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Monday, January 23, 2012

Envelope please...and the winners are...

      In case you haven't been parked in front of a computer since the crack of dawn, hoping for leaking news from the Newbery-Caldecott committees, here they are--the 2012 American Library Association award winners:
     Newbery--Jack Gantos for Dead End in Norvelt

     Honors--Eugene Yelchin--Breaking Stalin's Nose
                   Thanhha Lai--Inside Out and Back Again

     Caldecott--Chris Raschka for A Ball for Daisy

     Honors--Patrick McDonnell--Me...Jane
                   Lane Smith--Grandpa Green
                   John Rocco--Blackout

     Coretta Scott King Award Author:  Kadir Nelson for Heart and Soul
                                           
     Honors--Patricia McKissack--Never Forgotten
                   Eloise Greenfield--The Great Migration

     Illustrator--Shane W. Evans for Underground:  Finding the Light to Freedom

     Honors--Kadir Nelson--Heart and Soul


     Printz--John Corey Whaley for Where Things Come Back

     Honors--Maggie Stievater--Scorpio Races
                    Craig Silvey--Jasper Jones
                    Christine Hinwood--The Returning
                    Daniel Handler (aka "Lemony Snicket")--Why We Broke Up

     Congratulations, one and all. And now let the speculations fly! All over the country book lovers are cheering or gnashing their teeth or wondering why it will take "one to three weeks" for Amazon to get the book in stock. (Answer...the publisher was caught without sufficient inventory for a huge sudden sale rush.)

     I shall keep my own observations to myself, except for the fact that I have never been right about the big awards. The closest I have gotten to predicting correctly is for the honors books (this year I had Inside Out and Back Again on my list). Mysterious are the ways of The Committees.

     Other observations--this is the first time in a long time that there was not one single dystopian novel on the list! Can life be getting better??  There were a lot of historical novels (yippee, since I write historical novels). Only one truly contemporary book (Why We Broke Up).  All the award winning illustrators were also the authors of their books.  What does this mean? I have not the slightest idea.
 
    All I know is that I have a lot of good reading ahead of me (I did read all the Newbery honors and winner in advance, but none of the Printz books).

Mary Ann Rodman
P.S. You can still enter our drawing for an autographed copy of Beautiful Oops! by Barney Saltzberg. Read April's interview. Then post a brief comment sharing an "oops" in your life and how you (or someone else) turned it into something beautiful. Be sure to include an email address (format: teachingauthors at gmail dot com) or a link to an e-mail address. Or you can e-mail your comment to teachingauthors at gmail dot com with "Contest" in the subject line. Entry Deadline is Wednesday, January 25th, 11 p.m. (CST). You must have a U.S. mailing address to win. The winner will be announced on January 27th. Good Luck!

8 comments:

  1. Such a wonderful way to perk up a January Monday for our discipline. And there will always be, as you say, the joy & then for others, the rush for a therapy chocolate bar, or a restorative long walk, or...

    Enjoying this post's insights. As a picture book biography writer of one, who has just finished revisions of a 2nd , I'm so pleased that a wonderful p.b.b. Me... Jane is an Honor Book this year.

    Thanks TA/MAR.

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  2. This year I was able to attend the announcements live (virtually) and so enjoyed the cheering, gasps, and obvious joy filling that room.
    I agree that the subject matter/genre for the winers and honors was heartening to me, as a reader, teacher, and writer.
    Too bad more can't get the recognition, but that's where teachers have such a crucial role.

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  3. A few surprises & sorry to see that some were overlooked, but it appears to be a good list anyway. I confess there were a couple I hadn't even heard of. Have to get reading.
    Kathy Cannon Wiechman (Swagger Writers)

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  4. Mary Ann, I missed that trend of all the winning illustrators also writing their books. That IS interesting. Thanks for sharing, Namaste,
    Lee

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  5. More great books to read! We already have a couple of the Caldecott honor books (Blackout and Me...Jane), so that was a fun surprise at my house. Have you seen the book trailer for Why We Broke Up? It is really cool!

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  6. Thanks for bringing the list to us. I can see I've got some reading to do :-)

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  7. Yes, I have lots of new books on my to-be-read list now, too. And Sandy, I too loved being able to witness the event via webcast. I blogged about it today.

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  8. No dystopian novels... maybe we want to read about a better world.

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