John Newbery Medal for the most outstanding contribution to children’s literature: “Moon over Manifest" by Clare Vanderpool, the story of Abilene Tucker, a 12-year-old whose father sends her for the summer to Manifest, a Kansas town populated by bootleggers and coal-mining immigrants.With many, many more awards and honors to discuss, and since y'all know this terrain better than me I'll shut up.
Randolph Caldecott Medal for the most distinguished American picture book for children: “A Sick Day for Amos McGee,” illustrated by Erin E. Stead, the story of a zookeeper and his tender friendship with the animals.
Michael L. Printz Award for excellence in literature written for young adults: “Ship Breaker" by Paolo Bacigalupi, a tale of survival in post-hurricane New Orleans.
Tuesday, January 11, 2011
AND WE CAN ALSO TALK ABOUT HOW MUCH KNUFFLE BUNNY FREE MADE US CRY: Sadly, Christy in NYC is feeling under the weather this week, so it falls upon me to open up our annual discussion of the American Library Association's awards for young people's books, with these being the majors announced yesterday:
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I can't speak to Ship Breaker yet (it's been sitting on my Kindle for months), but Bacigalupi's "adult" novel "The Windup Girl" is excellent. Bacigalupi manages to create a near-future world that's quite foreign and scary, but whose development from our own world seems utterly plausible. I understand that Ship Breaker employs some similarly impressive world-building.
ReplyDelete<span>Also, I think Bacigalupi is a cool guy. When I tweeted asking whether anyone knew whether he'd be doing a Ship Breaker signing at ALA's summer convention in DC, he tweeted back to me himself with the info.</span>
ReplyDeleteI live in the town that Manifest, Kansas was based on! (Frontenac) I'm writing from there right now! Haven't read the book or heard of it before Monday. The coal-mining immigrants... yeah, that fits this area any time before 1970 or so. Each city around here grew around a different nationality. Still a lot of Italians in Frontenac, and they host the "Festa Italiana" every year. Neighboring Pittsburg, Kansas, had more Balkans immigrants, and thus "Little Balkans Days."
ReplyDeleteI read the Caldecott winner to some classes this morning, and the students enjoyed its simple story. I enjoyed the sentimentality of it as an adult. But the kids didn't get that, which I think is the same case as Knuffle Bunny Free. Totally for the adults...
ReplyDeleteAlso, please check out Dave the Potter, illustrated by Bryan Collier. It won the Coretta Scott King illustrator award. It is lovely. The art teacher at my school is planning an entire unit around it.
I was just thinking of this post today because I want some new good stuff for my 14-month-old. It's like magic!
ReplyDeleteLoved Room, but not sure it's something I'd give to a teenager unless they were extraordinarily mature (though I can see how the voice would appeal to a younger audience).
ReplyDeleteHow had Tomie DePaola not won the Wilder medal before this? Seriously, tons of books that I can think of even now (Clown of God, Strega Nona, Legend of the Indian Paintbrush) and a distinctive art style that I coudl recognize even today.
And was Knuffle Bunny Free not eligible? I've read all three Knuffle Bunny books in bookstores (and given the first two as gifts to new parents), and they even work for my demographic.
I liked Knuffle Bunny Free, but was I supposed to cry? I already saw Toy Story 3.
ReplyDeleteI couldn't possibly agree more with Matt re Room. There are a lot of teens who can handle adult books, and for them, I would recommend Room without hesitation, but that's because they can handle adult books. Room is not juvenile fiction in any sense of the term.
Just to clarify, Room didn't win a juvenile fiction award. It won an Alex Award, for adult books with special appeal to teens, and all of the awards are tagged with this disclaimer at www.ala.org/yalsa/booklists:
ReplyDelete"While these books have been selected for teens from 12 to 18 years of age, the award-winning titles and the titles on YALSA's selected lists span a broad range of reading and maturity levels. We encourage adults to take an active role in helping individual teens choose those books that are the best fit for them and their families."
Alex Award books aren't meant to be juvenile fiction, they're meant to be adult books that appeal to teens. I think Room is the perfect choice, because I think what made me really get excited about it are the same things that make me love the YA category--it's a character-driven, literary page-turner. Very literary, but I couldn't stop reading. That's so rare in an adult book. The disturbing elements of Room, unless I'm forgetting something, are portrayed much more gently than teens would be used to. The well-reviewed YA book with a similar premise, Living Dead Girl, is much more explicit and bleak. But really any kid who's read any literary YA "issue" book would find Room pretty mild. If anything, all signs point to adults having a much harder time handling these kinds of stories.
ReplyDeleteWhenever people talk about Mockingjay being bleak, I ask if they've ever heard of Living Dead Girl, whose premise makes me skin crawl just thinking about it.
ReplyDeleteSorry I wasn't fast enough to help with the post!
ReplyDeleteAs always, lots of excitement in the room, and super crowded. Big cheers for the crowd pleasers (including ROOM, which garnered among the biggest applause of the morning). Some things went as expected, but there were also some surprises (the Newbery Medalist) and several shut-outs among the more highly awards-buzzed titles
Yeah, and while Living Dead Girl is certainly toward the extreme end of the spectrum, it's certainly not alone. Wintergirls messed with my head big time, and By the Time You Read This, I'll Be Dead has a similar...philosophy I guess, in terms of just how uplifting a story with such a dark premise can really be. Adult books seem to feel more free to let things that start off really bad turn out surprisingly well, while YA more often tends to want to acknowledge that bad things continue to happen sometimes despite everything.
ReplyDeleteSay more. What were the surprise shut-outs?<span> </span>
ReplyDeleteIt's not at the same level, but I reacted similarly to You Know Where to Find Me. There's some uplift at the end, but the desperation of the main character and her various slides really messed me up.
ReplyDeleteAnd yeah, I think you have a great point, Christy about YA vs. adult bleakness sometimes.
One award that got a lot of cheering was Sir Terry Pratchett for Edwards, which he won for nine of his books. He's a favorite and I think an author that a lot of people discover in adolescence and follow into adulthood. His Printz honor video speech a few years ago, which he recorded in front of a swordmaker (because, as a recently knighted fellow, he needed a sword) was great, and I have a feeling his Edwards speech will be amazing and touching.
ReplyDeleteRe: Shut outs, part 1:
ReplyDelete<p><span>Straddling the Newbery and Printz, there were several much-discussed titles that didn’t make the main lists, including several that were entirely shut out. ONE CRAZY SUMMER had been the favorite for the medal, though it did honor.</span>
</p><p><span> </span>
</p><p><span>Fiction wise:</span>
</p><p><span> </span>
</p><p><span>OUT OF MY MIND by Sharon Draper</span>
</p><p><span>THE DREAMER by Pam Munoz Ryan & Peter Sis</span>
</p><p><span>KEEPER by Kathi Appelt</span>
</p><p><span>FORGE by Laurie Halse Anderson (quite possibly hindered because it’s part of a series)</span>
</p><p><span>A CONSPIRACY OF KINGS by Megan Whalen Turner (see FORGE)</span>
</p><p><span>COUNTDOWN by Deborah Wiles</span>
</p><p><span>MOCKINGBIRD by Kathryn Erskine (won the NBA)</span>
</p><p><span>A TALE DARK AND GRIMM by Adam Gidwitz (I hesitate to include this one, since it’s my book, but it’s also dumb to not mention it here only for that reason)</span>
</p><p><span>FINNIKIN OF THE ROCK by Melina Marchetta</span>
</p><p><span>THE KNEEBONE BOY by Ellen Potter</span>
</p><p><span>THE THINGS A BROTHER KNOWS by Dana Reinhardt</span>
</p>
<p><span>It was also an exceptionally strong year for nonfiction, and many were also shut out. Most notably:</span>
ReplyDelete</p><p><span> </span>
</p><p><span>THEY CALLED THEMSELVES THE KKK by Susan Campbell Bartoletti</span>
</p><p><span>SUGAR CHANGED THE WORLD by Marc Aronson</span>
</p><p><span>THE WAR TO END ALL WARS by Russell Freedman</span>
</p><p><span> </span>
</p><p><span>I’m not as up on my Caldecotts, but there were a few buzz books absent there, too. Personally, it always frustrates me when a committee gives fewer honors than allowed (here they only gave two honors out of a possible four). Missing titles include:</span>
</p><p><span> </span>
</p><p><span>CHALK by Bill Thompson</span>
</p><p><span>CITY DOG, COUNTRY FROG by Mo Willems, illustrated by Jon J. Muth</span>
</p><p><span>ART AND MAX by David Wiesner (I don’t think people really expected this one, but it’s hard not to put it on any consideration list)</span>
</p><p><span>I’m sure I’m missing a ton more.</span>
</p><p><span> </span>
</p><p><span>As always, for both Newbery and Caldecott they must be American, so there were many illustration favorites that were ineligible. On the fiction, I could probably list tons more possible contenders. You never know. Onward to 2011!</span></p>
Dave the Potter got a Caldecott Honor, too!
ReplyDeleteArt & Max and City Dog, Country Frog were the ones I heard mentioned most often and that people seemed surprised weren't on the list. I know many people were very happy about Amos McGee - including my kiddo, who had voted for it on his Caldecott committee, though he was shocked about Art & Max not getting anything.
ReplyDeleteHe was also extremly shocked about Out of My Mind not getting the Schneider award (for books touching on the topic of disabilities), and I know a lot of professionals were surprised at that too, though it sounded like it got more kid love (it won a <span>lot</span> of kid Mock Newberys) than adult love -- a good book to booktalk, but adults see some flaws in it that kids don't. I think it's a great book and highly unusual (a first-person story of a highly intelligent girl with severe cerebral palsy who can't communicate with others and so is treated like a baby by most, until halfway through the book when she gets a communication device and gets mainstreamed and joins a quiz team). I do see the flaws in it and didn't expect a Newbery, but I was surprised about the Schneider. The book that got the Schneider, After Ever After, has been well-reviewed, and is also a topic you don't see a lot (the long aftermath of cancer -- an 8th-grader who was treated successfully for leukemia when he was 4, and the repercussions he still feels).
I've been following along at the Newbery blog, Heavy Medal, and people there were jaw-droppingly surprised about the Newbery -- it had no buzz (though it had three starred reviews), almost no one had mentioned it (a couple of commenters had recommended it) and the two main bloggers hadn't finished reading it. I saw similar surprise around the blogosphere. I haven't read it yet but hope for good things. Was very pleased to see One Crazy Summer (which I highly recommend) get a Newbery Honor at least, as well as the Coretta Scott King award and the Scott O'Dell historical fiction award. I highly recommend One Crazy Summer to all of you!! It's a complicated family story, with a lot about the Black Panthers (more from a community service perspective than a resistance perspective, though that comes up too). Beautifully written. One of the Newbery bloggers (maybe both) had been strongly recommending Dark Emperor for the awards, so they were pleased to see it - it's poetry about nature, and I haven't read it yet. I think Sugar Changed the World was the nonfiction that people sounded most enthusiastic about and most surprised to see completely shut out. I was pleased to see Turtle in Paradise get an Honor, as it's younger elementary (which often isn't recognized) and quite good. Heart of a Samurai had some buzz for a different award (maybe the Batchelder, which is translation), but people found it exciting and different and liked it very much. On hold for me at the library along with the winner, Moon over Manifest.
The thing about Knuffle Bunny Free is that there isn't really a good award for picture book writing (JSG and Christy, correct me if I'm wrong). The Caldecott is for illustration, and while picture books technically can get the Newbery, it's been very rare (one of the Frog and Toad books was an exception). The Geisel is for easy readers, and picture books don't seem to be quite in the same category, though I have a hard time articulating the distinction -- picture books may have harder words since they're more often read by adults to kids, whereas easy readers should be set up visually and verbally for new readers to handle. The Geisel choices this year were pretty much universally acclaimed: Bink & Gollie won the medal, and Ling and Ting: Not Exactly the Same! and We Are in a Book! won the Honors. I recommend Bink & Gollie extremely enthusiastically to any of you with kids who are newish readers (or a little older; or a little younger and you read it to them). Funny and sweet and unusual, great illustrations (the girls have so much personality), an opposites-friend story that made me think of Frog and Toad. We Are in a Book! is the latest Elephant & Piggie book by Mo Willems (so Mo did have a win, though not with Knuffle Bunny Free or City Dog). It is hilarious, amazingly funny illustrations as per usual Mo Willems, and breaks the fourth wall. Love it. Wish the Elephant & Piggie books had been around when my kiddo was reading easy readers, but I will be giving them all as gifts when my baby cousins get older.
ReplyDeleteAlso, it sounds like no one expected Interrupting Chicken as a Caldecott Honor book - no buzz. A very funny book, definitely recommended as a picture book, but I hadn't thought much about the art. Looked at it last night and what seemed notable to me was the expressiveness of the chickens through posture and facial expression (which is hard to do on a chicken). It's a more childlike style than a lot of the books that were mentioned, but it's kind of cool to see a Caldecott committee recognize that style too, and there's a lot of complexity behind it. (There's also three different styles of drawing in it: the main book, the storybooks Papa reads, and the book the Chicken draws herself.)
ReplyDeleteWe have nearly all the Elephant & Piggie books (it's hard to keep up) and adore them. Courtesy of Aunt Sue, we got We Are In A Book! for Chanukah and it's fabulous. My favorite remains Elephants Cannot Dance, but We Are In A Book is pretty high on the list.
ReplyDeleteAn old friend of mine and Sue's, Jordan Sonnenblick, won an ALA Award - the Schnieder, I believe - for his book AFTER EVER AFTER. It's a sequel to my favorite of his books, and one of my favorite YA books overall, called DRUMS, GIRLS, AND DANGEROUS PIE. If you haven't read DGADP, please do - it's wonderful.
ReplyDeleteSo YAY for Jordan, who I had a crush on when I was 12 and taught me archery at summer camp.
It is kind of weird that picture book authors don't have a big award.
ReplyDeleteBut Knuffle Bunny and Knuffle Bunny Too both got Caldecott Honors, and Knuffle Bunny Free would have been eligible this year, so yeah, it was left out.
The Geisel finally seems to have settled into some kind of working definition of what it considers a beginning reader. The first few years, they gave honors to books that were clearly just picture books. Your definition is pretty much dead on, Genevieve. A picture book doesn't have any readability constraints on it at all. A beginning reader is written and illustrated very deliberately to help kids learn to read on their own.
<span>Marsha - Jordan seems to be oddly intersected at the nexus of everyone I know. Crazy! Congrats to him.</span>
ReplyDeleteThe Charlotte Zolotow Award is for picture book text, but isn't given by the ALA and certainly isn't as well-known or as large a driver of sales as the Caldecott. Ditto the E. B. White Read-Aloud award, which has gone to an array of titles, from picture books through young fiction.
ReplyDeleteWintergirls was incredibly disturbing and bleak. The images from the climax and end are seared into my brain.
ReplyDelete