Without further ago, I give you THE LIST!
There are some surprises in there, both good and... surprising. I'm dashing off to a meeting, but I'll be back to discuss the results later.
ETA (11:53AM) -
Okay. I'm back. And, like many in the Kidlitosphere, I have reactions.
First, the Newbery...
Winner: Good Masters, Sweet Ladies: Voices from a Medieval Village by Laura Amy Schlitz
Honors: Elijah of Buxton by Christopher Paul Curtis, The Wednesday Wars by Gary D. Schmidt, and Feathers by Jacqueline Woodson
Nothing surprising here (to me, at least). I have yet to read the Newbery before it was announced, but I am happy to say that I have read all the honor books. Although I haven't read GMSL, I'm glad to see the award go to a non-fiction book. At least, I think it's non-fiction... we have it in the 812s... (where do you have it?)
Now, the Caldecott...
Can I just say that I am shocked and delighted that The Invention of Hugo Cabret won?! I think it totally deserved it (although I have already heard some grumblings of "That's not a picture book!"). Yay!
And the Printz...
I am shocked and dismayed that The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian didn't win anything. I mean, well, yeah, it won the National Book Award. And that's awesome. But I really, really thought it would get some Printz recognition... I'm disappointed about that, but I am raring to read The White Darkness, which won.
Here is one interesting thing that I noticed... my department serves kids from birth to 8th grade. We have a J Fiction section that encompasses roughly grades 3-6 and we have a Teen Fiction section that encompasses roughly grades 6-8. Then we have a YA section in the adult services department.
We have ALL of the Newbery books in the Teen section (with the exception of GMSL, which we have in non-fiction). The White Darkness is also in our Teen section, as are two of the Printz honor books (One Whole and Perfect Day and Repossessed). This was (apparently) a big award season for middle-schoolers. I'm not saying that's good or bad... just interesting. And I wonder if this is the trend, how will we recognize those excellent books for younger chapter-book readers?
(One way might be with state book awards... our 2008 Caudill list seemed to be split pretty evenly between J and Teen books... for more on that, check out my post about the Rebecca Caudill Young Reader's Book Awards...)
ANYhoo. Those are my thoughts about some of the award winners... what are your thoughts??