2013 Michael L. Printz Award

Winner
In Darkness by Nick Lake

Honors

Aristotle and Dante Discover the Secrets of the Universe by Benjamin Alire Saenz
Code Name Verity by Elizabeth Wein
Dodger by Terry Pratchett
The White Bicycle by Beverly Brenna

2013 Odyssey Award for Audiobook Excellence

Winner
The Fault in Our Stars written by John Green, narrated by Kate Rudd and produced by Brilliance Audio

Honors
Artemis Fowl: the Last Guardian written by Eoin Colfer, narrated by Nathaniel Parker and produced by Listening Library
Ghost Knight written by Cornelia Funke, narrated by Elliot Hill and produced by Listening Library
Monstrous Beauty written by Elizabeth Fama, narrated by Katherine Kellgren and produced by Macmillan Audio

2013 YALSA Excellence in Non-Fiction for Young Adults

Winner
Bomb: The Race to Build--and Steal--the World's Most Dangerous Weapon by Steve Sheinkin

Finalists

Steve Jobs: The Man Who Thought Different by Karen Blumenthal
Moonbird: A Year on the Wind with the Great Survivor B95 by Phillip Hoose
Titanic: Voices From the Disaster by Deborah Hopkinson
We've Got a Job: The 1963 Birmingham Children's March by Cynthia Levinson

2013 William C. Morris Award

Winner
Seraphina by Rachel Hartman

Finalists

Wonder Show by Hannah Barnaby
Love and Other Perishable Items by Laura Buzo
After the Snow by S. D. Crockett
The Miseducation of Cameron Post by emily m. danforth

2013 Margaret A. Edwards Award

Tamora Pierce

2013 Stonewall Children's and Young Adult Books

Winner
Aristotle and Dante Discover the Secrets of the Universe by Benjamin Alire Saenz

Honor Books
Drama by Raina Telgemeier
Gone, Gone, Gone by Hannah Moskowitz
October Mourning: A Song for Matthew Shepard by Leslea Newman
Sparks: The Epic, Completely True Blue (Almost) Holy Quest of Debbie by S.J. Adams

Learn more about the Stonewall Book Awards.

2013 Schneider Family Book Awards

Children's
Back to Front and Upside Down written and illustrated by Claire Alexander

Middle Grades
A Dog Called Homeless by Sarah Lean

Teen
Somebody Please Tell Me Who I Am by Harry Mazer and Peter Lerangis

Learn more about the Schneider Family Book Awards.

2013 Alex Awards

Caring is Creepy by David Zimmerman
Girlchild by Tupelo Hassman
Juvenile in Justice by Richard Ross
Mr Penumbra's 24-Hour Bookstore by Robin Sloan
My Friend, Dahmer by Derf Backderf
One Shot at Forever: A Small Town, an Unlikely Coach, and a Magical Baseball Season by Chris Ballard
Pure by Julianna Baggott
The Round House by Louise Erdrich
Tell the Wolves I'm Home by Carol Rifka Brunt
Where'd You Go, Bernadette? by Maria Semple

Learn more about the Alex Awards.

Only 3 More Hours!

Soon, the 2013 ALA Youth Media Awards will be announced. Squee! It's always an exciting day for those of us who love books for young people.

Instead of typing out all the award descriptions again, I will refer you to last year's post describing the awards.

Since 2004, I have done my very best to blog the winners of the ALA Youth Media Awards as soon as they're announced. This year, I have a tornado of a toddler running about, but I will still do my best. I do promise that all the awards will be posted on this blog before nightfall at the very latest (honestly, though, I think I canget it done pretty quickly).

I rarely hasten a guess at who might win (since I am terrible at that game), but I feel so sure that the amazing Wonder by R.J. Palacio will win the Newbery and that The Fault in Our Stars is pretty much a lock for the Printz Award. No clue as to the Caldecott. (And I hope I haven't jinxed the other two by speaking their names aloud!)

So, less than 3 hours now until the awards begin. Stay tuned.

Michael L. Printz Award

Winner:
Where Things Come Back written by John Corey Whaley

Honors:
Why We Broke Up written by Daniel Handler and art by Maira Kalman
The Returning written by Christine Hinwood
Jasper Jones written by Craig Silvey
The Scorpio Races written by Maggie Stiefvater

YALSA Excellence in Non-Fiction for Young Adults

Winner:
The Notorious Benedict Arnold: A True Story of Adventure, Heroism & Treachery written by Steve Sheinkin

Honors:
Sugar Changed the World: A Story of Magic, Spice, Slavery, Freedom and Science written by Marc Aronson and Marina Budhos
Bootleg: Murder, Moonshine, and the Lawless Years of Prohibition written by Karen Blumenthal
Wheels of Change: How Women Rode the Bicycle to Freedom (With a Few Flat Tires Along the Way) written by Sue Macy
Music Was It: Young Leonard Bernstein written by Susan Goldman Rubin

William C. Morris Award

Winner:
Where Things Come Back written by John Corey Whaley

Honors:
Girl of Fire and Thorns written by Rae Carson
Paper Covers Rock written by Jenny Hubbard
Under the Mesquite written by Guadalupe Garcia McCall
Between Shades of Gray written by Ruta Sepetys

Stonewall Children's and Young Adult Literature Award

Winner:

Putting Makeup on the Fat Boy by Bil Wright

 

Honor Books

a + e 4ever drawn and written by Ilike Merey

Money Boy written by Paul Yee

Pink written by ...Lili Wilkinson

with or without you written by Brian Farrey

Schnieder Family Book Awards

Best Children's Book:

No award given in the category for children ages 0 – 8. No submissions were deemed worthy for the award.



Best Middle School Book:
close to famous written by Joan Bauer (yay!)
AND
Wonderstruck: A Novel in Words and Pictures written by Brian Selznick

Best Teen Book:
The Running Dream written by Wendelin Van Draanen

Alex Awards

Big Girl Small by Rachel DeWoskin
In Zanesville by Jo Ann Beard
The Lover’s Dictionary by David Levithan
The New Kids: Big Dreams and Brave Journeys at a High School for Immigrant Teens by Brooke Hauser
The Night Circus by Erin Morgenstern
Ready Player One by Ernest Cline
Salvage the Bones by Jesmyn Ward
The Scrapbook of Frankie Pratt: A Novel in Pictures by Caroline Preston
The Talk-Funny Girl by Roland Merullo

2012 ALA Youth Media Awards

Tomorrow is the most exciting day in the children's lit year -- announcement of the ALA Children's Book Awards. Basically, the Academy Awards as far as kids' books go.


Awards to be announced tomorrow are:

• Alex Awards for the best adult books that appeal to teen audience
• Andrew Carnegie Medal for excellence in children's video
• Caldecott Medal for the most distinguished American picture book for children
• Coretta Scott King Award recognizing an African American author and illustrator of outstanding books for children and young adults that demonstrate sensitivity to "the true worth and value of all beings"
• Coretta Scott King - Virginia Hamilton Award for Lifetime Achievement  recognizes an African American author, illustrator, or author/illustrator for a body of his or her published books for children and/or young adults who has made a significant and lasting literary contribution
• Margaret A. Edwards Award for lifetime achievement in writing for young adults
• May Hill Arbuthnot Honor Lecture Award recognizing an author, critic, librarian, historian, or teacher of children's literature, who then presents a lecture at a winning host site
• Michael L. Printz Award for excellence in literature written for young adults
• Mildred L. Batchelder Award for an outstanding children's book translated from a foreign language and subsequently published in the United States
• Newbery Medal for the most outstanding contribution to children's literature
• Odyssey Award for audiobook excellence
• Pura Belpre Award for a Latino/Latina writer and illustrator whose work "best portrays, affirms, and celebrates the Latino cultural experience in an outstanding work of literature for children and youth"
• Robert F. Sibert Informational Book Award for most distinguished informational book for children
• Schneider Family Book Award for books that embody an artistic expression of the disability experience
• Stonewall Children's and Young Adult Literature given to books honored for exceptional merit relating to the gay/lesbian/bisexual/transgendered experience.
• Theodor Seuss Geisel Award for the outstanding book for beginning reader
• William C. Morris Award honors a book written for young adults by a first-time, previously unpublished author.
• YALSA Award for Excellence in Nonfiction for Young Adults honors the best nonfiction book published for young adults (ages 12-18) during a November 1 – October 31 publishing year.
  
  

I think that's all of 'em. I'm going to try to get in on the webcast and post the winners as announced. I'm not sure if I will be able to do it in real-time this year since I foolishly scheduled my Doctor's appointment around Baby's nap schedule and not around the Awards' press conference. What was I thinking?!? ;)

I will post everything as soon as I possibly can and then will go back and clean up my undoubtedly sloppy posts and add links and pictures.

UPDATE: So, I thought this through over and over tonight. If I put Baby in his Exersaucer, I can blog the awards before his nap and before my appointment. BUT... really? As much as I love live-blogging them, am I really gonna be super-stressed and ignore the child to do it? Sigh. Nope. So, for the first time since I started blogging, I won't have the awards up untila couple of hours after they are announced. (It's very likely no one cares about this excpet me, but I have always been proud of posting results immediately.)

Cloaked in Red

Everyone knows the story of Little Red Riding Hood, the girl with the unfortunate name and the inability to tell the difference between her grandmother and a member of a different species.

The question is: Why do we all know it?

If you look at "Little Red Riding Hood," it's a perfect example of the exact opposite of a good story...

...However you look at it, "Little Red Riding Hood" is a strange and disturbing story that should probably not be shared with children.

That is why I've gone ahead and written eight new versions of it.
 
In her introductory author's note to Cloaked in Red, Vivian Vande Velde lays out exactly how "Little Red Riding Hood" fails as a good story. Much like she did with The Rumplestiltskin Problem she then takes a familiar tale and turns it on its head, retelling it over and over, each story a fresh take on stale characters. Whether it's Granny as a werewolf or the brothers Grimm as bumbling young fools who will never amount to much, Vande Velde plays with the conventions of traditional fairy tales in a way that will delight readers.
 
My personal favorite (I think) is "Deems the Wood Gatherer," which features a woodcutter with exceptionally bad eyesight who unwittingly stumbles through several fairy tales, leaving chaos in his wake.
 
At just over 100 pages, this slender volume of short stories would be a great choice for reluctant readers. Besides being great fun, it could also be a jumping off point for young writers to try their own retellings of classic tales. Definitely worth reading.

Chime

I've confessed to everything and I'd like to be hanged. Now, if you please.


I don't mean to be difficult, but I can't bear to tell my story. I can't relive those memories... How can you possibly think me innocent? Don't let my face fool you; it tells the worst lies. A girl can have the face of an angel but have a horrid sort of heart.

With that haunting opening, Franny Billingsley introduces us to Briony in a beautifully lyrical new novel, Chime.

Since her stepmother's death, 17-year-old Briony, the preacher's daughter, has known that there are two secrets it is crucial she keep - that she is a witch and that she is responsible for both the death of her stepmother and the accident that caused her twin sister Rose's mental illness. Briony is careful to always hate herself so that she never forgets either of these things; to forget would be to possibly endanger those around her even further.

Then Eldrich comes to town and treats Briony as if she is extraordinary. He plays lion-boy to her wolf-girl and makes it more difficult than ever to keep her secrets. But keep them she must, else her sister will die of the Swamp Cough and others will suffer terribly...

Chime was a magical book. It isn't a quick read - the richness of the language Billingsley uses deserves (and demands) a slower pace - but it is a worthwhile one. The world of the Swampsea is painted with beautiful clarity as Billingsley introduces us to the Old Ones, the Chime Child and other inhabitants of Briony's sphere. Main characters - particularly Briony, Eldrich and Rose - are drawn with such depth as to move the reader. Indeed, before I was too deep into the book I was already wishing that it would prove untrue that Briony had committed the crimes to which she was confessing and yearning to know if there was more to Rose hidden beneath her childlike demeanor.

While this book will have definite appeal to fans of fantasy and folklore, it is not a niche read. Readers who stick with it will be rewarded with a tale that will remain with them long after the book is closed.

I Am J

"Hola, Jeni."

J spun. His stomach clenched hard, as though he'd been hit. It was just the neighbor lady, Mercedes. J couldn't muster a hello back, not now; he didn't care that she'd tell his mom he'd been rude. She should know better. Nobody calls me Jeni anymore.

In I Am J by Cris Beam, we meet J. From his earliest days, J knows he is a boy. It is an cruel twist of fate that he has been born with a body that betrays him with its feminimity and that his parents named him "Jeni."

J is a transgendered Latino teen photographer who is struggling with the world around him. How to define and explain himself to a world when his parents are worried (or maybe hopeful?) he's a lesbian and his best friend (herself a cutter) angrily rejects his love because she, too, sees him as a girl and is afraid of what that would mean about her.

J is sick of wearing tight bandages to bind the breasts he hates and layers of baggy clothing to disguise the body that betrays the person he knows he truly is. He despairs of ever being accepted and finally runs away from home, determned to make his own way. Finally, after years of hating himself, J discovers that taking testosterone will help him to sound and appear more masculine. This joy of this revelation is marred only by the fact that J is 17 years old. As a minor, he will need parental consent to receive testosterone. Now what will he do?

I Am J is a remarkable novel, one that shares a voice that has been too long silent. Growing up and discovering who we are is difficult for almost any teen; to have to make this same journey on a road that is often hostile to the person we are discovering we are is even more excruciating.

For trans teens (and adults), I Am J offers proof that they are not alone. For those who are not trans, it offers a glimpse into another world, a glimpse that will hopefully inspire empathy and compassion and will help eradicate prejudices and fears.

By the end of this remarkable book, readers should find themselves agreeing with J:
“Being trans wasn't special, and yet it was. It was just good and bad and interesting and fucked-up and very human, like anything else.”

Numbers: The Chaos

When I got the galley of Numbers by Rachel Ward last year, it blew me away. I didn't realize it was the first book in an intended trilogy until a friend mentioned that the sequel was coming. Eee! I placed my hold and waited anxiously.

Numbers: The Chaos lives up to the promise of the first book. Adam has inherited his mother's strange, curselike "gift" - when he looks into someone's eyes, he sees the date of their death. Even more, he feels what that person will feel at the moment of their death, whether it is a sense of peace as they slip into eternal sleep or the searing pain of a more violent end.

After moving to London with his grandmother, Adam cannot help noticing that the same number is showing up in a large number of the eyes he sees - 01012027. New Year's Day. What could possibly be fated to happen on that day that will claim so many lives? Is there anything he can do to prevent it? And who is Sarah, the lovely young women who he sees will die many years in the future, a peaceful death with Adam by her side, but who currently believes Adam is from her nightmares and flees from him in terror?

I couldn't put down this gripping story. While I didn't entirely love the ending, I am still eager to learn how the whole story will play out - so much so that I suspect I may splurge and purchase book 3 from the UK this summer instead of waiting for another year for it to come to these shores. Highly recommend.