Tuesday, February 3, 2015

Newbery/ Caldecott and other ALA winners

Yesterday (yes, on Groundhog Day), the American Library Association announced their choices for most distinguished books and other media.  They even stream the announcements LIVE for book addicts like me, and many others.

I was amazed at how many of the winners and honor book winners I had some real or some faint connection to.

For example - I'm working on getting an MFA (Master of Fine Arts) from the wonderful college, Vermont College of Fine Arts.  We students of Writing for Children and Young Adults have always joked about the fact that we were working toward World Domination.
That our books would take over the world.

Yesterday we proved that this is so.
1. Kekla Magoon - Coretta Scott King Honor book - How It Went Down
.
2. Jandy Nelson - Printz Medal winner - I'll Give You the Sun.
3. Jandy Nelson - Stonewall Book Award - I'll Give You the Sun.

4. Brown Girl Dreaming by Jacqueline Woodson won three awards:
-- Coretta Scott King Award winner!  (for text)
-- Newbery Honor Book (silver medal)
-- Robert Sibert Honor (this one is for nonfiction)

5. And Julie Berry was awarded an Odyssey Audio Book Honor for her book, The Scandalous Sisterhood of Prickwillow Place.   

Oh WOW!
Celebrate their victories with us at The LaunchPad! 

Do I know the Newbery Winner?
He's a member of the Children's Book Guild in Washington, D.C. - one of the groups I also belong to.
Kwame Alexander, who wrote The Crossover.

Deborah Taylor, (also a member of the Children's Book Guild as the representative of Enoch Pratt Free Library to that group) was awarded the Lifetime Achievement Award.

Mo Willems gathered up another Theodor Seuss Geisel Award for his new book, Waiting is not Easy. If you haven't met Elephant and Piggy, you've gotta go get several right now. This is their latest adventure.   (Funny thing - Elephant's name is Gerald, but we still don't know if Piggy has any other name than - Piggy.)

I don't exactly 'know' Mo, but he did come to speak to the Guild and is a perfectly charming, funny guy.

The only way I 'know' Dan Santat, the Caldecott winner for The Adventures of Beekle, is because Lisa Yee constantly features him on her blog and on her Facebook account - having lunch or dinner with the illustrator of her books.

A full list of all the award winners can be found here on the American Library Association web page press release.

A GREAT overview of the amazing aspects of this year's selections for these Awards can be found here at the Unadulterated blog.

Okay, I'll stop now.
Congratulations to ALL the winners.           !!!

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