The 2008 Newbery Award winner, Laura Amy Schlitz's Good Masters! Sweet Ladies!: Voices from a Medieval Village,
seems to have been somewhat of a dark horse, not numbered in many of the usual "Best of..." lists. It's great, though, that awarding the Newbery is not just a rubber-stamp for the conventional wisdom. This year's winner appears to be a very "outside-the-box" piece of literature, featuring the interrelated and self-revelatory dialogues and monologues of 23 ten to fifteen-year-old residents of a English village of 1255, ably decorated with illustrations by Robert Byrd which are reminiscent but not derivative of medieval manuscript art.
Two of the Newbery Honor Books have been featured in this blog. For my earlier posts on Christopher Paul Curtis' Newbery Honor winner Elijah Of Buxton
and Jacqueline Woodson's Feathers,
look here and here.
The 2008 Caldecott Award for illustration was and was not a surprise: it was a surprise that it went to author/illustrator Brian Selznick for the book's illustrations, but no surprise that an award went to this unique and widely celebrated book, The Invention of Hugo Cabret.
Unlike most Caldecott winners, it is not, strictly speaking, a picture book, but a brilliantly illustrated novel. My full review of this National Book Award finalist can be found in my post of November 17, 2007.
Carrying off a Caldecott Honor award is Mo Willem's Knuffle Bunny Too: A Case of Mistaken Identity,
another cutie-pie adventure of the beloved rabbit first lost and found in Knuffle Bunny: A Cautionary Tale (Bccb Blue Ribbon Picture Book Awards (Awards)).
My review posted on September 7, 2007, can be found here.
Even spiders can be beautiful. Really. Deservedly earning a Sibert Honor Award for nonfiction is Nic Bishop's photographic essay Nic Bishop Spiders,
a book that no one who opens it can resist! My review from December is found here.
Two books reviewed here received Odyssey (audiobook) Honor Awards. A full post on Doreen Cronin's Dooby Dooby Moo
can be found here. Being a British creation, Harry Potter has never been eligible for a Newbery Award, but the American-made audiobook of the last Potter book carried home an Odyssey. My July 22 review of Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows (Book 7)
is here and a brief review of the Listening Library audiobook is here.
I'll be busy reading and posting reviews on some of the other big award winners soon.
[For the complete list of awards and winners, see my previous post for January 14.]
Labels: Caldecott Award Books, Newbery Award Books
The 2008 Newbery Award winner, Laura Amy Schlitz's Good Masters! Sweet Ladies!: Voices from a Medieval Village,
Two of the Newbery Honor Books have been featured in this blog. For my earlier posts on Christopher Paul Curtis' Newbery Honor winner Elijah Of Buxton
The 2008 Caldecott Award for illustration was and was not a surprise: it was a surprise that it went to author/illustrator Brian Selznick for the book's illustrations, but no surprise that an award went to this unique and widely celebrated book, The Invention of Hugo Cabret.
Carrying off a Caldecott Honor award is Mo Willem's Knuffle Bunny Too: A Case of Mistaken Identity,
Even spiders can be beautiful. Really. Deservedly earning a Sibert Honor Award for nonfiction is Nic Bishop's photographic essay Nic Bishop Spiders,
Two books reviewed here received Odyssey (audiobook) Honor Awards. A full post on Doreen Cronin's Dooby Dooby Moo
2 Comments:
This is a very useful site; I have to say that I've become increasingly skeptical of the "official" award agencies for children's books. The dark, the painful, and disturbing seem to engender more awards. You have to wonder if an author like L'engle could successfully win such an award today.
By
Anonymous, at 9:57 AM
Hey, L'Engle certainly dealt with "the dark, the painful, and disturbing," brightened, of course, by her faith in the power of goodness to overcome the dark. (Take a look at my post on her death or, better, her many other literary obits to see what she was dealing with in her books.)Woodson's FEATHERS deals exactly with the power of hope ("a thing with feathers") to overcome pain. ELIJAH OF BUXTON is a joyously funny book which also deals optimistically with human pain.
I think L'Engle would love these winners as right in line with her own literary philosophy.
By
GTC, at 10:54 AM
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