ALA Announcements

Hooray - a morning of wonderful announcements. My favorite for the Caldecott actually won - the gorgeous House in the Night illustrated by Beth Krommes and written by by Susan Marie Swanson. I loved that book the minute I saw it.





And an Honor for Uri Shulevitz's How I Learned Geography, on my list of favorites for the year, too. Wonderful!!















I'm so happy for sweet Kathi Appelt and her Newbery Honor for The Underneath - well-deserved. And M.T. Anderson's Printz Honor for Octavian Nothing, Vol. II Both Appelt and Anderson are original thinkers and gifted writers, and I'm proud to say they are colleagues of mine in Vermont College of Fine Arts' Writing for Children graduate program - Appelt on the faculty, and Anderson now on the Board of Trustees (and previously a faculty member.) Jacquie Woodson, who got an Honor for After Tupac and D Foster, also used to teach with us. [If you're interested in our low-residency MFA, you can learn more at our website. ]

And poetry in the Newbery list!!!! The Surrender Tree: Poems of Cuba's Struggle for Freedom by Margarita Engle was a surprising but excellent choice, and it was a natural for the Pura Belpre.



Anyone else suprised not to see Laurie Halse Anderson's Chains in the mix somewhere? I know she got the Margaret A. Edwards awards for significant contributions to YA lit, but no mention in the Newbery or Printz choices - ditto The Hunger Games by Suzanne Collins. And I was surprised not to see Nic Bishop's Frogs get a nod for the Sibert. I'm just surprised that they made so many "Best of of 2008" lists, yet no honors anywhere in the ALA awards.

Time to read The Graveyard Book! And those Batchelder translations - I've heard great things about Garmann's Summer by Stian Hole.