Not only am I serving as a judge for the PEN/Phyllis Naylor Working Writer Fellowship and for the Cybils Fiction Picture Book Award (winner announced tomorrow!), now I've been asked to judge the Massachusetts School Library Association's Annual Bookmark Contest. Anyone else want to put my discernment skills to the test? Because they are becoming razor sharp with all this practice.
I'm excited to be one of the judges in the 2007 Cybils picture book category. Here are the nominees:
2007 Fiction Picture Books Finalists
Pssst!
by Adam Rex
Harcourt Children's Books
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Pssst! is a funny, light-hearted fantasy that uses snappy text and surreal post-modern oil-and-acrylic illustrations to tell the tale of a girl who visits a zoo with crafty animals who all want something from her. This results in a surprise ending and one of the year's most unforgettable illustrated double-page spreads. -- Cheryl Rainfield
Go to Bed, Monster!
written by Natasha Wing; illustrated by Sylvie Kantorovitz
Harcourt Children's Books
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A sleepless girl creates a playful monster to keep her company one evening with surprising results. Kantorovitz's oil paint and pastel illustrations, made to look like crayon drawings, capture the immediacy and creative range of a child’'s imagination. -- Annie Teich, Crazy for Kids' Books
The Chicken-Chasing Queen of Lamar County
written by Janice N. Harrington; illustrated by Shelley Jackson
Farrar, Straus and Giroux
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A sassy, young farm girl, living with her Big Mama, transforms herself from chicken-chaser extraordinaire to fender-of-the-fowl in this spirited read-aloud, whose energetic mixed-media collage illustrations provide much for observant eyes to take in.
-- Julie Danielson, Seven Impossible Things Before Breakfast
Leaves
by David Ezra Stein
Putnam Juvenile
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In this engaging poem of a picture book with spare text and shimmering earth-tone paintings, David Ezra Stein captures the wonder of the changing seasons as seen through the perspective of a wide-eyed bear. -- Julie Danielson, Seven Impossible Things Before Breakfast
Four Feet, Two Sandals
written by Karen Lynn William & Khadra Mohammad; illustrated by Doug Chayka
Eerdmans Books for Young Readers
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Two girls in a refugee camp in Pakistan share a pair of sandals that begins a friendship in this poignant story of courage. When hope of a better life comes for one girl, they must both find a way to still share their sandals – and their hearts. -- Marcie Flinchum Atkins, World of Words
Knuffle Bunny Too
by Mo Willems
Hyperion
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In this sequel to Knuffle Bunny, the photography, the cartooning, and the drama is all kicked up a notch as Trixie and her dad have to set things right in the early morning hours. Fantastic in its capture of subtleties of expression, the dynamics of families, and the mind of a child. -- Pamela Coughlan, MotherReader
The Incredible Book-Eating Boy
by Oliver Jeffers
Philomel
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Oliver Jeffers has crafted a visually-stunning, humorous story about a young boy who loves books so much he eats them -- until he discovers that the greatest power comes from reading them. Jeffers' innovative illustrations, cleverly superimposed on pages from various books, merge with an inviting storyline that continues right into the book's back cover. -- Cheryl Rainfield
The names and (more importantly) the blogs of the 2007 Cybils panelists are up for your purview. I'm judging in the fiction picture book category -- can't wait. Here's our team, organized by Jules of the indefatigable 7-imp dynamic duo:
Nominating Panel:
Julie Danielson (Seven Impossible Things Before Breakfast)
Marcie Flinchum Atkins (World of Words)
Annie Teich (Crazy for Kids Books)
Cheryl Rainfield
Pam Coughlan MotherReader
Judging Panel:
Mitali Perkins (Mitali's Fire Escape)
Nikki Tate (Work in Progress)
Gail Wilson (Through the Studio Door)
Barbara Johansen Newman (Cats and Jammers Studio)
Stacey Shubitz (Two Writing Teachers)
Editor Daryl Grabarek, who attended my Books Between Cultures presentation at ALA's convention in New Orleans, invited me to write an article for School Library Journal's Curriculum Connections spring 2007 issue that would be loosely based on that talk. Here it is: No Place Like Home: Books Can Create a Strong Sense of Place.
Cybils Middle Grade folks will no doubt recognize most of the titles I laud -- we were in the throes of the nominating process when I wrote the article.
Since I served on the nominating panel for the middle grade fiction category, I'm dancing a cyber jig out on the Fire Escape because A Drowned Maiden's Hair by Laura Amy Schlitz won! Hooray! For the rest of the winners, visit the Cybils site, and if you can afford it, buy, buy, buy the books (donate them to your library) to display the power of viral blog buzz ...
the new issue of the edge of the forest went live (with a review of my Rickshaw Girl to boot) ...
the Children's Book Council and USBBY announced their list of 39 outstanding international books published in 2006, narrowing the choices from a field of 250 books ...
dozens of kid lit peeps had a blast in the bar nine (bar me and Jen Robinson, who were partying on the other coast in a more sedate venue; pix of my whirlwind California Dreamin' book tour to come with my mother in gorgeous array painting alpanas) ...
hordes of other book folk (and some of the ones hobnobbing at bar nine, of course) attended the SCBWI conference in New York ...
cynsations went down right when Cynthia Leitich Smith's new novel Tantalize (Candlewick) was scheduled for release, and she's blogging at hubby's site (they come in handy, don't they? hubbies and their sites) ...
the literate world continued to wait in breathless anticipation for the announcement of the Cybils awards (TBA TOMORROW!) ...
Speaking of book awards like the Cybils (winners TBA on 2/14), I want to let everybody know that Rickshaw Girl has won a prize, too. Yes, I'm thrilled to announce that my newest book has just secured the...
Here's my peeve about writing for middle schoolers (ages 10-14): when it comes to library budgets, review space, and award competitions, our books have to compete with hefty (thematically and word-count-wise) reads targeted for high schoolers. You gotta wonder if adult gatekeepers favor older YA novels because they read more like adult literature, as evidenced by the interesting discussion on author Justine Labarlestier's blog (source: Chicken Spaghetti) and the adbooks listerv.
Exceptions abound of course, but there's a big difference between an eleven-year-old and a seventeen-year-old when it comes to literary appetite, maturity, and attention span. I thought the books nominated for the Cybils in the middle reader category, for example, were perfect for most 8-12 year olds. But in the YA category, it seems odd that Hattie Big Sky (classified by School Library Journal as a middle school read) has to compete with Nick and Norah's Infinite Playlist (which Booklist considers appropriate for grades 10-12) and The Book Thief, which is causing some of the fuss in the YA vs. adult lit debate.
Our job as a nominating committee is done, and the lists of possible Cybil winners have been narrowed to five finalists in each category. Congratulations to the final five middle grade novels, and many thanks to all the authors who were nominated -- I've been reveling in good reads over the holidays thanks to you!
I gravitate to books about orphans. As an immigrant kid who had to translate a new world's secrets for my parents, I liked reading about protagonists who triumphed without much help from adults. And orphans like Anne Shirley or Sara Crewe definitely fit the bill.
But as I'm reading through the stack of books nominated for the Cybils, I'm overwhelmed by the number of middle grade novels published in 2006 that feature dead parents. Does this generation of children need to process parental loss through the excellent therapy of fiction? Or is abandonment more of an issue underlying the psyche of the generation currently writing and editing books for kids? Here's my question as I read: will a kid want to read this book again and again, like I did with A Little Princess or Anne of Green Gables? Or will a beautifully-written book written and critiqued by adults from my generation receive yet another an award, despite the fact that kids won't read it?
If you haven't yet heard of the Cybil Awards, you're probably new to the crannies of cyberspace created by aficionados of literature for children and young adults. But don't worry. You can head over to the site right now to nominate your favorite book in the young adult novel, nonfiction, middle grade fiction, poetry, picture book, fantasy and science fiction, and graphic novel categories. Here are the rules in a nutshell (lifted verbatim from the site):
(1) The book must be published in 2006 in English. Translations and bilingual books are okay too.
(2) You can be anybody. You don't have to be a blogger to nominate a book. You can even be the author, the editor, the publicist, the next-door neighbor or best friend or just a random Googler.
(3) If a book you love has already been nominated by someone else, you don't need to second it. We're pretty smart. We'll see it. Promise.
(4) Please, pretty please, only nominate ONE book per category.
