On Monday, we’ll hear the ALA Youth Award announcements. Yes, we will post them here, but to hear the results immediately,  watch on-line (beginning at 9:45 a.m., EST) and then dial-up your distributor ASAP.

For ALA Midwinter Meeting participants, the press conference will be held in the Colorado Convention Center in the Four Seasons Ballroom. Doors will open at 7:30 a.m., MT.

The awards announced on January 26, 2009 include:

• Alex Awards for the best adult books that appeal to teen audience
• Andrew Carnegie Medal for excellence in children’s video
• Coretta Scott King Book Awards honors African American authors and illustrators of outstanding books for children and young adults that demonstrate sensitivity to “the African American experience via literature and illustration.”
• John Newbery Medal honors the author of the year’s most distinguished contribution to American literature for children.
• Laura Ingalls Wilder Award honors an author or illustrator whose books have made a substantial and lasting contribution to literature for children.
• Margaret A. Edwards Award honors an author’s lifetime contribution in writing for young adults as well as a specific body of his or her work.
• May Hill Arbuthnot Honor Lecture Award recognizes an author, critic, librarian, historian, or teacher of children’s literature, who then presents a paper, considered to be a significant contribution to the field of children’s literature, at a winning host site.
• Michael L. Printz Award for excellence in literature written for young adults
• Mildred L. Batchelder Award is presented to an American publisher for the most outstanding book originally published in a country other than the United States in a language other than English and subsequently translated into English for publication in the United States.
• Odyssey Award is presented to the producer of the best audiobook produced for children and/or young adults available in English in the United States.
• Pura Belpré Award recognizes Latino/Latina writers and illustrators whose work best portrays, affirms and celebrates the Latino cultural experience in an outstanding work of literature for children and youth.
• Randolph Caldecott Medal honors the illustrator of the year’s most distinguished American picture book for children.
• Robert F. Sibert Medal honors an author, illustrator and/or photographer of the most distinguished informational book published for children.
• Schneider Family Book Award for books that embody an artistic expression of the disability experience.
• Theodor Seuss Geisel Award is presented annually to the author(s) and illustrator(s) of the most distinguished book for beginning readers published in English in the United States.
• William C. Morris Award begins in 2009, honoring a debut book published by a first-time author writing for teens and celebrating impressive new voices in young adult literature.

The press release announcing all of the winners will be posted in the Youth Media Awards Press Kit prior to 10:30 a.m., MT.

Many will be asking if these”best books” appeal to children.

I don’t know. I do know that the kids at the Bank Street College of Education, read, discussed and voted in a mock Newbery and a mock Printz. These are their winners:

Mock Newbery

Winner:

Knucklehead: Tall Tales and Almost True Stories of Growing up Scieszka

Jon Scieszka

• Paperback: $12; 106 pages
• Publisher: Viking Juvenile (October 2, 2008)
• ISBN-10: 067001138X
• ISBN-13: 978-0670011384

Honors:

Every Soul a Star

Maas, Wendy

• Reading level: Ages 9-12
• Hardcover: $15.99; 336 pages
• Publisher: Little, Brown Young Readers; (October 1, 2008)
• ISBN-10: 0316002569
• ISBN-13: 978-0316002561

Gods of Manhattan

Mebus, Scott

• Reading level: Ages 9-12
• Hardcover: $17.99; 272 pages
• Publisher: Dutton Juvenile (April 17, 2008)
• ISBN-10: 0525479554
• ISBN-13: 978-0525479550

Mock Printz

Winner:

Hunger Games

Collins, Suzanne

• Reading level: Young Adult
• Hardcover: $17.99; 384 pages
• Publisher: Scholastic Press (September 14, 2008)
• ISBN-10: 0439023483
• ISBN-13: 978-0439023481

Honors:

T4

LeZotte, Ann Clare

• Reading level: Ages 9-12
• Hardcover: $14; 112 pages
• Publisher: Houghton Mifflin Books for Children; (September 22, 2008)
• ISBN-10: 0547046847
• ISBN-13: 978-0547046846

The Other Side of the Island

Goodman, Allegra

• Reading level: Ages 9-12
• Hardcover: $16.99; 272 pages
• Publisher: Razorbill (September 4, 2008)
• ISBN-10: 1595141952
• ISBN-13: 978-1595141958

Kudos to Maura McGill, Children’s Librarian for coordinating the selection of the short llst, discussions and vote. Eighty nine 5th and 6th graders participated in the Mock Newbery and forty three 7th graders in Mock Prinz.

This entry was posted on Thursday, January 22nd, 2009 at 12:51 pm and is filed under Awards, Childrens and YA. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.