About 10 days ago I wrote a post about how tough it is to predict the ALA award winners. It's also important, though... and as a small independent bookseller, you want to have all the books in stock when the winners are announced.
Now that the big moment has come and gone, a lot of people have asked me about my predictions. Was I right? Did I have the Newbery and Caldecott books on hand at my store? Here's my score card:
Newbery Medal: Good Masters! Sweet Ladies! Yes.
Newbery honor: The Wednesday Wars. Yes.
Newbery honor: Feathers. Yes.
Newbery honor: Elijah of Buxton. Yes.
Caldecott Medal: The Invention of Hugo Cabret. Yes.
Caldecott honor: First the Egg. Yes.
Caldecott honor: The Wall. Yes.
Caldecott honor: Knuffle Bunny Too. Yes.
Caldecott honor: Henry's Freedom Box. No.
Eight out of nine. Not bad. And I got Henry's Freedom Box in the next morning.
Remember my post last week about how Hugo Cabret wasn't going to win anything? It seems that I convinced a lot of people, except myself (and fortunately, the Caldecott committee). Hugo Cabret was the only book that I ordered heavily in advance a few weeks prior to the announcement. But my books from Scholastic hadn't arrived yet and at the moment the Caldecott was announced, I only had one copy of Hugo in stock. Yikes. It seemed that all my pre-planning had gone to waste.
However, the stars aligned perfectly for me on Monday. Around lunch time, the U.P.S. delivery guy came in with a cart laden with beautiful Scholastic boxes. I think I may have hugged him. I rifled through the boxes, found all my magical copies of Hugo Cabret... and put them proudly on the shelf. Talk about perfect timing. Did I mention the U.P.S. guy thought I was nuts?
You seem to have the "pulse of the industry" with those predictions. Good work!
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