiction this year.

--Jennifer L. Holm has one of the hottest careers in children's fiction. This is her third Newbery Honor award for historical fiction, after Penny from Heaven in 2008 and Our Only May Amelia in 2000, and she is also the writer of the bestselling Babymouse graphic novel series for middle grades with her brother, illustrator Matthew Holm.

--To no one's surprise, the Printz winners are all deep, dark, depressing books. But hey, if you're up for that, enjoy!

--Not one, but two of the winners for younger readers have metafiction themes: Interrupting Chicken and We Are in a Book!

--Fantasy didn't do so well this time around, unless you count the fact that YA winner Ship Breaker is dystopian science fiction. (Oh, and, as Charlotte of Charlotte's Library points out, Terry Pratchett is another fantasy star with his body-of-work award!)

--Picture book people are shocked that neither Art and Max by David Weisner nor City Dog, Country Frog by Mo Willems and Jon J. Muth got Caldecott recognition. But Willems did earn that Geisel Honor.

--Megan Whalen Turner's A Conspiracy of Kings was also overlooked. I'm guessing it got dinged for reading a little older and for being part of a series.

--The big coup here is that Moon Over Manifest is Clare Vanderpool's first novel. Go Clare!

For additional winners/the complete list, go to the ALSC website.

Thinking about the Newberys and Caldecotts

So Betsy Bird has written a nice post speculating about the next Newbery and Caldecott winners over at Fuse #8. You should also read the comments to see what other people suggest.

I have not yet read One Crazy Summer, though it's definitely a frontrunner. (Me and my fantasy fixation!) I am pulling for The Dreamer and The Night Fairy for Honor books, assuming OCS is as good as everyone says it is. And of course, I am always up for a Megan Whalen Turner win, yet I worry (as do others) that a book in a series might not get the same respect as a standalone. So we'll see what happens with A Conspiracy of Kings.

While we're at it, let's just acknowledge that Kate Milford's The Boneshaker is one of the best books of 2010, not to mention a superior representative of the wave of new paranormals. Saying it's derivative of Ray Bradbury's work is ridiculous; Bradbury is clearly simply an inspiration, and not the only one. Milford's book stands on its own two creepy feet!

You'll also find some interesting thoughts from Betsy and commenters about how a number of the Newbery candidates seem to border on YA. Looking back, I'd say Lois Lowry's The Giver is a shining example of this sort of thing. Maybe we can call it Merchant-Ivory Syndrome: books with Serious Themes tend to dominate whenever somebody's passing out literary awards. And serious has a way of sounding more mature. (See Betsy's note on humor.)

I have less of a commitment to the Caldecott possibilities this time around. I would love to see Oh No! (Or How My Science Project Destroyed the World) by Mac Barnett and Dan Santat win an award. I just read David Wiesner's Art & Max and wasn't as sold on it as I was on Flotsam, but it's certainly pretty. (And I do applaud the theme of encouraging less-restrained creativity.) Still, I'd probably go with a poetry book like Mirror Mirror or Ubiquitous. But then, I have a poetry bias.

Except that Seven Imp is saying Mirror Mirror doesn't qualify... rats! Here's more Caldecott fun with Jules, who takes a look at Betsy Bird's suggestions, then adds some of her own. Lots of gorgeous art to peruse.

So, what do you think?

Announcing the Newbery and Other Awards

AND the ALSC awards have been announced! Woo-hoo! Here's Betsy Bird's list of key wins, posted this morning on Fuse #8. I will just smugly point out that I called the Newbery Award winner last summer when I reviewed it: When You Reach Me by Rebecca Stead. Hooray! See also my recent glowing review of one of the honor books, Where the Mountain Meets the Moon by Grace Lin. The other three honor books are The Mostly True Adventures of Homer P. Figg by Rodman Philbrick, The Evolution of Calpurnia Tate by Jacqueline Kelly, and Claudette Colvin by Phillip Hoose.

Pretty much everyone was predicting that Jerry Pinkney would win the Caldecott for The Lion and the Mouse, which is just beautiful, but I was also pleased to see Red Sings from Treetops: A Year in Colors by Joyce Sidman, illustrated by Pamela Zagarenski, as an honor book. It's a unique and intriguing poem, a new favorite I acquired last fall, and the illustrations are just right. Of course, All the World by Liz Garton Scanlon, with illustrations by Marla Frazee, is gorgeous, as well, not to mention uplifting. It's the other Caldecott Honor book this year.

I will add, since they're not listed in the above link, that Libba Bray's Going Bovine won the Printz Award for best teen fiction, with honor books as follows: Charles and Emma: The Darwins' Leap of Faith by Deborah Heiligman, Tales of the Madman Underground: An Historical Romance, 1973 by John Barnes, Punkzilla by Adam Rapp, and The Monstrumologist by Rick Yancey.

Maybe you watched the Golden Globes last night, but today is the day for everyone who loves children's literature in a rabid, fantastical, world-changing way. So throw a party, take time to read, and celebrate true wealth: great books!

Update: Here's the ALA's complete list, thanks to a link I swiped from Charlotte's Library. See Charlotte's post for an analysis of sci-fi/fantasy representation among the winners.