Just back from the American Library Association's Midwinter Meeting in Philadelphia, where the Caldecott, Newbery, Printz, Geisel, Sibert, Coretta Scott King and other children's book awards were announced early Monday morning.  (It seems like there's a new award every other year!)

Zahra and I sat next to each other at the press conference, where there is always a palpable anticipatory thrill in the air.

I confess that I was more thrilled before the announcements than after they were made, though.

The Newbery winner:  GOOD MASTERS!  SWEET LADIES! by Laura Amy Schlitz is a beautifully written set of monologues set in a medieval village.  Carol Birch had already pegged it as her favorite book of the year, so we were delighted to phone her to let her know the news.  This is the sort of book teachers will be able to use to good effect in their classrooms (in fact, that's why Schlitz wrote it) and I can imagine families having fun reading the different parts aloud, as well.  With its range of emotions and characters, illuminating notes and charming illustrations, this is a handsome book for sharing.

The Caldecott Award winner--THE INVENTION OF HUGO CABRET by Brian Selznick--floored me.  I don't think of it as a picture book as much as a heavily illustrated 500-plus-page novel and for a few minutes I was afraid it would receive the Newbery Award also!  This book has been widely admired by librarians and children and has a compelling, if rather dark and mechanisitic plot involving an orphan who lives secretly in a railroad station in Paris, a mysterious automoton and early cinematic history.  Not for the pre-school  set.  The criteria of the award state that the book must suitable for children up to and including the ag of 14, so there you go...

What do I like among the award winners?  FIRST THE EGG by Laura Vaccaro Seeger, which won an Honor both for the Caldecott and the Geisel (for easy readers), HENRY'S FREEDOM BOX by Ellen Levine (another Caldecott Honor), THE WALL by Peter Sis--an amazing account of what it was like to grow up behind the Iron Curtain in Czechoslovakia which is told simply enough for elementary school students to grasp, THE WEDNESDAY WARS by Gary D. Scmidt--a novel cnetered on the conflict between a student and a teacher, to name a few.

Come in and check out our copies of the award winners and let us know what you think of them yourselves

Cheers!

Miriam