On Monday, January 23rd, the American Library Association announced the winners of the Newbery, Caldecott and other book awards.

 In the children’s book world, this is like the Academy Awards of books. Librarians get pretty excited about the announcement and try for weeks ahead of time to predict the winners.

Nobody ever knows what books are on the “short-list” because that’s never revealed. A short list is when a list of books is shortened to the books in actual consideration for an award. There are hundreds of books published each year, and all of them can’t be on the final list!

Here are the winners for 2012!

John Newbery Medal – for the most distinguished contribution to American literature for children

 

Newbery Honor Winners

 

 

Randolph Caldecott Medal- to the artist of the most distinguished American picture book for children.

 

Caldecott Honor Winners-

 

 

 

 As always, sometimes we already have the books that just won, and sometimes we don’t. The books we don’t already have are currently on order and will be in the library in the upcoming weeks. Check back often to see what has come in!

I was also thrilled to see that Samantha Vamo’s book, The Cazuela that the Farm Maiden Stirred won the Pura Belpre Honor award for illustrations by Rafael López. You might remember that she came to visit our school for Read Across America Week, sponsored by Parkplace Book and read this book to us. You can read that post here.

The sad part of any award list are the books that didn’t win. I have my own favorite middle grade reading list which include, Okay for Now, Bigger Than a Breadbox, Wonderstruck, Breadcrumbs, Small as an Elephant, A Monster Calls (YA novel) and the Trouble with May Amelia.

Now, what book you would have included in your favorite list either for Newbery or Caldecott?

 

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