January Carnival of Children's Literature: Book Awards

And, now (drumroll, please) Wizards Wireless is delighted to present the January edition of the Carnival of Children's Literature! (Cue wild applause).

The posts this month have been exhaustively reviewed (by me), thoroughly discussed (I talked to myself about them), and are in keeping with the finest standards of all carnivals of children's literature posted on this blog (this is the first one).

And now onto the highly anticipated topic: children's book awards. Awards are listed in a completely random order, carefully determined with help from the Wizards Wireless dartboard.

The first category is the Cybils: the Children's and YA Bloggers' Literary Awards.

The awards go to:

• Little Willow and the Cybils Middle Grade nominating committee for their list of favorite characters (and characteristics) in the 2007 Middle Grade Hall of Fame at Bildungsroman.

• Jules at Seven Impossible Things Before Breakfast for sharing her Cybils ‘07 shortlist retrospective: the shortlist that rocks and what it was painful to leave out.

• Susan Thomsen at Chicken Spaghetti, who reviews the book The Whale Scientists, which was nominated for the Cybils in the middle-grade and young-adult nonfiction category.

• Catherine Derrow at Read Barefoot with Catherine who highlights the book One City, Two Brothers which received a Cybils nomination in the fiction picture book category.

Our next category is the American Library Association Youth Media Awards.

The awards go to:

• MotherReader, who provides an awards reaction round-up: now fully edited for your enjoyment. And don't miss Mo' Reactions- her exclusive mini-interview with Mo Willems featuring his thoughts about the awards he recently acquired and some great new pompous children's book titles.

• Jen Robinson, for sharing her response to the ALA Youth Media Awards and her excitement about the ALA and YALSA Notables lists at Jen Robinson's Book Page.

• Kyra Hicks at Black Threads in Kid’s Lit who discusses getting a seat at the Coretta Scott King Book Award table and shares statistics and information about the awards.

• Susan Kusel at Wizards Wireless (hey, it's my ceremony, I can give myself an award) for taking a Caldecott adventure through the titles of 70 years of winners and for sharing why she has never been so happy to be wrong (her reaction to this year's Caldecott winner).
  

• Becky for providing commentary on the 2008 Awards and lots of reactions at Reading With Becky.

• Lisa Chellman for talking about her love/hate relationship with the Newbery Awards at Under the Covers.

• Laura Baas for providing links, information and predictions for the ALA Awards 2008: Newbery, Caldecott, and many more at Library & Literary Miscellany.

• Sam Riddleburger for testing our knowledge of the Caldecott medal with his Kidlit Trivia Quiz: Caldecott edition.

Moving right along to our next category: Other Awards and Lists.

The awards go to:

• The Brown Bookshelf, for 28 Days Later, which shines the spotlight, honors and promotes African American authors and illustrators.

• Jill Tullo for discussing and linking to a wide variety of children's book awards that celebrate diversity at The Well Read Child.

• Wendie Old for sharing a lovely story at Wendie’s Wanderings about when her book To Fly, The Story of the Wright Brothers received a Boston Globe/Horn Book honor.

• Heidi Estrin for talking about the process of the Sydney Taylor Book Awards and how difficult it is to choose just a few delectable chocolate babies.

• Becky for putting the spotlight on the Librarians' Choices list and telling us all about the process at Becky's Book Reviews.
  

• Abby Johnson at Abby (the) Librarian for talking about the Rebecca Caudill Young Readers' Book Award, which is selected by children in Illinois.

• Candice Ransom who asks for the envelope, please at Ellsworth’s Journal and discusses the Gryphon Award for books for transitional readers. And find out what book she wishes had won the Newbery in 1981.

• Terry Doherty for discussing a big week for awards and for compiling an amazingly thorough and detailed directory of state and regional awards programs in North America at Scrub-a-Dub-Tub, The Reading Tub® Blog.

Our next category is Books Worthy of Awards.

The awards go to:

• Tricia Stohr-Hunt who shares an excellent award-worthy list of outstanding science books published in 2007 at Open Wide, Look Inside.

• Megan Germano at Read, Read, Read, for talking about how Christopher Paul Curtis has redeemed himself in her eyes with Elijah of Buxton.

• Anastasia Suen for her review of Rough, Tough Charley at Picture Book of the Day.

We're not done yet! Our next category is Thoughts about Awards.

The awards go to:

• Kakie Fitzsimmons of Farmer's Hat Productions for talking about the behind-the-scenes work that goes into creating award winning books, and sharing the tangible results of the awards and rewards for children's book series Bur Bur and Friends.

• Chris Rettstatt for derobing children’s literature awards and talking about the mystique and mystery of the people who pick the prizes.

• Catherine Derrow for talking about Children's Book Awards at Read Barefoot with Catherine, including her favorite books that won the Newbery Award, the new Odyssey Award and several titles published by Barefoot Books.

• Gregory K. for writing an appeal for categories! We need more categories! at Gotta Book. Head over and offer your suggestions.

And last, in the coveted Blogger Award category, we are proud to feature these terrific new honors invented by creative bloggers.

The awards go to:

• Kelly Herold, for The Pens and Pencils Award at Big A little a, in celebration of superb office supplies.

• Sarah at The Reading Zone for sharing the details of the Mulbery : a children's literature award she created with her sixth grade Language Arts class.

• Jennie at the Geek Buffet for ruminating on the Alex Awards (adult books that appeal to teens) and turning the tables to create the Xela Awards for teen books that appeal to adults.
  

• Mary Lee at A Year of Reading who was inspired by the devotion shown by Laura Amy Schlitz (recently crowned Newbery winner). Mary Lee hands out the To the Ends of the Earth Award to the extraordinary and unsung heroes in her school.

Aceeptance Speech
I'd like to thank all the wonderful bloggers who participated in this month's carnival.
And Melissa Wiley, who provided fabulous technical support.
And my dogs, who really didn't do much of anything.

To submit carnival posts for next month's carnival of Children's Literature (host to be determined), go to Blog Carnival. And hey, since there's no host yet, maybe you'd like to give it a try. It's a lot of fun. Just contact Melissa Wiley at Here in The Bonny Glen.

Do you write a blog about children's literature? To find out more about future carnivals and to have terrific conversations with other bloggers, I highly recommend joining the Kidlitosphere online discussion group. Go to Yahoo Groups, search for "kidlitosphere" and follow the directions from there.

And, if you read the whole carnival, you can have an award too. Just be sure to thank me in your acceptance speech.