2013 Youth Media Awards

John Newbery Medal
for the most outstanding contribution to children's literature
The One and Only Ivan by Katherine Applegate
(H) Splendors and Glooms by Laura Amy Schlitz
(H) Bomb: The Race to Build - and Steal - the World's Most Dangerous Weapon by Steve Sheinkin
(H) Three Times Lucky by Sheila Turnage

Randolph Caldecott Medal
for the most distinguished American picture book for children
This is Not My Hat by Jon Klassen
(H) Creepy Carrots illustrated by Peter Brown, written by Aaron Reynolds
(H) Extra Yarn, illustrated by Jon Klassen, written by Mac Barnett
(H) Green by Laura Vaccaro Seeger
(H) One Cool Friend illustrated by David Small, written by Toni Buzzeo
(H) Sleep Like a Tiger illustrated by Pamela Zagarenski, written by Mary Logue

Michael L. Printz Award
for excellence in literature written for young adults
In Darkness by Nick Lake
(H) Aristotle and Dante Discover the Secrets of the Universe by Benjamin Alire Saenz
(H) Code Name Verity by Elizabeth Wein
(H) Dodger by Terry Pratchett
(H) The White Bicycle by Beverly A Brenna

Theodor Seuss Geisel Award
for the most distinguished beginning reader book
Up! Tall! and High by Ethan Long
(H) Let's Go for a Drive by Mo Willems
(H) Pete the Cat and HIs 4 Groovy Buttons by Eric Litwin, illustrated by James Dean
(H) Rabbit and Robot: the Sleepover by Cece Bell

Coretta Scott King Awards
for the best book about the African-American experience
Author
Hand in Hand: Ten Black Men Who Changed America by Andrea Davis Pinkney
(H) Each Kindness by Jacqueline Woodson, illustrated by E.B. Lewis
(H) No Crystal Stair by Vaunda Micheaux Nelson, illustrated by R. Gregory Christie
Illustrator
I, Too, Am America illustrated by Bryan Collier, written by Langston Hughes
(H) H.O.R.S.E.: a game of basketball and imagination by Christopher Myers
(H) Ellen's Broom illustrated by Daniel Minter, written by Kelly Starling Lyons
(H) I Have a Dream illustrated by Kadir Nelson, written by Martin Luther King Jr.

Virginia Hamilton Practitioner Award for Lifetime Achievement
Demetria Tucker - Roanoke Public Library system

Schneider Family Book Award
for books that embody an artistic expression of the disability experience
Picture Book
Back to Front and Upside Down by Claire Alexander
Middle Grade Novel
A Dog Called Homeless by Sarah Lean
Young Adult Novel
Somebody, Please Tell Me Who I Am by Harry Mazer and Peter Lerangis

Alex Awards
for the 10 best adult books that appeal to teen audiences
Caring is Creepy by David Zimmerman
Girlchild by Tupelo Hassman
Juvenile In Justice by Richard Ross
Mr Penumbra's 24 Hour Bookstore by Robin Sloan
My Friend Dahmer by Derf
One Shot at Forever: a small town, an unlikely coach, and a magical baseball season by Chris Ballard
Pure by Juliana Baggott
The Round House by Louise Erdrich
Tell the Wolves I'm Home by Carol Rifka Brunt
Where'd You Go Bernadette by Maria Semple

Andrew Carnegie Medal
for excellence in children's video
Anna, Emma, and the Condors by Green Planet Films

Margaret A. Edwards Award
for significant and lasting contribution to young adult literature.
Tamora Pierce (specifically for the Song of the Lioness series and the Protector of the Small Quartet)

May Hill Arbuthnot Honor Lecture Award
recognizing an author, critic, librarian, historian or teacher of children's literature, who then presents a lecture at a winning host site
Andrea Davis Pinkney

The Laura Ingalls Wilder Medal
for substantial and lasting contributions to literature for children
Katherine Paterson 

Mildred L. Batchelder Award
for an outstanding children's book translated from a language other than English and subsequently published in the United States
My Family for the War by Anne C. Voorhoeve, translated by Tammi Reichel
(H) A Game for Swallows: to die, to leave, to return by Zeina Abirached, translated by Edward Gauvin
(H) Son of a Gun by Anne de Graaf

Odyssey Award
best audiobook produced for children and/or young adults
The Fault in Our Stars written by John Green, read by Kate Rudd

Pura Belpre Awards
For the best books about the Latino cultural experience
Author
Aristotle and Dante Discover the Secrets of the Universe by Benjamin Alire Saenz
(H) The Revolution of Evelyn Serrano by Sonia Manzano
Illustrator
Martin de Porres: the rose in the desert illustrated by David Diaz, written by Gary D. Schmidt
Robert F. Sibert Medal
for most distinguished informational book for children
Bomb: The Race to Build - and Steal - the World's Most Dangerous Weapon by Steve Sheinkin
(H) Electric Ben: the amazing life and times of Benjamin Franklin by Robert Byrd
(H)  Moonbird: a year on the wind with the great survivor B95 by Philip M Hoose
(H) Titanic: voices from the disaster by Deborah Hopkinson

Stonewall Children's and Young Adult Literature Award
Books of exceptional merit relating to the gay, lesbian, bisexual, and transgendered experience.
Aristotle and Dante Discover the Secrets of the Universe by Benjamin Alire Saenz
(H) Drama by Raina Telgemeier
(H) Gone Gone Gone by Hannah Moskowitz
(H) October Mourning: A Song for Matthew Shepherd by Leslea Newman
(H) Sparks: the epic, completely true blue, (almost) holy quest of Debbie by SJ Adams

William C. Morris Award
for a debut book published by a first-time author writing for teens
Seraphina by Rachel Hartman
(F) Wonder Show by Hannah Rodgers Barnaby
(F) Love and Other Perishable Items by Laura Buzo
(F) After the Snow by S.D. Crockett
(F) The Miseducation of Cameron Post by Emily Danforth

YALSA Award for Excellence in Nonfiction for Young Adults
honors the best nonfiction book published for young adults during a November 1 – October 31 publishing year.
Bomb: The Race to Build - and Steal - the World's Most Dangerous Weapon by Steve Sheinkin
(F) Steve Jobs: the man who thought different by Karen Blumenthal
(F) Moonbird: a year on the wind with the great survivor B95 by Philip M Hoose
(F) Titanic: voices from the disaster by Deborah Hopkinson
(F) We've Got a Job: the 1963 Birmingham children's march by Cynthia Levinson

Awards Eve!

Just in case y'all didn't know, the ALA Youth Media awards will be announced tomorrow morning, at 7:45 Central time. If that sentence made you go, "Huh?" these awards are like the Oscars for kidlit, with the big kahunas being the Newbery and Caldecott awards.

Like most of us, I can't be in Dallas for the fun in person, but you can bet I'll be watching the live webcast, joining in the Twitter party (hashtag: #alayma), and generally geeking out in a way that would be embarassing except all the cool people are gonna be geeking out too.

Watch this space tomorrow for a full list of the winners.

GLTB YA (and Libraries) in the New Yorker

Via E. Lockhart's Facebook feed, I found this article in the New Yorker, Books With Gay Themes for Young Readers Take Off.

Libraries didn't come off very well: the article interviews one teen who got a flat-out "No way," when asking for GLBT books at his middle school library, only found books for adults at his public library, and had to go to a bookstore to find the real stuff. Ouch. He's not alone, either:

Recent research in Texas, for instance, indicated a strong ''I don't serve those teens'' attitude among librarians.

''It's the argument that drives me crazy,'' said Teri Lesesne, who teaches young adult lit in the Department of Library Science at Sam Houston State University in Huntsville, Texas.

''It's like, `Yeah, you do.' They might not be coming in and saying, `Hi, I'm gay or I'm bi or I'm transgender or I'm questioning my own identity,' because they're afraid,'' she said. ''But they're there and they're looking for these books.''

Now, I know not all libraries or librarians are like that. Couldn't they have found one example of a public or school librarian who said, "Oh, yeah, I recommend those books all the time. Wanna see my display?" Sigh.

Still, it's a good article, with mentions of the recent John Green/David Levithin collaboration Will Grayson, Will Grayson and the book that peeked around closet doors the same year that man landed on the moon, John Donovan's I'll Get There, It Better Be Worth the Trip.

Things I wish they'd included? A booklist. They did mention some great authors (Julie Anne Peters! Woot!) but would it have killed 'em to go, "Check out these awesome books too!"?

Still, they did get a wonderful quote in there:

''I see the [gay] characters trickling into the mainstream genres. I really like that,'' Brent said. ''It makes being gay feel natural, which it is, of course. Books give you hope.''

It's Awards Season

So, you guys know the ALA Media Awards (otherwise known as OMG Newbery! and OMG Caldecott! and Oh There's Others?) are being awarded next Monday? As they've done in the past, the American Library Association is providing a live webcast, not to mention texting and Twittering and Facebooking the proceedings, because us librarians are all down with the new-fangled technology and stuff.

Susan over at Booklights has posted a really great entry about the ALA Awards, going over some past winners that went on to be classics and also a discussion of the many (18!) awards given out and what they're awarded for. Required reading if you want to know why I'm going to be getting up at 5:30 am next Monday. (East Coasters can breathe now: it starts at 7:45 AM for you. Fracking time zones.)

I don't tend to speculate on the award winners, because most of the time I haven't yet read all the hot contenders. A lot of people seem to like The Evolution of Calpurnia Tate for the Newbery this year. I read it and liked it, and it seems the kind of book that the Newbery Committee likes. But you never can tell--we've had a few wacky upsets in the past decade or so.

For the Printz (excellence in YA literature), do I ever want Marcelo in the Real World to get some librarian love. An Honor, at least. Please, Printz Committee? Please?

What do you think/hope/pray will win?

Comic Strip and Library Glee

• The New York Times recently ran an article on some recent book challenges at the Brooklyn Public Library, and their classy-but-firm responses. Don't miss the actual challenges and responses, linked in the sidebar. Thanks to John Green, whose Looking for Alaska was among those challenged.
• This comic strip cracked me up, further proof that I have a heart of stone. Thanks to Janni Lee Simner for the link.
  
• The main character of the comic strip Luann has been volunteering at her local library for some time now. This week, she talks to a visiting Aussie about why American libraries are awesome. Which they totally are. This was my favorite:
  

Self-Censorship

From School Library Journal comes an article about that shaky line between selection and censorship for librarians buying books. To put it another way, the line between, "My library doesn't need this book," and "I don't need the grief this book will bring me."

It's good stuff--thought-provoking for anyone who's ever had to decide whether to keep or chuck a book, or even to order it at all. Teen books especially suffer from this, as librarians decide that a book is too mature for the kids or too risky for the community or even that it goes against their personal beliefs.

The exciting part, even in a Very Serious Article? The Cybils got mentioned! Last year's YA winner, Barry Lyga's Boy Toy, is discussed as an example of a book that didn't get to kids because librarians simply didn't order it. I'm doubly excited because I was on the YA committee that year. Feels kinda awesome, I must say.

Lookit The Pretty!

I may have to move to England just to buy one of these signed poster sets from Penguin. Awesome. I can just see it in the YA section.

Thanks to Bookshelves of Doom for the link. Fight ya for 'em, Leila.

WANT.

From Wired Magazine via Smart Bitches, Trashy Books. Click on through for a story about the lucky bas--uh, duck--who owns this library all for himself.

Bang Head Here

File this under "Oh for cripes' sake."

South St. Louis County-based Citizens Against Pornography is taking steps to see that parents are informed about sexually explicit material in books targeting young-teen readers — books that can be found throughout the St. Louis County Library system.

And also "O unbiased reporting, where art thou?"

Autism and Storytime

The Association for Library Service to Children's blog published this post about adapting traditional library storytimes to suit the specialized needs of kids with autism. I was especially interested in the use of picture cards to explain the storytime pattern to kids.

With the rise in autism and autism spectrum disorders (see the Autism Society of America's fact page for more information), this is definitely something children's librarians need to be thinking about.

Pedestals and Landfills

I have for you today a couple of neat posts from Guys Lit Wire.

The first one is about the private identity crisis of children's and YA librarians, also known as "Do the awards we spend most of the year arguing about actually matter to the kids?"

As a former child, I feel qualified to comment. I rarely noticed whether a book had an award or not, especially when it was something like the Tri-County Stan Handford Award for Achievement in Excellence. They serve mostly as a tip-off to grownups that this is likely be a quality book, but even that comes with caveats. Some of the older Newberys have not aged well.

This is not to say that awards are crap. Recognition is good, and we shouldn't discount the grown-ups' need for a little help in picking books for their kids. Some of my old favorites were winners (The Blue Sword, for instance, may actually be buried with me. Ditto A Wrinkle in Time.) But that has more to do with the content of the stories and my own personal tastes than the fact that they were award winners. I have never gotten a child saying to me, "I want an award-winning book." They usually say something like, "I want a good book." Their definition of a good book (much like an award committee's) is subject to all sorts of personal quirks and preferences.

Okay, from one extreme to the other. The second post concerned that most historically reviled genre of kid's lit, comic books. It's only been in the past decade or so that libraries have begun to add graphic novels to their collections, and even so, it's done in a sort of appease-the-masses spirit. If they come in for Spider-Man, they may trip over Dosteyevsky on the way out, and then we have them MUAHAHAHAHA . . . ahem.

But Kristopher talks about what reading comics taught him about literature. He points out that comics readers rarely close the book without an opinion, or the desire to share that opinion with his or her fellow readers.

They’ll dissect plot arcs, character developments, and the internal logic of a comic, changes in costume and changes in tone, all the basic building blocks of a narrative. They will cite back issues as precedent.

You guys, I had that experience. It was called Literary Theory 101. And I have to tell you, it takes some wicked quality writing to support that kind of analysis.

So what do these two posts mean? Comic books good, award winners bad? Up is down? Bad is good? Black is white?

No. Black is still black, and white is still white. But literature, and people, exist in shades of grey. I am not arguing that books (and comic books) have no intrinsic value. They sure do. There's some real crap out there, people.

But the other half of the equation is the reader. And that, of course, is why we're all here.

Rant Ahoy!

Sarah over at the Reading Zone has published a scathing rant about schools, summer reading lists, and the fact that they haven't changed in decades. (The schools or the lists.)

Amen! I love Maniac Magee, but for God's sake, school, it's been on your list for the past ten years. Switch it out! Get a little crazy! Do a little dance!

And pack away the tissues. It's summer. Not every book has to deal with Deep Themes like Death and War and the unbearable woe of existence. You'd be surprised how many humorous novels also have Deep Themes.

To all this, I'd like to add, "Schools, when you put at the bottom of the paper, 'Check the public library for these titles,' how about a leeetle heads-up to that self-same public library? Just a teeny one?" I'm reduced to snatching the lists from bewildered seventh-graders' hands, dashing away to make a quick copy, and giving my library supplier a call begging them to rush me several copies of each title, because my itty-bitty library is responsible for basically an entire school district.

Thanks to a number of bloggers for the link.

One of the Many Reasons I Became a Public Librarian . . .

Lee Wind over at I'm Here, I'm Queer, What the Hell Do I Read? posted a thought-provoking piece on his attempt to donate GLBTQ titles to E.O. Green Junior High School, the school where 15-year-old Larry King was killed after confessing his crush on a (male) fellow student.

Soldier on, Lee. This kind of thing is exactly why we need those books.

Booktalking the Classics

Where ya been, Bibliovore?

Sick, working, cleaning the Pit of Despair, otherwise known as my apartment, reading . . .

Excuses, excuses.

Pttthhhppppt.

Actually, this post is something I've been musing over for awhile now. About a week ago, a girl asked me to recommend something good to read. I discovered that she'd never read A Wrinkle in Time (gasp!) and took her over to the shelf. I pulled it down, opened my mouth to start my spiel, and realized I had no quick-and-dirty booktalk for A Wrinkle in Time and could not pull it out of my behind, where such things generally reside.

I mumbled something about Meg's dad and the witches and handed it to the girl, who fortunately knows and trusts me and took it without batting a lash.

For those non-library geeks out there, a booktalk is a short spiel about the book, designed to interest a TV-and-Game-Boy-addled kid, who's staring at you with the gimlet eye of, This better entertain me, 'cuz you know I have other options. In the army of librarians, it's the rifle--not nearly as flashy as the cannon or the bomb, but it targets the individual and (hopefully) gets the job done with a minimum of fuss.

For some reason, I find it terribly difficult to booktalk my favorite books--especially the ones I read as a child. Maybe it's because I'm too close? I want to talk about gawky, ugly Meg, with her braces and her spectacles and her tough shell that hides nougat (and an unfortunate tendency to scream and clutch, but what the hey, the book's nearly fifty years old). But getting to know Meg is not the plot of the book. It's something wonderful that happens during the plot. You have to hook 'em with something, and much as I love Meg, the chance to meet her probably not going to be that something.

I ran into the same problem with the novels of Jane Austen. You want to talk about Mr. Darcy and Captain Wentworth, swoon, swoon, but you know that the teenager in front of you is not interested in guys who wear cravats, whatever the hell those are. So you talk about the dueling lovers, or how Elizabeth needs to marry rich but won't take just anybody, thanks very much. With the other book, you talk about Anne, who screwed it up nine years ago and is now afraid it's too late to un-screw it.

Some books flat-out don't have a plot, but you love them anyway. How do you sell that?

The trouble is that, "Oh, just read it," only works if the kid does know and trust you, and that doesn't happen very often.

Maybe I am too close to these books. I have to get in my mental time machine, step way back, and look at the book as if this is the first time I have ever touched it, and I'm giving it a chapter to hook me before I go on to something else.

"This is Meg Murray. A year ago, her dad disappeared, and now everybody says he dumped her mom and ran off. She knows that's not true. One night, she meets a really weird old lady named Mrs. Whatsit, who's going to help her find her dad. Trouble is, he's a lot farther away than Kansas."

Well . . . it worked this time.

But My Child is Sooooo Advanced!

YA author Alix Flinn just put up a great post about parents of advanced readers who have rude awakenings when they bump into books that are (surprise!) too mature for their child.

Key quotes:

I am then faced with the unpleasant task of explaining that my books aren't really for 10-year-olds.

To which they say, "But (s)he's a very advanced reader." (Yes, every single one of them. Apparently every single child within a 10 mile radius of my home -- including my own children, I should say -- reads above grade level. This does make me question the concept of "grade level," but it wouldn't be the first time).

Hehe! I see this a lot at work: the parents who diss Charlotte's Web because their seven-year-old's reading levels mean s/he should be reading War and Peace. Then I bite my lip until it bleeds to stop myself saying, "Have you ever read War and Peace?"

I know whereof I speak. I was one of those supremely annoying precocious children, and during Easter break of my fourth-grade year, I decided the time was ripe for me to read Gone With the Wind. I hated it. I still hate it. If I'd read it at a time when I was emotionally ready for this story, I might have felt differently. (Maybe not, though. That Scarlett was a pain in the ass.)

As Alix writes, there's a difference between sentence structure and vocabulary that a kid is capable of unraveling, and the actual content of the book. My horror story about this concerns Annette Curtis Klause's The Silver Kiss. Amazing book, but very definitely for 12-up. Maybe even 15-up. But according to Accelerated Reader, it's suitable for a fourth-grader.

I wonder how many parents of "advanced readers" ever read for the joy of it. Maybe if they had, they'd understand that reading is not a racetrack, but a map to an undiscovered country.

Thanks to Liz B over at A Chair, a Fireplace, and a Tea Cozy for pointing me at Alix's post.

P.S. In a fun bit of synchronicity, I'm currently reading Alix Flinn's Beastly. This book is unputdownable. Would I give it to a fourth-grader? Hell, no.

Finally, a Library Sitcom!

Unfortunately, it airs in Australia. Dang. Anyway, here's the commercial:



Anyone living in Australia? Anyone? Bueller?

Library Meme

Okay folks, here's another Teen Read Week meme. I can't claim credit for this one, though. I found it at E. Lockhart's blog, and she found it through MemeGirls.

1. How old were you when you got your first library card?
I think I must have been about ten. At any rate, after the age of ten is when I remember losing my library card. And again. And again. Aaaaaaaaaand again. The family joke is that I paid for my hometown's new library with the lost-card and overdue fees.

2. What's the first book you can remember reading from a library?
That is lost in the mists of time. Knowing my mother (a teacher who fed us all the books we would consume), something really good for kids. Possibly Seussian in nature.

3. Did you ever participate in a summer reading program or other kids' event at a library growing up?
Oh, heck, yes. I was that annoying one who finished first every year.

4. Do you remember when card catalogues weren't computerized?
I do, actually, although I don't remember using them much. It was a Big Hairy Deal when they did get computerized, so much so that my entire class was marched about a half-mile down the road to visit the library and learn how our lives would be changed by computer catalogs. At which point we whined about how far we were gonna have to walk back.

5. When was the last time you went to the library?
Since I'm a children's librarian . . . today.

6. How many books do you usually check out of the library at one time?
I allow myself two per workday, or my library-book-shelf would collapse from the weight. It's groaning now.

7. Name one great author you've discovered at your library.
Just one? Puh. Ooookay. Although this will sound like sucking up . . . E. Lockhart.

8. What was the librarian at your elementary school like?
I had three elementary schools because of moves. The first was unmemorable. Possibly she did not exist. The second was a strange one . . . while she was cool enough to lead me to Nancy Drew in second grade, she made me read them in order. ??? The third was made of awesome. Hi, Mrs. Robb from Bird School in Plymouth, Michigan! You are AWESOME!

9. How many times a year do you go to the library?
I'm guesstimating 250. See answer to #5.

10. If you could change on thing about your library, what would it be and why?
It needs to be bigger. Way bigger. And have all the books I want to read in it. As long as we're dreaming.

Going on Record with my Whuh?

Okay, I'm blinking.

St. Louis Library Accuses Patron of Creating Controversial Display

I'm still detangling, but they believe that a patron came in, pulled books on sex and homosexuality off the shelf in the teen area, arranged a Make-Your-Own Display, took pictures, and sent them to a website that's against nasty, nasty books in libraries. Presumably this was to fan flames of outrage that were already crackling merrily.

Kudos to the St. Louis Library for two things:
1) Declaring that no books would leave the library.
2) Reviewing the books with the reconsideration committee to see if any should be moved to another section. (In case you're interested, so far 15 out of 17 have been determined to be suitable for the teen area and they are still reviewing the last two.)

ETA: Thanks to Bookshelves of Doom for the link.

Hysterical Laughter

For perhaps the first time in my life, I wish I lived in Wyoming.

Here's why.

Apparently Wyoming libraries have come up with this fun campaign, including the reading Mud Flap girl, who is apparently causing a bit of a flap all by her nekkid self. Check out the website for more.

Now if you'll excuse me, I have to go perform some Photoshop on that first bookmark.