How to use this Page

The One and Only Ivan is a bestselling novel about hope and friendship. It was inspired by a real silverback gorilla named Ivan who was held captive for 27 years.

I’ve been privy to lots of interesting conversations about our most recent ALA winners this week.  And since it’s Friday and we’re all now able to step back and take into account what all just happened, here is a quick summary of some of the discussions, topics, and random facts surrounding the Youth Media Awards of 2016.  Just so that you’re playing along at home, here is the announcement of who the winners were.  First up . . .

Newbery

We’ll begin with the most surprising choice.  Last Stop on Market Street, a picture book, won the Newbery.  The question was then whether or not it is the first picture book to win the award.  After all, A Visit to William Blake’s Inn won back in 1982, yes?  And it also won a Caldecott Honor, just like Market Street.  Yet William Blake’s Inn was poetry first, and picture book second.  Market Street is straight up picture book text, context, you name it.  So, in some ways, it is the first award winner, yes.

Next, there was a question as to whether or not Matt de la Pena is the first Latino to win the Newbery Award (not Honor but Award).  And it was Roger Sutton who pointed out that maybe not.  Remember, if you will, Paula Fox.  As he wrote, “from Augusta Baker’s profile of Fox, written for The Horn Book to accompany her Newbery speech in 1974: ‘Paula Fox knew her share of pain as a child. A New Yorker by birth, half-Spanish, half-Irish-English, she was sent at the age of eight to live with her grandmother in Cuba’.”  This is not something I’d heard before.  Thank you, Roger!

Jon Scieszka tweeted this during the week as well:

You can read more about that night here, if you like.  My sole regret is that the evening wasn’t taped.  Matt killed in that tux.

Moving on, while Matt may not be the first Latino Award winner of the Newbery, it is certainly true that 2016 was the first time that there was a Latino winner of the Award and a Latino winner of an Honor in the same year.  Echo by Pam Munoz Ryan was an early favorite in 2015.  I remember the book well and I also remember its swag.  Many galleys were sent out with little harmonicas.  In my office, just because of who works there, we received about four of five of these harmonicas.  They were cute but we weren’t entirely certain what to do with them.  Someone should write a middle grade called A Confusion of Harmonicas.

Someone should also tap Norton Juster to play a harmonica at the Newbery/Caldecott Banquet the way he did the year Raschka’s The Hello, Goodbye Window won a Caldecott.

Many were quite thrilled that The War That Saved My Life received recognition, including myself.  You can find my review of it here.  It was particularly gratifying since back in the day I wanted her to win an award for Jefferson’s Sons.

Roller Girl by Victoria Jamieson was a surprise win for many.  If folks thought El Deafo‘s win last year was a fluke, Victoria’s latest Honor drills home that graphic novels are here to stay.  It also means that the push for a separate Graphic Novel award may fall by the wayside.  After all, they can apparently win Newberys now.  For fun, take a trip in the wayback machine to 2009 when Victoria solicited cool children’s literature-related roller derby names on this site.  My favorite remains Jacob Have I Shoved (with special honors going to Winnie-the-Pow!).

And speaking of Winnie . . .

Caldecott

I’m going to level with you.  When I read Finding Winnie I had a lot to say about it.  And though it was being published in October, I reviewed in May. I loved it so.

Sophie appeared at a Spring Little Brown & Company preview in early March of 2015 to talk about the book, as it happens.  While doing so she showed a lot of the research she conducted for the art.  Here are some of the tweets from that time:

On his post on The Relative Surprise-iness of the 2016 Youth Media Awards, Travis Jonker points out that Trombone Shorty wasn’t one of those books that made it onto a lot Mock Award lists.  Looking at the ALSC blog that collects these Mock Awards, it wasn’t shut out.  The 43rd annual Caldecott Read-In was held on January 9th at the Main Library for the Toledo-Lucas County Public Library (Ohio) predicted its Honor.  It was also the Award winner on December 21, 2015, when over 900 students in grades K-5 voted for the Mock Caldecott at Falmouth Elementary School in Falmouth, Maine.  Well done to both!

Far more people were familiar with Voice of Freedom:  Fannie Lou Hamer, Spirit of the Civil Rights Movement, illustrated by Ekua Holmes, written by Carole Boston Weatherford. Now there’s a book that could have won a Newbery as easily as a Caldecott as well.  The writing is so superb.  I’m happy to report that both this book AND Trombone Shorty appeared on New York Public Library’s 100 Books for Reading and Sharing list for the year as well.  Those NYPL librarians.  They’ve got their fingers on the pulse.

As for Waiting by Kevin Henkes, note this screenshot from a Harper Collins preview on December 29, 2014:

Nailed It!  Or, to be more precise, Somewhat Nailed It!  I wasn’t entirely off anyway.

Other awards were interesting as well.  For example, the recent Printz Award winner spoke at LENGTH on this site about her soon-to-be-award winning book.  Here, I’ll save you the trouble.  Voila:

On the Coretta Scott King side of things, Rita Williams-Garcia was kind enough to talk about her book here:

For further final fun, do be so good as to read Travis Jonker’s post on  as well as the reaction tweets.  Also consider the Heavy Medal thoughts on the Newbery Award winner and their commenters thoughts on all the winners here.  And Calling Caldecott did the same here.

This is a book young people will probably want to read more than once, both for the themes in the story and for the author’s storytelling. It will appeal to middle grade readers who like sports – especially basketball – and coming of age stories.

Our latest list of current popular middle grade books features Lego books and multiple Newbery award-winning titles. The hand selected titles from the nationwide best selling middle grade books, as listed by The New York Times, feature titles by super-talents Kate DiCamillo, Kevin Henkes, Katherine Applegate and R.J. Palacio.

Since it’s apparently football season (or at least that’s what the trending topics on Twitter seem to imply) think of this as a kind of post-game recap of what went on yesterday in the land of ALA Media Awards.  Each year I like to look at what I got right, what I got wrong, what I got horrendously wrong, and what I got so wrong that it’s a miracle I’m even allowed to blog anymore.  And because I believe in eating my cake before my dinner, we’ll start at the top and work our way down (metaphorically speaking).

First up:

Newbery Winners: I Got Them Moves Like Gantos

When I posted my review of The Great Cake Mystery yesterday and happened to include at the end an image of Dead End in Norvelt: British Edition (called just plain old Dead End and shown here) I hadn’t even considered the possibility that the darn book was poised to win the greatest honor in the field of children’s literature.  Why had I recovered from my Gantos fever?  Well, I think Jon Scieszka put it best yesterday when he tweeted his congrats to Jack and applied the hashtag #afunnybookfinallywins.  Ye gods.  He’s right.  I ran over to ye olde list of past Award winners and while some contain elements of humor, none of them have been as outright ballsy in their funny writing as Gantos was here.  I mean, you can make a case for Despereaux or Bud Not Buddy if you want, but basically even those books drip of earnestness.  And on some level I must have figured the funny book couldn’t win.  I had forgotten myself the moniker I had applied to this year.  The Year of Breaking Barriers.  Well if giving a big award to a funny title isn’t breaking a barrier here or there, I don’t know what is.

It’s really funny to read my mid-year and fall predictions in regards to the Gantos title.  In the middle of the year I mentioned the book as a possibility but even then I wasn’t putting too much hope there.  I wrote:

This is undoubtedly wishful thinking on my part.  Gantos has never gotten the gold, and he deserves it someday.  This book, of course, has a weird undercurrent to it that may turn off a certain breed of Newbery committee member.  Not everyone is going to find Jack’s constant brushes with death as interesting as I do.  Still, I hold out hope that maybe this’ll be a Gantos-luvin’ committee year.  Stranger things have happened.

Stranger indeed.  By the fall I was mentioning it, but only in passing and with the feeling that it was an unlikely bet so that by my last prediction it had fallen off the radar entirely.

10 Comments on Newbery / Caldecott / Etc. 2012: Post Awards Edition, last added: 1/24/2012

Display Comments

chaz said, on 1/23/2012 9:17:00 PM

Once again, the Caldecott award proves it is nothing more than a lottery. If you told me that these four books were not even considered for an award yesterday, I would not have blinked an eye. They all have some nice things going on, but it seems so unfair that these books will go on to launch the illustrators careers to another level, when there are many many other illustrators who don’t even seem to get a sniff from the committee who are just as deserving.

There is no answer, I guess they just have to wish and hope that their number gets pulled someday.

rams said, on 1/24/2012 1:44:00 AM

Jefferson’s Sons?

Meghan said, on 1/24/2012 2:54:00 AM

I share your disappointment in AMELIA LOST. Such a shame. However, as you pointed out, the reason I love these awards so much is their unpredictability. Can’t wait to get my hands on BREAKING STALIN’S NOSE, DRAWING FROM MEMORY, CAZUELA, and SOLDIER BEAR. On SOLDIER BEAR particularly as I was convinced PRESS HERE was a lock for the Batchelder.

Elizabeth Bird said, on 1/24/2012 4:29:00 AM

To be fair, Chaz, last year the Caldecott went to an unknown debut illustrator. And certainly on the Newbery two newbies got Honors. I think of it less as a lottery and more as a litmus test of professional opinions. Or maybe an experiment in consensus.

Elizabeth Bird said, on 1/24/2012 4:30:00 AM

Oh, and yes. Jefferson’s Sons. Would have loved to see it get something, but at least it got a lot of debate and attention early on. Still, disappointing.

chaz said, on 1/24/2012 6:12:00 AM

Elizabeth, I really like the “experiment in consensus” phraseology. That helps put the results in a better light.

Thanks.

Jennifer Schultz said, on 1/24/2012 6:45:00 AM

I finished Breaking Stalin’s Nose and Under the Mesquite this weekend (snow, ice, and a wicked cold gave me plenty of time for reading!), so I was very happy to see that they were recognized. Do read Under the Mesquite; it’s well worth it.

I am very sorry that Amelia Lost did not win anything. I was quite happy that The Running Dream won the teen division in the Schneider Family award. Personally, it was a good day for local pride: Virginia author Maggie Stiefvater was a finalist for the Printz (I knew that already, though), and Printz and Morris winner John Corey Whaley is from Louisiana, my home state!

Even in Australia said, on 1/24/2012 6:56:00 AM

So happy to hear the NYPL ordered more copies of A Ball for Daisy. I had put it on hold a while ago and the status indicated it was “on order.” Then it changed to “in library use only.” I hope some will be available for borrowing soon!

Rachael said, on 1/24/2012 9:30:00 AM

Oh yes, pearls were clutched at the announcement of the Schneider picture book non-decision! Library scandal!

The Horn Book should be pretty pleased with the Newbery results. Breaking Stalin’s Nose wasn’t even on my radar until it made their Fanfare list.

Jess said, on 1/24/2012 10:48:00 AM

On the topic of funny Newbery winners – what about A Year Down Yonder? Sure, there’s some earnestness, too, but that one had me howling at times. I would call Bud Not Buddy a funny book, too, and also Holes. I haven’t read Dead End yet so I can’t compare relative humor, but still.

Add a Comment

5 Comments | Previous | Top | Next

By: Betsy Bird, on 11/6/2011
Blog: A Fuse #8 Production (Login to Add to MyJacketFlap)
JacketFlap tags:  Newbery Award, Rebecca Stead, Jon Scieszka, Newbery Award winners, Ayun Halliday, James Kennedy, Newbery Honors, 90 Second Newbery, Uncategorized, Add a tag

Cross posted at The Newbery Project

This month, I read the 2004 Winner, The Tale of Despereaux, and I was not disappointed.

The Tale of Despereaux has everything I look for in a good fairy tale: a hero, a damsel in distress, an evil villain, and an exciting plot, full of suspense, where ultimately good triumphs over evil. Kate DiCamillo brilliantly includes all of these elements in an unconventional and quirky way that kids will love.

Our hero, Despereaux is a tiny mouse with “obscenely large ears” who lives in a castle with his large mouse family. The runt and only survivor of his mother’s last litter, he has always been different and a source of embarrassment for his family. In addition to his size, he doesn’t enjoy hunting for crumbs and prefers reading books instead of eating them. He even commits the ultimate offense of talking to humans and even let one, the beautiful Princess Pea, touch him. GASP! It’s this offense that sentences him to be eaten by rats in the dungeon. He manages to escape this sentence but soon has to return as he sets upon his quest to save the Princess.

Our villain is the rat, Chiaroscuro, Roscuro for short. He led a normal and rotten rat life in the dungeon until a match was lit in front of his face, and he began to crave light. It’s this craving for light that brings him up into the castle and ultimately results in the Queen’s death. Something happens during this incident that causes him to hate the Princess Pea, and he develops a plan to destroy her.

Our damsel in distress is the kind and lovely Princess Pea who manages to make Despereaux fall in love with her at first sight. But she’s actually kind of boring—the character I liked the most was Miggery Sow.

Named after her father’s favorite pig, Miggery Sow’s, Mig for short, mother died when she was a young girl. Her father sold her for a red tablecloth, a hen, and cigarettes to a cruel man who “clouted” her on the ear so much that she lost part of her hearing and ended up with ears that resembled cauliflowers. A stroke of luck gets the slow-witted Mig a job at the castle, where she desperately wants to become a Princess. Roscuro uses this to his advantage and tricks Mig into helping him execute his plan to destroy the Princess. Readers will feel sympathy for Mig as they learn about her background, but will also roll with laughter when she misinterprets what people say to her because her poor hearing.

These eccentric characters, along with an engaging, fast, and peculiar plot make The Tale of Despereaux a fantastic book that many children will love. I particularly liked the narrator’s frequent asides to the reader. While some criticize this as distracting, I think it actually draws readers in and makes for an excellent read aloud. For example, in one section, we learn about Mig’s arrival at the castle and her inability to find a job she was successful at completing. To help set the stage for this section, the narrator says,

“Reader, as the teller of this tale, it is my duty from time to time to utter some hard and rather disagreeable truths. In the spirit of honesty, then, I must inform you that Mig was the tiniest big lazy. And, too, she was not the sharpest knife in the drawer. That is, she was a bit slow-witted.” (p. 152)

So what made this book win the Newbery Medal in 2004? I think it’s because Ms. DiCamillo skillfully weaves in some great themes that can lead to many discussions, including accepting differences, living with honor, treating others with respect, the power of hope, and more. She manages to do all this through a charming story that children of a variety of ages will enjoy. It’s fast-paced and a great choice for a read aloud to younger children, and kids who are in the 8-10 range will be able to read it with ease.

Kids above ten may like it but pretend it’s too childish, but I don’t want to give off the impression that it’s meant solely for younger children. Along with its lighthearted and funny parts, there is death and a little violence. But here’s how the narrator explains one part that is particularly dark.

"The story is not a pretty one. There is violence in it. And cruelty. But the stories that are not pretty have a certain value, too. I suppose. Everything, as you well know (having lived in this world long enough to have figured out a thing or two for yourself), cannot always be sweetness and light." (p. 183)

If your kids are Harry Potter fans, these parts are certainly not as dark as scenes in those books—not even close in fact. I wouldn’t have a problem sharing it with younger children, but be prepared to explain these issues if your young kids have questions.

I finished this book about two weeks ago and have sat down numerous times to write my review, but I’ve actually a hard time explaining it and wrapping it up into a succinct little description because it’s different than any other book I’ve read, but in a good way. In fact, I don’t think I’m doing it justice now. The bottom line is that I highly recommend it, and I think you and your children will like it just as much as I did.

In many respects, Kevin Hawkes was doomed to become a children’s book illustrator. His childhood was rich with children’s books and the inspiration of Paris with its grand forests and castles. In fact, one constant of his life as a child in a military family was the universal smell of libraries.

On this edition of Just One More Book, author and illustrator Kevin Hawkes talks about being inspired by a second grade art teacher and classic artists including N.C. Wyeth and Vermeer, telling stories through his artwork and the advice he offers to children in his school visits.

Books mentioned:

• Grimm’s Fairy Tales
• Library Lion (on JOMB)
• Sidewalk Circus
• The Wicked Big Toddlah
• Velma Gratch and the Way Cool Butterfly
• The Road to Oz (not available yet)
• Chicken Cheeks (not available yet)

Photo: Random House Canada

Author: Michelle Knudsen
Illustrator: Kevin Hawkes (on JOMB)
Published: 2006 Candlewick Press (on JOMB)
ISBN: 0763622621 Chapters.ca Amazon.com

We want them to follow the rules. We want them to think for themselves. This softly sweet and thoroughly entertaining book may help them understand why.

Other books mentioned:

• If A Bus Could Talk: The Story of Rosa Parks
• The Story Of Ruby Bridges

For more information on Universal Truths, check out CBC radio journalist and father of Canadian podcasting Tod Maffin’s eBook From Idea To Air — or, better yet, his not-to-be-missed From Idea To Air presentation.