The Joy of Children's Literature

Yesterday was such a big day in the world of children's and YA literature. As I thought about the results, I started thinking about my own reading and how much joy the ALA award winners and honors have brought me over the years. I might not always agree with the committees, but the winners/honors are always great literature. Tonight, I meet with my children's literature class for the first time and I will share with them the opening chapter in Gary Paulsen's The Winter Room , a Newbery Honor Book. In the story, a young boy growing up on a northern Minnesota farm describes the scenes around him and recounts his old Norwegian uncle's tales of an almost mythological logging past. Here is the first chapter, titled, Tuning : If books could be more, could show more, could own more, this book would have smells... It would have the smells of old farms; the sweet smell of new-mown hay as it falls of the oiled sickle blade when the horses pull the mower through the field, and the...

Now that the big day has finally arrived and the ALA awards have been announced, it's time to see how I did with my goal of reading the winner BEFORE it was announced. Below is the list of winners and I've put an asterick in front of the title if I've read it: Newbery Medal * (yipeeee!) The Graveyard Book by Neil Gaiman, HarperCollins Children's Books Newbery Honor Books * The Underneath by Kathi Appelt, illustrated by David Small, Atheneum Books for Young Readers, an imprint of Simon & Schuster Children's Publishing * The Surrender Tree: Poems of Cuba's Struggle for Freedom by Margarita Engle, Henry Holt and Company, LLC * Savvy by Ingrid Law, Dial Books for Young Readers, a division of Penguin Young Readers Group in partnership with Walden Media, LLC * After Tupac and D Foster by Jacqueline Woodson, G.P. Putnam's Sons, a division of Penguin Books for Young Readers Caldecott Medal * The House in the Night , illustrated by Beth Krommes and written b...

The Girl Who Wanted to Dance by Amy Ehrlich, illus. by Rebecca Walsh. Candlewick, $17.99 (40p) ISBN 978-0-7636-1345-7 Both a haunting fairy tale and a parable for families separated by divorce or death, this lyrically rendered story also presents art as a vehicle for transcending pain. In a long-ago village, Clara lives with her silent father and loving grandmother, who tells her about her absent mother, a lover of music and dance. When musicians come to the village, Clara cannot resist their lure and slips away to the forest to dance with them at night; she comes close to joining them, but her father stops her—by coming out to the forest, recognizing his wife among the dancers, joining her briefly and forgiving her for leaving: “I understand you can’t come back.” Ehrlich (Baby Dragon) knows precisely how to turn description into the foundation of fairy tale (as Clara wades across a river, “the edge of her nightgown grew dark with water”), and her bittersweet ending barricades the sto...

The countdown is ON...only three days until the big announcements! So, this is the LAST round-up of Newbery news before the big day. Nina Lindsay at Heavy Medal gives us the Anatomy of a Mock Newbery based on her experience participating in the Mock Newbery at the Golden Gate library in Oakland. This is a really nice overview of the process this group followed along with a brief outline of their discussion of each Newbery contender. Sharon McKeller also discusses some other Mock Newbery results . Fuse #8 gives us her predictions on the Newbery and Caldecott. Shannon Hale at squeetus writes a very interesting piece: What did the Newbery ever do for me? Besides sales of the awarded book, this honor has affected me personally and professionally in a profound way. Wherever I go as an author, people introduce me as a "Newbery Honor author" (or quite often, as a Newbery Medalist or Newbery Award winner, which isn't true, but we don't need to nitpick). I have felt that tit...

The round-up today is of resources for classroom teachers. After such an historic event of the inauguration of the 44th president, some teachers might like to have President Obama's inauguration speech to listen to as a class or to replay. Audible.com has a free download of the speech. It's never too early to start preparing for Read Across America Day! Random House is offering a free activity guide . Each month, the ReadWriteThink.org Calendar offers quick classroom activities, lesson plans, Web links, and texts pertaining to various reading–related and general interest events. Here is a sampling of the links for February: February 2: Groundhog Day. February 4: African American Read-In continues throughout the month. February 9: Author Alice Walker was born on this day in 1944. February 16: Reading Rainbow host LeVar Burton was born in 1957. February 27: Author John Steinbeck was born in 1902. There also are links relating to other noted authors and events, and more. For furt...

"Laurie Halse Anderson has won the 2009 Scott O'Dell Award for Chains (S&S, October 2008), narrated by teenaged Isabel Finch during the Revolutionary War. Although Isabel and her enslaved five-year-old sister were to be freed upon the death of their mistress, the woman's heir sells the siblings to a new owner in New York City--that is the first of the betrayals that lie ahead, but also the beginning of Isabel's fight for freedom. The award, established by O'Dell (best known as the author of The Island of the Blue Dolphins ), is given annually to a meritorious work of historical fiction and includes a $5,000 prize. Chains was also a National Book Award Finalist, just like Anderson's debut novel, Speak (Farrar, Straus & Giroux, 1999)." Congratulations, Laurie!!!

Wow! That's just about all I can say at the end of this day of inaugural events. I thought this Wordle posted by Daniel Pink was a beautiful depiction of Obama's speech today and a fantastic way to start this resource round-up. There are lots of great resources in today's post. HarperCollins is providing free online access to Neil Gaiman's Coraline , Coraline: the Graphic Novel Adaptation , The Graveyard Book , The Dangerous Alphabet and more! Yep, you read that right...FREE! Go. Check it out. Now. Over at the I.N.K. blog , Kathleen Krull highlights several exciting 2009 nonfiction titles you will want to put on your wish list. Bestbookihavenotread has an interview with Kathi Applet, author of The Underneath , which many think will win the Newbery. Award-winning poet and educator Nikki Giovanni has a new book of poems focusing on love. The legendary writer talks about her 27th work, Bicycles: Love Poems on NPR . Open Wide, Look Inside highlights two poetry books ...

From this week's Publisher's Weekly : Same Same by Marthe Jocelyn, illus. by Tom Slaughter. Tundra, $15.95 (24p) ISBN 978-0-88776-885-9 Jocelyn and Slaughter (previously paired for Eats ) strikingly introduce the concept of classification. Slaughter's graphic cut-paper compositions command attention with their paint-box–bright colors. The first spread, for example, shows an apple, a blue-and-green planet Earth and a tambourine, against fields of yellow, black and red, respectively, for stop-sign-like impact. “Round things,” reads the caption. The next pages show the tambourine again, now with a guitar and a bird. This spread is captioned “things that make music.” Always carrying forward one of the three objects from the previous spread, Jocelyn delivers the vital lesson that everyday objects fall into many categories. The concept is clear and the delivery attractive; a book like this is an essential part of the very young child's library. Ages 2–5. (Jan.) The Yankee at...

I've been gathering links to resources on President-Elect Obama's inauguration and have listed them below. Public School Insight has put together some resources to help educators and parents take advantage of this historic moment. The Our White House Inauguration Celebration Kit for Kids! The National Children's Book and Literacy Alliance’s Our White House: Looking In, Looking Out book and website overflow with stories, poetry, articles, and art about our presidents, our White House, and our history that will enhance any inaugural celebration you plan for the young people in your life. Some of the ideas and activities we suggest spring directly from the content and illustrations in Our White House: Looking In, Looking Out , which you can find at your local library or bookstore—but many of the suggested ideas and activities can be used independently of the book. Although the inauguration is Tuesday, January 20, 2009, variations on these ideas and activities can also be used...

I subscribe to quite a few blogs and I admit that sometimes the number of posts I peruse each day can be daunting. Recently, I read a post in which the blogger decided to delete all of his blog subscriptions and start over with fresh perspective. His thinking was that he subscribes to the blogs of people who think just like he does, so the posts really don't push his thinking. And I admire that for him. But, I don't have that problem. I subscribe to a variety of blogs, but my favorites...the ones I look forward to each day...the ones that push my thinking, are those of children's and young adult authors. I don't know how they find the time to write such great posts and also such great books, but I'm glad they do. I'm especially thrilled when these authors blog about their writing. I enjoy getting a glimpse into their writing practices, but I also benefit from the tips and advise I gain for my own writing and to also share with my students. So, I've decided ...

Newbery buzzzzzzzzz is rampant! I am trying my best to finish the books on various lists. I finished Savvy and am now reading Alvin Ho . I'm listening to Little Brother on CD in my car and listening to Madapple on my I-Pod. How's that for multi-tasking, huh? Below is a gathering of different discussions about the various impending ALA awards from different media sources: Susan Patron, 2007 Newbery Medal winner for The Higher Power of Lucky , has written an article for the Los Angles Times , Don't Discount the Newbery , in which she talks about how children's books that deal seriously with serious issues can change readers' lives. From the article: Winning a Newbery no doubt increased my book sales; it gave me a measure of fame. But it was well before I won it that the Newbery award transformed me, changing my child-self from nonreader to avid reader, introducing librarianship to me as a career, inspiring me to want to write children's books and to strive fo...

This weeks Publisher's Weekly includes the following starred reviews. Congratulations! The Snow Day by Komako Sakai. Scholastic/Levine, $16.99 (40p) ISBN 978-0-545-01321-5 Snow has been falling all night, and when a small rabbit awakens, he learns that kindergarten is closed, his mother can't go to the store, and his father's flight home has been canceled. “Mommy, we are all alone in the world,” he announces solemnly, and even though he's clearly safe and sound in an apartment with all the modern comforts, readers will understand his bittersweet feelings of isolation and solitude. Sakai (Emily's Balloon) takes a very different approach in these pages: focusing more on setting and mood than characterization, she turns each illustration into a vivid snapshot (Mommy on the phone with stranded Daddy, an outdoor hug before the dash back indoors). Against a palette of grays and muted colors, she uses the yellow of the rabbit's jacket or boots to focus the reader...

My goal is to make Monday Resource Round-up day. I'll collect the best of the resources for children's and YA literature from the blogs and websites I view each week and post them here. Let me know if you come across great resources, too, and I'll add them to the list. Curriculum Connection s , the e-newsletter by School Library Journal and TeachingBooks.net, is starting the year off with their own fireworks: new titles on the African-American experience , a string of author-read fiction excerpts , the inside scoop on Don Brown’s new titles for young readers, gut-wrenching novels in verse for teens, and a look at a professional title that may inspire you to rethink your next family-night program. Enjoy! This month's NoveList School News , an e-newsletter by EBSCO Publishing, looks at the role of the school librarian as not only working with children, but also teachers. Features include: Spotlight which looks at the influential work of educator Lucy McCormick Calk...

I hesitate to post such a long article, but it is from The Chronicle of Higher Education (Dec. 19, 2008), to which many may not subscribe, and I think it would be a shame for you to miss it. Please take five minutes to read this peice by Andrew Martino, chairman of the English department at Southern New Hampshire University. It will put a "knowing" smile on your face! Wonder Rediscovered in Children's Books By ANDREW MARTINO As a professor of world literature, I am in the enviable position of being able to do what I love and get paid for it. Quite simply, I am paid to facilitate discussions about books. Yet, since graduate school, I have found myself including on my syllabi fewer works of literature in favor of more "serious" works of literary theory. Each semester I spend less and less time actually discussing a book like Don Quixote and more time explaining why Marx or Foucault may be a valuable lens through which to interpret Cervantes. Correspondingly, my en...

I hope you don't mind if I take a minute to brag... The College of William & Mary (where I teach), was featured this morning on NBC's Today show when it was named the third best value in public education by the Princeton Review , which ranks the country's public colleges and universities in its annual list of the best bargains in public education. I'm so proud!

How to Heal a Broken Wing by Bob Graham is the twelfth annual winner of the Charlotte Zolotow Award for outstanding writing in a picture book. From Megan Schliesman, Chair 2009 Charlotte Zolotow Award Committee: In a dramatic story that slowly unfolds in just a handful of carefully weighted words, Graham's picture book follows the fate of an injured pigeon. The marvelous visual storytelling accompanying the narrative includes full-page and double-page spreads and multiple panels on a single page that detail striking moments and affecting scenes. But what might have been an effective wordless book takes on even greater nuance and richness by the elegantly spare and emotionally charged narrative. How to Heal a Broken Wing was edited by Joan Powers and published in the United States in 2008 by Candlewick Press. The 2009 Zolotow Award committee named five Honor Books: How I Learned Geography written and illustrated by Uri Shulevitz, edited by Margaret Ferguson, and published by Fa...