Winners announced!

Hello everyone - did you tune into the ALA awards this morning? What did you think? Any surprises or favorites bring home the big prize?

Here's a recap of a few of the awards:

John Newbery Medal
Winner: Flora & Ulysses: The Illuminated Adventure by Kate DiCamillo
Honors: Doll Bones by Holly Black
              The Paperboy by Vince Vawter
              One Came Home by Amy Timberlake
              The Year of Billy Miller by Kevin Henkes

Randolph Caldecott Medal
Winner: Locomotive written & illustrated by Brian Floca
 Honors: Journey written & illustrated by Aaron Becker
              Flora and the Flamingo written & illustrated by Molly Idle
              Mr. Wuffles written & illustrated by David Wiesner

Michael L. Printz Award
Winner: Midwinterblood by Marcus Sedgwick
Honors: Eleanor & Park by Rainbow Rowell
              Kingdom of Little Wounds by Susann Cokal
              Maggot Moon by Sally Gardner
              Navigating Early by Clare Vanderpool

Robert F. Sibert Informational Book Award
Winner: Parrots over Puerto Rico written & illustrated by Susan L. Roth, written by Cindy Trumbore
Honors: A Splash of Red: The Life and Art of Horace Pippin written by Jane Bryant, illustrated by Melissa Sweet
             Look Up! Bird-Watching in Your Own Backyard written & illustrated by Annette LeBlanc Cate
             Locomotive written & illustrated by Brian Floca
             The Mad Potter: George E. Ohr, Eccentric Genius by Jan Greenberg and Sandra Jordan

Theodore Seuss Geisel Award
Winner: The Watermelon Seed written & illustrated by Greg Pizzoli
Honors: Ball written & illustrated by Mary Sullivan
              A Big Guy Took My Ball written & illustrated by Mo Willems
              Penny and Her Marble written & illustrated by Kevin Henkes

For a complete list of the awards and winners, including the Coretta Scott King awards, the Pura Belpre, the Schneider Family Book award, and more go to: http://www.ala.org/news/press-releases/2014/01/american-library-association-announces-2014-youth-media-award-winners 

My thoughts: Wonderful books! I just brought The Watermelon Seed to our SCBWI meeting in December, so I was excited to see it win an award. I noticed all four Caldecott winners were written by author/illustrators this year - I keep telling all you writer/illustrators that you have an advantage!

I just finished Flora & Ulysses last week and found it so charming; it seems like a perfect fit for a win since Kate DiCamillo was just named the new National Ambassador for Children's Literature. I had the honor of meeting the lovely Clare Vanderpool at the SCBWI conference in L.A. I was glad to see her book Navigating Early get recognized - what a writer! Her first book wins the Newbery and her second gets a Printz honor.

The only one I was sad not to see on the list was Kathi Appelt's The True Blue Scouts of Sugar Man Swamp. I'm such a fan of that book. Have y'all noticed how different the National Book Award titles and Newbery titles seem to be each year? I think it is great, because it offers a wide selection of great books for recognition, but curious nonetheless. What do you think about the awards?