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Something Different Every Day / Children's book awards

January 17, 2008

I'm thrilled and I'm mad--this year's ALA awards

I couldn't be more thrilled by the Newbery Committee's picks, esp. giving the top honor to the wonderful Laura Amy Schlitz's unconventional book Good Masters, Sweet Ladies: Voices from a Medieval Village. I thought her book A Drowned Maiden's Tale was overlooked last year, but she sure wasn't overlooked this one! Bravo to the Newbery Committee and all of their choices.

I also loved all of the choices on the Caldecott Committee's list, but being the stick-in-the-mud that I am, I didn't agree that their top choice should have been on the list at all. It's not exactly the committee's fault. They just interpreted the criteria completely literally. There's nothing in the criteria that says a picture book has to be, well, a picture book. But since it's a literary award given out by the American Library Association, I think they need to interpret picture book more narrowly to include the criteria that a picture book is a book that is shelved in the picture book section. Nobody would call The Invention of Hugo Cabret a picture book, except someone using the Caldecott criteria.

Now the door has been opened for that award to be interpreted much more broadly. It has always been for up to age 14, and I have no quarrel with that. But it will bring in graphic novels of all kinds, and so very disparate forms will be vying for the same award. We need a new award to cover the newer forms, and let the Caldecott be for picture books as we interpret it in the real world as it has always been.

Did I mention that Hugo Cabret is one of my very favorite books of the year? Because it is!

Posted by susan at 1:24 PM | Comments (0)

December 7, 2007

Will Hugo Cabret lead to a new book award?

After a vigorous discussion of Brian Selznick's The Invention of Hugo Cabret at NSLS this morning, I came away with the strong feeling that we are on the verge of a change. As most of you know, Hugo Cabret is told both through Selznick's evocative pencil illustrations and through his text--without one of those, you don't have the whole story. One person brought along the audiobook version of Hugo, and explained that in place of the pictures, it uses sound effects--where a picture might show Hugo walking, the audio version uses the sound of feet walking along. So, while the beauty of the pictures isn't there, some of the information being conveyed is.

I think everyone at the table agreed that Hugo is a magnificent book, and fits the bill for the Newbery in being "distinguished". Here's the question: Does the book work well enough through the writing alone to merit the Newbery? And here's the other question: Are we living in a time when it will become necessary through all of the new ways of looking at the world and at literacy to revise the Newbery criteria to fit the whole package? And here's one more question: Would it be better to come up with an award that could encompass works that are both visual and verbal, and may also include other formats as well? And if so, who would sponsor that award? Would ALSC and YALSA each want their own version of it?

I would maintain that according to the Newbery criteria as they currently stand, Hugo relies too much on the illustration to fit the bill. Too much of what I know about Hugo himself, about the setting, and too much of the pacing come through those pictures for the award for writing to go to that book. It fits the Caldecott even less, because as far as I'm concerned, any book that would not be shelved in the picture book section should not win the Caldecott medal.

So that means that one of the year's best books winds up slipping through the cracks completely for the major ALA awards. Too young for the Printz, too many pictures for the Newbery, not a picture book for the Caldecott. I guess I'm in favor of revising the criteria of both the Newbery and Caldecott to better encompass the books of the future. Otherwise, the Newbery medal may come to be associated not just with books that don't especially appeal to kids (a longstanding issue) but also with books that are old-fashioned. We don't need a new award--we need a new way of looking at the Newbery.

Posted by susan at 4:32 PM | Comments (1)

November 15, 2007

Mock Newbery Discussion Dec 7

The annual Mock Newbery Discussion will be held at NSLS on Dec. 7th. Titles for discussion were selected on the basis of great reviews, great buzz in the children's lit community, suggestions from librarians, and maybe a little bit of I loved it so it's on the list.

One of the most interesting parts of the discussion promises to be on Brian Selznick's The Invention of Hugo Cabret, since as most of you know, the story is told through a combination of words and pictures. However, the Newbery medal is given on the basis of the writing, so it should be fun to talk about!

The remaining titles are:
Gantos, Jack. I Am Not Joey Pigza.

Schmidt, Gary. The Wednesday Wars.

Schlitz, Laura Amy. Good Masters, Sweet Ladies! Voices from a Medieval Village.

Curtis, Christopher Paul. Elijah of Buxton.

__________________________________________________________________
Then, for readers who have enough time, they should go on to read these:

Woodson, Jacqueline. Feathers.

Babbitt, Natalie. Jack Plank Tells Tales.

Hale, Shannon. Book of a Thousand Days.

To sign up for the discussion, go here. Come even if you can only read 1 or 2!

Posted by susan at 3:23 PM | Comments (0)

November 1, 2007

Does the Caldecott go to male illustrators?

For a energetic discussion of whether it's worthy of note that the Caldecott Medal very often goes to male illustrators, take a look at Roger Sutton's blog, and take the time to read through the (now) 43 comments. It's quite fascinating.

Posted by susan at 9:01 AM | Comments (0)

June 23, 2007

Walking your feet off@your library conference

I'm writing from ALA in Washington, DC. At this point, my fingers are about the only part of me still willing to move!

So far, I have:
~Seen Children's Poet Laureate Jack Prelutsky from a few feet away--he had the longest line I saw today
~Seen Judy Blume from about 1 foot away, and she looks EXACTLY like Judy Blume
~Seen YA author John Green, who to me these days after several months of watching his video blog Brotherhood 2.0 in which he and his brother Hank correspond seems like a movie star to me (and my 16-year-old and 20-year-old sons as well)
~Managed to pick up and mail back to myself a box of Advanced Reader copies within the first hour of the exhibits opening...now all I need to do is schlep back the ones I picked up after that to the conference to mail them with the ones I'll get tomorrow!
~Heard an interesting session on word-of-mouth marketing, all about getting the people who already think the library is great to tell other people about it
~Decided on the perfect shoes for walking the exhibit hall. I feel sure that if I had been wearing the Crocs I saw someone else wearing, my feet wouldn't be so tired right now. Sure they're ugly...but right now, they sure sound great to me. Good thing I can type without using my feet or you would not be reading this.
~Met an online friend I had never met in person, which I suppose is sort of like meeting a penpal back 50 years ago--very fun to match your online impressions with the living reality!
~Heard David Almond speak in his lovely Northern English accent, which means I will never read his books the same way again
~Was casually introduced to someone a friend/children's book author was talking to who turned out to be Gregory Maguire...yes, that's Gregory Maguire, as in the author of Wicked. Wow, wow, wow, wow, wow!

I loved PLA and look forward to the next one, but there is nothing quite like ALA. At any given time, there are at least 3 sessions I would like to attend whilst walking around the exhibit hall and perhaps putting my feet up and taking a little snooze. And this was just the first day! More later...

Posted by susan at 8:43 PM | Comments (0)

March 22, 2007

Age 12 going on 10 or 18, depending

The new NSLS Fast Facts survey on serving middle grade students brings up a subject I find pretty interesting. It was reassuring to see that many of the public libraries in this area treat the young adolescents as the dual-natured people that they are. You have your kids who are dying to reach the adult world and are 12 going on 18 (at least); you have your kids who are reluctant to leave the child world behind and are 12 going on 10, and then of course thanks to the wonders of hormone fluctuations you have the many kids who are anywhere from age 8 to age 40 all within one hour.

I strongly advocate libraries sharing service to this age group. Let them sort themselves out--let the Too Cool for the Children's Department kids head to Adult; let the I Still Love the Books I Loved Before kids keep coming to Youth Services, and let the staff work together on programming. Let's keep the Newbery medal going up to age 14 while the Printz goes down to 12. Let's not create firm boundaries for our own organizational convenience. Let's keep it nice and messy, just like the kids themselves!

Posted by susan at 10:08 AM | Comments (0)

February 27, 2007

I am NOT a censor!

Is there any librarian out there who wouldn't say (and loudly), "I am NOT a censor!"? I encountered someone recently who claimed not to believe in censorship, and explained in the next sentence that she thought this year's Newbery winner did not belong in the children's department of public libraries. Her reasoning was that it was a young adult book, I guess because the s-word did not belong in a children's book. The main character is ten, and absolutely nothing happens that would be inappropriate in a children's book, so let me just put it out there: she's kidding herself. She wants to call it YA because that makes her feel better about not buying it. She is a censor.

But she's not the only one. I'll bet we routinely kid ourselves when we censor. For one thing, we always call it selection rather than censorship. Nobody can afford to buy everything, so part of what we are paid for is our professional expertise on which of the 4000+ books that will come out this year we will buy. Obviously we're going to pick up the book on a current topic that's gotten stars from the various review journals. Obviously we're NOT going to buy the book that's gotten lousy reviews and is overpriced to boot. But from there, the waters get a lot more murky. Maybe I'm not going to buy that book that got fantastic reviews but is on a subject that I can't imagine kids truly being nearly as interested in as the adult reviewers (Kurlansky's book about cod, say) and I think that's still clearly selection, though of course it is nudging a little closer to censorship because it's based on my opinion of what would interest kids. But let's say maybe it's a book with okay reviews on Britney Spears, and I feel that Britney, with her public meltdowns and her public appearances sans underwear, has become a poor role model for today's kids, so I decide not to buy that book. That, my librarian friends, is really close to censorship. That's not comfortable, though, so I might tell myself instead, "Oh, let's wait and see how Britney does after rehab and THEN buy something--this book will be out of date so quickly".

I think one of the best things about the whole Lucky debate has been the opportunity for each of us to take a good look in the mirror. Are you a censor? Sometimes, maybe, just a little?

Posted by susan at 4:20 PM | Comments (1)

February 18, 2007

A lot of fuss over one word

Here are the things I hate about the whole "scrotum" discussion:

*It makes librarians look like idiots. From one point of view, it makes us look like twittering old-fashioned ladies who get fussed easily. From another point of view, it makes us look like conservative-baiting, agenda-driven, untrustworthy guardians of children. How many people reading that article do you think looked at it and thought, "Yay, librarians are awesome!"

*It is polarizing. It is pitting school librarians against public librarians, and way too much of the discussion on the various listservs like Child_Lit and CCBC involves public librarians throwing stones at school librarians without any real empathy for the position school librarians are in. We are all in the same boat, but some of us can row a little further out without having our oars taken away than others.

*It isn't fostering healthy discussion that might offer support to the school librarians who want to risk buying this year's Newbery winner; it just bashes the ones who made an instant decision not to buy. I don't think any of the ensuing discussion will have changed their minds, because it has been so (sorry!) self-righteous.

*It distracts from what to me is the real issue with use of the word "scrotum". Here's the background, for those of you who haven't yet gotten your copy of this surprise winner. Ten-year-old Lucky is listening in on an Alcoholics Anonymous-like meeting where one of the members is describing when he hit bottom. It was when a rattlesnake bit his dog on the "scrotum" and he was too drunk to be able to help his dog. To me, the problem with the word "scrotum" is that it does indeed stick out from everything else in the book. Is it realistic to think that this character would have used that word in that context? It doesn't ring true to me. He'd likely have used a word that one really can't get away with in children's books, so does that mean you have to use the clinical-sounding word "scrotum"? No. As one of my staff commented, he could have just said "privates". Same point, better match with character, less fuss all around.

That said, I am proud that public librarians seem almost universally to be picking up this book. And to me, it seems like an opportunity to pick up this book just BECAUSE it won the Newbery Medal. You can just as easily use the argument that "People expect to find the Newbery Medal in the collection" as any of the more conservative excuses not to purchase. The bottom line is, kids do have a right to read the best books, and the Newbery medal by definition is the best of this year's books.

Well, personally I'd have picked Laura Schlitz's sublime A Drowned Maiden's Hair. But, that's neither here nor there.

Posted by susan at 5:46 PM | Comments (5)

February 14, 2007

2006 Cybils--the bloggers' award!

http://dadtalk.typepad.com/cybils/2007/02/the_2006_cybils.html#more

Congratulations to the group of bloggers who have diligently read and voted on the 2006 best children's books. They just announced (on a blog, of course) their top choices in nine categories. What a great list! I'm especially thrilled to see Ptolemy's Gate, An Egg Is Quiet, and A Drowned Maiden's Hair pick up awards.

How wonderful to see a process that included a large number of readers/voters, but made up of people who know the field. The Quills, of course, is more democratic, but not exactly in a good way to judge by the results (The Book Thief outvoted by Eldest, for instance). The Cybils hit the balance between knowledge and inclusiveness.

Posted by susan at 12:50 PM | Comments (0)

January 24, 2007

Yay! Yay! Yay! Wha???? ALA/ALSC Awards

Watching this year's ALA/ALSC webcast (once I finally managed to get in, after multiple tries) was a strange experience. As each award category came up, my reaction was usually "Yay!" or at least "Okay!!" Loved the Sibert Committee's choices for juvenile nonfiction, loved the Printz, the King and Steptoe Awards, thought the Caldecott was fine (though I had thought Flotsam was very similar conceptually to last year's honor book The Red Book, so the choice surprised me)....and then they announce the oldest and most important medal last, the Newbery. And as each choice came up on the screen, I found myself saying, "I don't know that one....I don't know that one...that one sounds a little familiar...I never even HEARD of the gold medal winner! Wha????"

It's just very odd and a teensy bit embarrassing to be reviewing for two journals, and signing off on all of my department's hundreds of orders, and to come up not knowing each of the winners. I'm not criticizing the committee's choices--how could I, since I haven't read them yet? The one consolation is that everyone seems to have been equally taken off guard.

My favorite part about the awards is that the late James Marshall won the Laura Ingalls Wilder Award for "a substantial and lasting contribution to literature for children". I think it's appropriately childlike and subversive that the list of the great author/illustrator's works includes titles like The Stupids Step Out.

Posted by susan at 1:56 PM | Comments (0)