The Joy of Children's Literature

LeVar Burton – The former Reading Rainbow host joins All Things Considered host Guy Raz for a reading of Snowy Day , credited as on of the first children’s book to feature a non-caricatured black protagonist.              Airdate: Saturday, January 28, on All Things Considered Audio: Available Saturday at approximately 7PM (ET) at http://www.npr.org/templates/rundowns/rundown.php?prgId=2

That ALA Youth Media Awards were announced early this morning. Dead End in Norvelt by Jack Gantos won the Newbery! I loved this book and am happy to see it win. It also won the 2012 Scott O'Dell Award for best historical fiction, which I blogged about last week and included a link to his National Book Festival speech. Two Newbery Honors were awarded: Inside Out & Back Again by Thanhaa Lai, which also won the National Book Award for Young People's Literature , and Breaking Stalin's Nose by Eugene Yelchin. A Ball for Daisy , written and illustrataed by Chris Raschka, won the Caldecott! Three Caldecott Honor books were awarded: Blackout written and illustrated by John Rocco, Grandpa Green written and illustrated by Lane Smith and Me...Jane written and illustrated by Patrick McDonnell, which also won the 2012 Charlotte Zolotow award . Interestingly, all of the Caldecott award winners were written and illustrated by the same person. All winners of the ...

Jacqueline Woodson (from PW ) I found out earlier today that one of my favorite authors, Jacqueline Woodson, is going to be the YA luncheon speaker at IRA and was thrilled! Then, quite prophetically, I found a great interview with her by Publishers Weekly. Below is an excerpt in which she talks about her newest book, Beneath a Meth Moon (due out in February), and what she is working on. Read the entire interview here .   Are you currently mining any memories for another writing project?   I feel like I’m still coming out of the fog of finishing Beneath a Meth Moon . I don’t think I realized how inside that story I really was. It was a hard and heavy book to write. But I’ve finished a picture book, Each Kindness , which E.B. Lewis is illustrating and Nancy Paulsen Books will publish in fall 2012. I was inspired by seeing third- and fourth-grade girls being so mean to each other and not even realizing that’s what they were doing. I remember thinking, “They t...

For the past 90 years, the ALA has awarded the Newbery Medal, sometimes called the "Oscar" of children’s literature, to an author in recognition of the year’s most distinguished children’s book. Open Road Integrated Media has made available to the public a video that captures Newbery Award-Winning authors Virginia Hamilton and Jean Craighead George talking about how those awards (for Julie of the Wolves and M.C. Higgins The Great respectively) changed their lives. Hamilton was the first African American to win the award and George saw the view of children's literature change to "something important instead of something second-rate.” This short (2:06) video is below. Enjoy! Credit: Open Road Integrated Media

Me … Jane written and illustrated by Patrick McDonnell is the fifteenth annual winner of the Charlotte Zolotow Award for outstanding writing in a picture book.   Patrick McDonnell’s picture book about chimpanzee researcher Jane Goodall as a child depicts her as a curious, scientific-minded young girl whose favorite stuffed animal was a chimpanzee named Jubilee. She took the stuffed chimp everywhere as she explored and carefully observed the natural world of her childhood . . . and dreamed of someday going to Africa. McDonnell’s spare, skillful, and superbly paced text balances a sense of playfulness with purpose as he conveys Goodall’s focus and determination. Me … Jane was edited by Andrea Spooner and published in the United States in 2011 by Little, Brown Books for Young Readers. The 2012 Zolotow Award committee named three Honor Books :   Apple Pie ABC , written and illustrated by Alison Murray, edited by Stephanie Lurie, and published by Disney/Hyperion; ...

The 2012 Scott O'Dell Award for Historical Fiction went to Dead End in Norvelt by Jack Gantos. The annual award, established in 1982 by author Scott O'Dell,  goes to an author for a meritorious book published in the previous year for children or young adults.  The purpose of the award is to encourage other writers-- particularly new authors --to focus on historical fiction. Scott O'Dell hoped in this way to increase the interest of young readers in the historical background that has helped to shape their country and their world. A list of all award winners by historical period is available here .  On a personal note, I loved this book! I laughed all the way through it. I heard Jack Gantos speak about the book at the National Book Festival in Washington, D.C. last year and he was hilarious (as usual). A webcast of his speech is available here . Enjoy!

Thousands of adults, young adults, and children received eReaders this past holiday season and analysts predict that volume will continue to grow in 2012 to 28.9 million. Pricing is also expected to drop this year with Amazon’s Kindle as low as $49 and Barnes and Noble's Nook as low as $99. I have had a Kindle since they were first introduced and though I am on my third one due to hardware and software problems, I do love that I can get most books anywhere at anytime at a cheaper price than the print copy. Though eReaders have largely not made it into the classroom, as prices drop, this might change. The idea of having instant access to books that match students' interests is very appealing to teachers. However, teachers already spend a great deal of their own money to purchase books for their classroom libraries and school and library budgets are very limited. With this in mind, there are a couple of ways to get free books for the Kindle. You can download Free C...

In this post, I'm sharing a few YouTube videos that have been quite inspiring and some that are just fun. Below is a TED presentation by spoken word poet and teacher, Sarah Kay . You MUST watch it and be inspired! I also watched a documentary titled, Louder Than A Bomb , about the spoken word poetry contest held in Chicago Public Schools. It was also extremely inspiring. Below is the trailer : Finally, does everyone but me know about the book, Goodnight iPad , a parody of the original by Margaret Wise Brown? Hilarious! See the YouTube video below...does it not perfectly capture what goes on in the homes of many of our children today? Reminds me of a colleague who told me she texts her children to tell them to come to dinner. The video below it is in stark contrast, titled: The Joy of Books . Enjoy!

Today, The Costa Book Award category winners were announced. T he Costa Book Awards are a series of five literary awards--First Novel, Novel, Biography, Poetry and Children's Book--given to books by authors based in Great Britain and Ireland. The criteria are to select well-written, enjoyable books that they would strongly recommend anyone to read. Blood Red Road by Moira Young won the Children's Book category. I really enjoyed this book and look forward to reading the second book in the proposed series (Dust Lands), Rebel Heart , due out this year. From The Guardian : The first in a planned dystopian trilogy for teens, this searing debut has been compared to Cormac McCarthy and optioned by Ridley Scott. It tells the story of Saba's epic quest to get her beloved twin brother back after he is captured in an apocalyptic monster sandstorm. Teaming up with a gang of girl revolutionaries she finds she has the power to change a corrupt society from the inside - an...

Walter Dean Myers, National Ambassador for Young People's Literature 2012-2013 Walter Dean Myers is a critically acclaimed author of books for young people. His award-winning body of work includes “Sunrise Over Fallujah,” “Fallen Angels,” “Monster,” “Somewhere in the Darkness” and “Harlem.” Myers has received two Newbery Honor Awards and five Coretta Scott King Awards. He is the winner of the first Michael L. Printz Award (for excellence in young adult literature, given by the American Library Association) as well as the first recipient of Kent State University's Virginia Hamilton Literary Award for Lifetime Achievement. In 2008, he won the May Hill Arbuthnot Lecture Award. He is considered one of the preeminent writers for young people. Myers began writing at an early age. “I was a good student, but a speech impediment was causing problems. One of my teachers decided that I couldn't pronounce certain wor...

While catching up on my blog reading, I found the following interesting, informative, etc. From the LATimes : Socially Networked Reading: Hey, Take A Look At This . Reading doesn't have to be a solitary activity. Increasingly, apps are being developed to enable users to electronically share thoughts.  Top Articles on SLJ.com 2011: Ebooks, Kid Lit, Jobs From NYTimes : Scholastic Unveils New Multi-Platform Series: Infinity Ring. Touted as "the next Harry Potter," Scholastic's forthcoming multi-platform book series, Infinity Ring , is clearly the heir apparent to The 39 Clues . From A Fuse #8 Production: 100 Magnificent Children’s Books of 2011 . NYC librarian and SLJ blogger, Fuse #8 states, " If you had a horribly limited library budget and you could only buy 100 children’s books from the year 2011, here are the hundred I would insist you get." From Publishers Weekly: Book Thief Hits Two Million in U.S. Sales . Markus Zusa...

I've been out of town visiting family and am just now catching up on all of the New Year blog posts. One thing I noticed is that several bloggers are not posting New Year's resolutions, but rather selecting one word that sums up a "philosophy" to live by for the year. 2011 was a year of definite highs, devastating lows, and major changes for me. I achieved full professor at the college where I teach, my mother passed away, and my only son went to college. Adjusting to these changes has been challenging to say the least, but I also have an amazing husband and wonderful students whom I have the privilege to teach. Keeping it all in perspective is the difficult part sometimes. That's why I think if I were to choose a word for 2012, it would be balance . In the field of reading education, achieving balance in literacy instruction (balanced literacy) is "a complex process that requires flexibility and artful orchestration of literacy's various context...

I'm re-posting the announcement below since tomorrow is the big day! Librarian of Congress James H. Billington will announce the next National Ambassador for Young People’s Literature on January 3, 2012. The post was created by the Center for the Book in the Library of Congress, the Children’s Book Council (CBC) and Every Child a Reader to raise national awareness of the importance of young people’s literature as it relates to literacy, education, and the development and betterment of children’s lives. Appointed for a two-year term, the National Ambassador will choose a platform that reflects his or her personal interests (also to be revealed on the announcement date) and advocate this policy throughout his or her travels and tenure. The National Ambassador for Young People’s Literature is named by the Librarian of Congress based on recommendations from a selection committee representing many segments of the book community. The selection criteria include the candidate’s con...