Sticker Shock

This week was big in the children's book world. Enormous. The American Library Youth Media Awards were announced on Monday, January 11th, giving out nineteen awards which included the Newbery, Caldecott and Printz. 

Monday morning was euphoric. The children's book community came together to celebrate and support the winners. Huge dramatic things happened. Records were set. Everyone was abuzz. I was excited to see what the next day would bring.

Tuesday morning made me sad. Sadder than I want to admit. I picked up four major newspapers. Two omitted the announcement entirely. One buried it halfway through the lifestyle section and devoted three paragraphs, that were clearly all from the press release. And one put a few paragraphs in the back of the children's section, again mostly from the press release. 

Now compare that to the Oscars.

NPR devoted three minutes of original reporting to it, which was a lot more than most, and for which I was grateful. Most of the articles that I saw that were original and well written came from trade journals, which were great but probably unlikely to be seen by the general public.

Not one talk show, of the endless numbers of shows out there who interview people and celebrities- had even a few minutes to spare to talk to these wonderful, witty, and charming award winners. Or even to talk about them. If you're aware of one that did, please let me know. 

Yet, there was plenty of space for celebrity news and gossip. 

Last year I was really crushed. I was on the Caldecott committee. Not everyone in my life could really wrap their head around what that meant, but I assured them it was important enough that it would be in the newspaper the Tuesday after the announcement. I said this for months during all the time when I was too busy reading and working on the Caldecott to have time for anything else. It's important enough, it will be in the paper, I kept saying. 

Tuesday came. The Newbery Medal winner happened to be a local author (which was terrific, don't get me wrong) but resulted in my local paper, a major award-winning metropolitan newspaper, devoting their two paragraphs about the awards to him and ignoring the Caldecott completely. They didn't even have room for one sentence announcing the winner in an extremely newsworthy year when the Caldecott broke several records. The next day at work, all I heard was questions and doubt. It must not have been important enough. It wasn't there. 

A Caldecott Medal winner once told me they received about nine press calls on the day of the award announcement. At the time I thought that was a lot. Nine calls.

But is it a lot? Think in broader terms. How many calls and interview requests does an actor who wins an Oscar receive? How about a quarterback who just won the SuperBowl? I'm willing to bet it's more than nine.

What's wrong with making our heroes and role models people who are talented writers, artists and book creators? Why are we telling our children that they have to read if we are not modeling and celebrating the importance of reading in our society? What kind of examples are we setting?

I'm hoping next year that Tuesday morning brings a ray of hope. 

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If you saw an article from a major newspaper that featured original reporting and did more than quote a few sentences from the press release, please put a link to it in the comments to cheer me up. In fairness, some papers wait until their Sunday editions to do more in-depth stories. 

In the meantime, I hope you read these great stories from Publisher's Weekly about the Caldecott, Newbery and Printz winners. 

To those that didn’t get a phone call today

I know you really wanted your phone to ring this morning.

I know you were hoping to be woken up by a happy speakerphone full of people telling you how they had just changed your life.

I know you charged your phone last night, just in case.

I know you got excited when the phone rang, even if it was a wrong number.

I know you waited until the press conference was over and all the awards were announced to be sure, because maybe they forgot to call.

I know you composed a rough draft of your acceptance speech in your head.

I know you won't admit to anyone how badly you wanted it.

I know you tell people that you don’t really care about the awards… because they are not why you make books for children.

I know that the phones of some of your friends did ring today and that you’ll congratulate them for all you’re worth.

Maybe this was supposed to be your year.

Maybe all your friends told you would win.
Maybe your book won all the mock awards.

Maybe your book got a lot of starred reviews.
Maybe your publisher said it was a sure thing.

Maybe this was the book you’ve worked on forever.

Maybe you believed in this book more than any other.

Maybe it was close.

Maybe there were four phone calls and your book came in fifth.

Maybe there were committee members who were deeply in love with your book and fought for it, but the other votes just weren't there.
Maybe if different people were on the committee this year, the result would have been different.

Maybe lightening just didn’t strike.

Maybe your life didn’t change today, but I promise you, your books are changing the lives of the children who read them.

I hope your day comes and you get to hear the phone ring.

I hope you keep making wonderful books.

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For a few more award related posts from the perspective of someone who has been there: here's why I stopped predicting the Caldecott and Newbery Medal results and here's how book award committees differ from each other.

To vote for the ALA Youth Media Awards that made you the happiest today, see the poll on the sidebar.

What is like to be on a book award committee?

As we approach this year's announcement, our attention is focused on the big book awards such as the Caldecott and Newbery. But there are dozens of awards of all shapes and sizes. After serving on a lot of award committees, I can tell you that the experience varies greatly depending on the award.

Here's some of the questions I get asked a lot:

How do you get on the award committee?

-Sometimes you get nominated, and then selected by a nominating committee to be on the ballot, and then win an election. Or you get appointed by the head of the association to be on the committee.

-Sometimes you fill out an application and send in writing samples.

-Sometimes you tell the chair of the committee that you’re interested.

How do you get eligible books to read?

-Sometimes they are sent in large boxes that arrive from publishers of all sizes on your doorstep full of hardcover, first editions of all the books they’ve published that season.

-Sometimes they are sent in occasional envelopes from publishers and directly from self-published authors.

-Sometimes you spend countless hours in the library and searching relevant databases and review journals desperately trying to find eligible books.

How do you decide on the winners?

-Sometimes everyone on the committee comes together from all over the country, and are sequestered for several days in one room until they emerge with the results.

-Sometimes you meet several times over the course of a year for short meetings.

-Sometimes you use e-mail or Skype, but never actually meet or talk to other committee members in person.

What do the authors and illustrators think about being given your award?

-Sometimes it literally changes their lives. Sometimes it lets them afford to be a full-time author or illustrator when they couldn’t before. Sometimes they cry or exclaim in joy or are at a loss for words when you tell them they’ve won. 

-Sometimes they are honored and touched. They hadn’t heard of your award before but they are delighted to be recognized and truly appreciate it.

-Sometimes they don’t even know they’ve won until they Google their name.

How does the public find out about your list of winners?

-Sometimes they are announced with great fanfare at a giant press conference in front of over a thousand people who scream and cheer while others tune in to the big moment online from all over the country.

-Sometimes they are read at a small conference in front of people who have never heard of any of the books on your list but applaud politely at the end.

-Sometimes they are announced in a press release that you send to everyone you know in the hopes that someone will notice your wonderful books.

How is the award presented?

-Sometimes it is given at a beautiful banquet in front of people from every part of the children’s literature world, while the winner gives a carefully crafted and lengthy speech, which is later published and studied by graduate students.

-Sometimes the winner speaks for a few minutes at an event honoring many books and award recipients.

-Sometimes the winner gets the award in the mail.

What can you say about the award process?

-Sometimes it’s all an enormous secret and you can’t breathe a word of any of it. People hang on everything you say; even the tiniest detail, and you can never, ever, ever let a real piece of information about what actually happened escape your lips. Or else.  

-Sometimes you can reveal why certain books won and why others lost.

-Sometimes even if you could tell every single detail about the whole entire process, the award is so obscure that no one, probably not even the winning author, would be interested.

What remains the same?

-No matter the prestige of the award, book award committees are a lot of work. They involve reading and analyzing an enormous quantity of books, staying as impartial as possible, and making difficult choices. 

-You have to work together with your committee and recognize that other people have different points of view. The book you love, others may hate and vice versa. It's not an individual decision but a group compromise.

-They help shine recognition on quality books for children and ideally get great books into the hands of readers. 

How do Caldecott and Newbery winning books get their shiny stickers?

I just got an interesting comment on this post:

Kim asks: "I was wondering if you could share how long it takes for copies of the winners get the medals on the covers? My daughter and I have been reading and picking our own Caldecott and Geisel favorites for the past couple of months. She understands what the medals on the covers mean now and I'd like to get some of this years winners but want to get them with the stickers on them. I can't seem to find an answer on how long this takes to happen. I assume book stores are sent stickers to put on their current stock?"

Brian responded with this comment: "It generally takes about a month."

I've always been curious about the stickers myself. I'm not sure that I have the definitive answer, but I've worked as a bookseller, a librarian, been a member of the organization that gives out the awards and had a talk with the publisher of an award winning book. I think I have a pretty good idea of what happens. To the best of my knowledge, here's the story behind the stickers.

Kim, before we get to your question, let's back up a little and talk about print runs and the incredible selling power of the Newbery and Caldecott Medals. When a book is published, a publisher decides how many copies to print. These initial copies are all first editions. If a book sells out its print run, the publisher will do additional printings and editions, but not every books gets a second printing.

There's no way a publisher can expect or predict a Newbery or Caldecott. Regardless of the pre-awards buzz, you never know what the committees will actually decide. No matter what the winning books initial print run was (with Hugo Cabret for example, it was quite large) there will never be enough copies to meet the demand. Available copies are purchased immediately by bookstores, libraries, schools, and a huge influx of customers. Typically, within a few hours of the announcements, all available copies of the book are sold out.

By that point, it's impossible to get the book, no matter what. The publisher has no more copies and thousands (I'm not exaggerating) of orders are pouring in. The publisher immediately starts a new and much larger print run to meet the sudden demand. Those copies typically come out within 1-3 months of the award announcement, depending how long the printing takes.

For booksellers, especially ones at independent stores like the ones I worked at, it is crucial to have as many of the winning and honor books in stock at the time of the announcement. If you don't, you won't get that initial rush of sales and you won't be able to get the book back on the shelf for at least a month. See this post for more about that.

Now, let's get back to the stickers. I wish I could tell you that on the day of the award announcement, everyone stops what they're doing and puts the stickers on the books. But really, it's much more mundane and gradual than that.

Nobody gets sent a batch of stickers. (That would be lovely, though). You have to pay for the stickers and they're purchased through the American Library Association Store. Anyone can buy them, incidentally, not just bookstores and libraries.

Even the publisher has to pay for the stickers, plus the cost of paying someone to physically put the sticker on the book. No publisher minds this, though, because of the enormous increase in sales the stickers represent. The publisher puts the stickers on the second printing and every printing thereafter.

Sometimes, with paperback books or books that are perennially popular, the publisher will put a photograph of the sticker on the book. That way, for example, they don't have to keep buying Newbery honor stickers for every copy of Charlotte's Web that is ever published. Sometimes, in later printings, they don't even put the stickers on... it will just say "Newbery Medal Winner" above the title. I don't really understand that, though. My feeling is if you've got it, flaunt it.

Libraries typically have many of the medalists and honor books already on their shelves. Whatever they don't have, they'll order immediately (budget permitting), and they'll receive the second printing a month or two later. My library has rolls of all the various stickers in the area they process books. Eventually, they'll go through the books currently in the collection and add the stickers and will put them on the new books as they come in. School librarians do the same thing.

Bookstores are a different story. All of the copies purchased on the day of the announcements don't have stickers... if for no other reason than that there is simply no time. When I was a bookseller, I watched the winning books go out the door before I could blink. Booksellers typically wait for the second printing of the book which already has the stickers on it.

So the short answer is : it generally takes about a month. Usually a bit longer.

But your question raises an interesting point, which is that not everybody wants the edition with the sticker on it. Sometimes, I'm proud of the unstickered books, because I bought them before everyone else. And at other times, the book look naked to me without the sticker.

So, now you know. Travis at 100 Scope Notes wrote a great post last year predicting where the stickers would end up on the predicted winners. But, since the stickers go on gradually and (except for the ones put on by the publisher) haphazardly, the stickers can end up any place on the book.

Thanks for asking. It's a good question.

2009 Newbery, Caldecott, and Printz winners and honor books

Here are the American Library Association's 2009 youth media awards winners. The official press release is available on ALA's website.

I'm having trouble getting onto the website at the moment because of the heavy traffic, but I was at the press conference in Denver this morning and was handed a press release after the announcement. I have to catch a plane, so forgive me for not including authors and publishers. All of that information is on ALA's website.

Caldecott Medal: House in the Night
Caldecott Honors: A Couple of Boys Have the Best Week Ever, How I Learned Geography, and River of Words: the Story of William Carlos Williams.

Newbery Medal: The Graveyard Book
Newbery Honors: The Underneath, The Surrender Tree: Poems of Cuba, Savvy, and After Tupac & D Foster

Printz Award: Jellicoe Road
Printz Honors: Octavian Nothing Volume 2, Nation, Disreputable History of Frankie Landau-Banks, and Tender Morsels.

Geisel Award: Are You Ready to Play Outside?
Geisel Honors: Chicken said Cluck, One Boy, Stinky, Wolfsnail: A Backyard Predator.

Coretta Scott King Author Award: We are the Ship
Coretta Scott King Author Honors: The Blacker the Berry, Keeping the Night Watch, and Becoming Billie Holiday

Coretta Scott King Illustrator Award: The Blacker the Berry
Coretta Scott King Illustrator Honors: We Are the Ship, Before John was a Jazz Giant and the Moon over Star

Coretta Scott King /John Steptoe New Talent Award: Bird by Zetta Elliott

Schneider Family Book Award for young children: Piano Starts Here: the Young Art Tatum
Schneider Family Book Award for middle grades: Waiting for Normal
Schneider Family Book Award for teens: Jerk, California

Sibert Medal: We Are the Ship
Sibert Honors: Bodies from Ice and What to Do About Alice?

Carnegie Medal: March On! The Day by Brother Martin Changed the World

Batchelder Award: Moribito: Guardian of the Spirit
Batchelder Honors: Garmann's Summer and Tiger Moon

Margeret A. Edwards Recipient (lifetime achievement for Young Adults): Laurie Halse Anderson

Pura Belpre Illustrator Award: Just in Case by Yuyi Morales
Pura Belpre Illustrator honors: Papa and Me, The Storyteller' s Candle and What Can You Do With a Rebozo?
Pura Belpre Author Award: The Surrender Tree: Poems of Cuba's Struggle for Freedom
Pura Belpre Author Honors: Just in Case, Reaching Out, and the Storyteller' s Candle

Odyssey Award: The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian
Odyssey Honors: Curse of the Blue Tattoo, Elijah of Buxton, I'm Dirty!, Martina the Beautiful Cockroach and Nation.

Arbuthnot Honor Lecture: Kathleen T. Horning

Wilder Award: Ashley Bryan

William C. Morris debut award: A Curse Dark as Gold

What are your thoughts? I'd love to hear them. Leave a comment below or vote in the poll on the sidebar.

Susan's last minute Caldecott, Newbery and Geisel predictions

In October, I posted my early ALA awards predictions. Today is the actual day of the annoucements. In fact, I'm in Denver at the American Library Associations' Midwinter Meeting and am getting ready to head to the press conference in a few minutes. We'll all know the winners within a few hours, but I wanted to post my last minute thoughts. These are the books I want to win, whether that happens, we shall see.

Caldecott: A Couple of Boys Have the Best Week Ever by Marla Frazee
Honor: Bear's Picture by Daniel Pinkwater and Little Yellow Leaf by Carin Berger. (I wouldn't be surprised to see House in the Night by Susan Marie Swanson on this list somewhere).

Newbery: I really wish it was going to be Trouble by Gary Schmidt, but I'm thinking that's not going to happen. I think it's going to be The Graveyard Book by Neil Gaiman.
Honor: The Underneath by Kathi Appelt, and a few surprises.

Geisel: Red Sled by Patricia Thomas.
Honor: Are You Ready to Play Outside? by Mo Willems and Mr. Putter and Tabby Run the Race by Cynthia Rylant. Plus, a surprise picture book or two.

Siebert: I'll Pass For Your Comrade by Anita Silvey (or at least an honor).

I hope you tune in to the live award announcement webcast (be sure to log-on to the webcast early so you don't get shut out). Click here to find out other ways you can find out about the announcements, both during and after the press conference.

Congratulations to every author who just had their life changed with a phone call.

What's Missing from the Cybils: Early Readers

Have you nominated a book for the Cybils? Hurry up, there's only a few days left. Nominations close on October 15, 2008. Anybody can nominate one book per category.

I've compiled a list of books in the early reader category that are eligible, but haven't been nominated yet. To the best of my knowledge, all the books I've mentioned below are designed for beginning readers, are 64 pages or less and have a publication date between January 1, 2008- October 15, 2008.

There are three exceptions that don't meet the 64 page limit, and if these books aren't eligible for the Cybils, then they should be eligible for the Geisels and the Maryland Blue Crab Young Reader Award. They are:

• Mercy Watson Thinks Like a Pig by Kate Dicamillo, illustrated by Chris Van Dusen
• The Mozart Question by Micheal Morpurgo, illustrated by Michael Foreman
• The Twin Giants by Dick King Smith, illustrated by Mimi Grey

All three books are published by Candlewick. Although they have roughly 72-80 pages, Mercy Watson Thinks Like a Pig and The Twin Giants in particular have appropriate word choices, white space, and liberal use of illustrations throughout the text. I'd definitely consider them early readers. But, we'll leave that up to the judges.

I'm so glad that the early reader category has been established as part of the Cybils (and I'm honored to have been the one to suggest it). I think this genre is extremely important and I've always felt that these kinds of books go unsung. If you click on the Amazon links I've provided below, you'll notice that almost none of these books have been reviewed yet, even though some of them have been published for nine months. After you put in your nomination, drop by Amazon or Barnes and Noble and leave a quick comment or review.

Last year, while all the Newbery and Caldecott predictions were being posted everywhere... the only books I saw on anybody's Geisel prediction lists were Mo Willems' Elephant and Piggie books. I love these books, and I'm delighted that There's a Bird on Your Head won the Geisel, and I think it was well deserved. But, Mo Willems just started writing early readers and he's not the only one in the game.

Here's a list of titles that haven't been nominated for a Cybil yet:

Amazing Animal Journeys by Liam O'Donnell

Annie and Snowball and the Teacup Club by Cynthia Rylant, illustrated by Suçie Stevenson

Ape Adventures by Catherine E. Chambers

Basketball Bats by Betty Hicks, illustrated by Adam McCauley

Family Vacation by Fiona Lock

Fancy Nancy at the Museum by Jane O’Connor

Flood! by Marion Dane Bauer, illustrated by John Wallace

Goof Off Goalie by Betty Hicks, illustrated by Adam McCauley

Greek Myths by Caryn Jenner

Journey of a Pioneer by Patricia J. Murphy

Just Five More Minutes by Marcy Brown and Dennis Haley, illustrated by Joe Kulka

Let's Play Soccer by Patricia J. Murphy

Lulu's Wild Party by Paula Blankenship, illustrated by Larry Reinhart

Mercy Watson Thinks Like a Pig by Kate Dicamillo, illustrated by Chris Van Dusen

The Mozart Question by Micheal Morpurgo, illustrated by Michael Foreman

My First Ballet Recital by Amy Junor


Pete's Party by Jon Scieszka, illustrated by David Gordon, Loren Long and David Shannon

A Pony Named Peanut by Sindy McKay, illustrated by Meredith Johnson

Quack Shack by Harriet Ziefert, illustrated by Yukiko Kido

Snow Dogs: Racers of the North by Ian Whitelaw

Snow Trucking by Jon Scieszka, illustrated by David Gordon, Loren Long and David Shannon

The Spy Catcher Gang by John Kelly and Kate Simkins

A Trip to the Theater by Deborah Lock

The Twin Giants by Dick King Smith, illustrated by Mimi Grey

Volcano! by Marion Dane Bauer, illustrated by John Wallace

Wagon Train Adventure by John Kelly and Kate Simkins

Welcome to China by Caryn Jenner

Wet Pet by Harriet Ziefert, illustrated by Yukiko Kido

Zoom! Boom! Bully by Jon Scieszka, illustrated by David Gordon, Loren Long and David Shannon

Click here to nominate in the early reader category.

In addition to this list, another great place to look for ideas is the Mock Geisel blog, created by the Allen County Public Library in Fort Wayne, Indiana.

Check out the new poll on the sidebar to see if you've nominated a book in every category.

The Cybils

The winners of the 2007 Cybils have just been announced! The Cybils are the Children's and YA Bloggers' Literary Awards. Congratulations to the winners and to all the hard working judges.

Grammy Award for Harry Potter

Jim Dale won a Grammy award last night for Best Spoken Word Album for Children for the recording of Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows. Although, he's received six Grammy nominations for Harry Potter, this is only the second time he's won. I'm thrilled, because I think that the audio version of Deathly Hallows is the best of all seven.

Why do I like Jim Dale's narration so much? See this post.

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.

More Caldecott reactions

Do you wish you were on the Caldecott committee? (Don't we all?)

Listen to this wonderful podcast by Roger Sutton (a member of the 2008 Caldecott committee, the Editor in Chief of The Horn Book, and author of the blog Read Roger). You'll feel like you were were a part of the committee for the big announcement.

Wake up with Roger in his hotel room (not literally) as he calmly talks about the winner. Follow him through the excitement of the committee before and after the magic phone calls. (He turned off his recorder for the actual phone calls, but he provides a recap.) Sit next to him during the press conference and hear the show stopping applause when the winner of the Caldecott is announced. And then mingle with Roger in the crowd afterwards and hear what other folks have to say.

Once you've heard what the moment was like for the committee, head over to Publisher's Weekly to read their article about the experience of the winners themselves. I particularly loved this quote from the article about Brian Selznick's plane trip to New York a few hours after the announcement:

"Unable to concentrate, Selznick watched his seatmate pull a few folded sheets of paper out of her bag. He recognized the ALSC seal, and realized she was reading the press release for that morning’s awards. Compelled to remark on the coincidence, Selznick asked her, “Excuse me, are you a librarian?” “No," she replied, “I work for PBS.” She then explained that these big children’s awards had been announced earlier in the day. Selznick’s response: “I know—I won one!”

A Caldecott Adventure

Today I took a journey
through the titles of
70 years of Caldecott winners.

Here are my thoughts
as I traveled back in time
in chronological order
from 2008 to 1938.

I was thinking about
the invention of Hugo Cabret
as I watched flotsam float by
the hello goodbye window.

It was the night of kitten's first full moon as
the man who walked between the towers
strolled past with my friend rabbit
and the three pigs.

“So you want to be president?” asked the pigs.
“Joseph had a little overcoat,” I answered,
which I could have borrowed for the inauguration.

But he lost it.

“Ask Snowflake Bentley, Rapunzel and Golem,”
replied the pigs.
“Or try Officer Buckle and Gloria.
They never go anywhere without a buddy.”

I left the pigs on that smoky night to set off on
my grandfather's journey.
I passed Mirette on the high wire
(who gave her regards to the man who walked between the towers.)

It was Tuesday and I had
my black and white overcoat with me
(although I would have preferred Joseph’s.)

I met Lon Po Po as I traveled
through the forest.
Up ahead we could hear
the song and dance man.

I waited for the owl moon.
Just as it appeared in the sky,
I saw my best friend.
“Hey, Al!” I called.

He was waiting for me on the Polar Express
along with Saint George and the dragon.
The train broke down so we took a glorious flight
through the shadow land.

It was a long trip so we played
a game of Jumanji
and told each other fables.

Finally, our plane landed.
The ox-cart man and the
girl who loved wild horses
brought us to Noah’s ark.

There we learned all the letters
from ashanti to zulu
and found out why mosquitoes
buzz in people's ears.

Noah shot an arrow to the sun
and the ark stopped.
Duffy and the devil
and the funny little woman
met us when we arrived.

Because it was
one fine day
they told us a story.

It was a story about
Sylvester and the magic pebble and
the fool of the world and the flying ship.

They tried to introduce us to drummer Hoff
but he was too busy firing it off
with Sam, Bangs & Moonshine.

By now, we’d gathered quite a crowd.
“There’s always room for one more,” said Al.
“May I bring a friend?” I asked.

I knew it was scary to travel through the land
where the wild things are
especially on a snowy day.

“There was once a mouse,” said Al,
“who was brave enough to visit
Baboushka and the three kings.

"You are just as courageous as he was.
But, since it's nine days to Christmas
take Chanticleer and the fox with you."

My travels became a time of wonder and
I realized that a tree is nice,
especially when you need a place to rest.

The amphibian I had met on Tuesday disappeared.
I think that frog went a-courtin'
at Cinderella’s house.

Fortunately, he returned in time for
Madeline's rescue
from the biggest bear.

He tried to take Madeline’s dog,
but she told him:
“finders, keepers.”

The frog left us again under
the egg tree when he heard the
song of the swallows.

We started to head home
but suddenly there was a big snow.
We persevered, although
we were surrounded
by white snow.

The bright snow was blinding
so we stopped for the night on
the little island
where the rooster crows.

I bid goodbye to all my friends
and said a prayer for a child,
especially the youngest one,
Madeline.

I think I accomplished the
journey my grandfather dreamed about
many moons ago, before
the little house had to move
to make way for ducklings.

I thought about all the travelers I had
encountered on my adventure
and realized that
they were strong
and good.

I wish I had met
Abraham Lincoln and Mei Li
but maybe they’ll come
next time.

Finally, I parted from
the animals of the Bible
that I had met on Noah’s ark
and headed home on
the repaired Polar Express.

Hugo Cabret said he’d meet me
at the train station.

by Susan Kusel, copyright 2008

Score card

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?