American Library Association meets January 11-16 in Philadelphia. Major children and young adult awards are announced by the ALA: the Newbery (children), the Caldecott (illustration), the Sibert (informational), and the Printz (young adult).
I'm especially excited this year about hearing the awards announced as I served on the National Book Award for Young People this year. We read over 250 books -- mostly young adult and middle grade -- to chose five finalists. It was exhilarating, mind-numbing, challenging, and one of the most exciting experiences of my life. I fell passionately in love with the other people on my committee. They were all strong hearted, hardworking, eloquent writers.
There were about twenty-five extraordinary books that I could have happily seen getting the Young People's award for the year, but we had to winnow down to five finalists and finally chose... just... one. I'm betting some of the books I adored will get a shout-out at ALA.
Monday, January 7, 2008
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
1 comment:
Betsy,
Thanks for posting the Sherman Alexie acceptance. Very moving. I have his book on my nightstand waiting to be read,
Post a Comment