The Oscars of Children's Books

In honor of the ALA Youth Media Awards, which are being announced this morning, I came to school in a sparkly silver dress.  It has long sleeves and is a bit sack-shaped and is from the Gap, but hey, if Sharon Stone can wear a black turtleneck from the Gap to the Oscars, then this dress is certainly festive enough.

The ALA Youth Media Awards are the Oscars of children's literature.  In fact, just like the Oscars, they save the "big" awards until the end.  Since the ALA Mid-winter convention at which the awards are announced is being held in Denver this year, we don't know the winners yet, as they begin the announcements at 8am Mountain Time.  Therefore, the Caldecott and Newbery Medal and Honor winners won't be announced for another hour or two.

As the Children's Book Oscars, I think ALA needs to step things up a bit.  I want a red carpet, with librarians, authors, and illustrators asked who they are wearing.  I want to hear about the jewels loaned by Harry Winston.  And I want them televised.  To that end, I have a few suggestions.

1. Move the awards to the evening.  No one is going to watch awards at 8am.  No one gets dressed up at 8am.  No one drinks cocktails at 8am.

2.  Nominate a short-list of 10-12 books for each award.  Without nominees, you can't invite authors and illustrators to the award ceremony because the field is wide open.  The Oscars went from 5 nominees for best picture to a maximum of 10.  There must be some procedure for the ALA membership to vote and make this change.

3.  Contact ESPN.  If ESPN can televise the Spelling Bee, it can surely televise the Youth Media Awards.

Until then, I'll be sitting in my sparkly silver dress, watching the live feed in between classes coming to the library.

Next year, the red carpet!

And the 2018 Newbery Goes To...

You heard it here first.  The 2018 Newbery is going to go to Anne Fleming's The Goat. Set in New York City, mostly in a single apartment building, it is funny yet deep, smart yet wacky and whimsical (without being annoying), surreal yet realistic, and utterly, completely original.

It is not a typical coming-of-age story.  There is no divorce, no friendship triangles, no crushes, no school drama.  In fact, there's no school.  There is no sibling rivarly (there are no siblings).  There is no conflict between a tween and her parents, no embarrassment as they all skip to Follow the Yellow Brick Road in public.  This all makes for a nice change from the usual middle-grade chapter book fare.

There *is* an orphan and death and 9/11, but ten years on, in a totally matter-of-fact, non-tear-jerker-ish way.

There is a musical about soccer (Americanized from hockey) moms.

There is a man who's had a stroke, a blind science-fiction-writing skateboarder, and an immigrant grandmother from an unnamed country.

There is an 11-year-old girl named Kid and her parents, Lisa and Bobby, and a dog named Cat.

And yes, there is a goat.

Or is there?

Newbery Quickie: In Under the Wire

I haven't mentioned the Newbery at all, as at school we're doing a mock Caldecott only.  But I must plug my favorite Newbery contenders this year: Brown Girl Dreaming and The Fourteenth Goldfish. I'm in the middle of The Crossover now and loving it - so far - maybe even more than Brown Girl Dreaming, but it skews older, although still in Newbery territory.  I thought The Family Romanov was a great work of nonfiction, which especially appealed to me as I studied Russian and Russian history in college, but Newbery material?  I'm not convinced.