The Best of the Best

While most of the nation awaits this year's Oscar winners, a smaller but just as passionate group of librarians, teachers, and fans of children's books are celebrating the recent awards given to books for young people.

Here is a complete list of the American Library Association's (ALA) awards for children's literature unveiled on January 21 at ALA's midwinter meeting in New Orleans—plus three other important awards.

Newbery Medal: A Single Shard (Clarion) by Linda Sue Park

Newbery Honor Books: Everything on a Waffle (Farrar) by Polly Horvath; Carver: A Life in Poems (Front Street) by Marilyn Nelson

Caldecott Medal: The Three Pigs (Clarion) by David Wiesner

Caldecott Honor Books: The Dinosaurs of Waterhouse Hawkins (Scholastic), illustrated by Brian Selznick, written by Barbara Kerley; Martin's Big Words (Hyperion/Jump at the Sun), illustrated by Bryan Collier, written by Doreen Rappaport; The Stray Dog (HarperCollins), illustrated and written by Marc Simont

Coretta Scott King Award for Writing: The Land (Penguin Putnam/Phyllis Fogelman Bks.) by Mildred D. Taylor

King Writing Honor Books: Money-Hungry (Hyperion/Jump at the Sun) by Sharon G. Flake; Carver: A Life in Poems (Front Street) by Marilyn Nelson

Coretta Scott King Award for Illustration: Goin' Someplace Special (S & S/ Atheneum/An Anne Schwartz Bk.), illustrated by Jerry Pinkney, text by Patricia McKissack

King Illustration Honor Book: Martin's Big Words (Hyperion/ Jump at the Sun), illustrated by Bryan Collier, text by Doreen Rappaport

Michael L. Printz Award (for outstanding book for young adults): A Step from Heaven (Front Street) by An Na

Printz Honor Books: Heart to Heart: New Poems Inspired by Twentieth-Century Art (Abrams), edited by Jan Greenberg; Freewill (HarperCollins) by Chris Lynch; The Ropemaker (Delacorte) by Peter Dickinson; True Believer (S & S/ Atheneum) by Virginia Euwer Wolff

Robert F. Sibert Award (for outstanding nonfiction): Black Potatoes: The Story of the Great Irish Famine, 1845–1850 (Houghton) by Susan Campbell Bartoletti

Sibert Honor Books: Surviving Hitler: A Boy in the Nazi Death Camps (HarperCollins) by Andrea Warren; Vincent Van Gogh: Portrait of an Artist (Delacorte) by Jan Greenberg and Sandra Jordan; Brooklyn Bridge (S & S/Atheneum) by Jan Curlee

Margaret Edwards Award (for lifetime contribution to literature for young adults): Paul Zindel, author of The Pigman (Harper, 1968) and many other books for young adults

Andrew Carnegie Medal (for producer of best film or video for young people): Dante Di Loreto and Anthony Edwards of Aviator Films and Willard Carroll and Tom Wilhite of Hyperion Studio for My Louisiana Sky

Pura Belpré Award for Writing: Esperanza Rising (Scholastic) by Pam Muñoz Ryan

Belpré Writing Honor Books: Iguanas in the Snow (Children's Book Press) by Francisco X. Alarcon; Breaking Through (Houghton) by Francisco Jimenez

Belpré Award for Illustration: Chato and the Party Animals (Putnam), illustrated by Susan Guevara, text by Gary Soto

Belpré Illustration Honor Book: Juan Bobo Goes to Work (HarperCollins), illustrated by Joe Cepeda, retold by Maria Montes

Mildred L. Batchelder Award (for best books for young people in translation): How I Became an American (Cricket/Marcato) by Karin Gündisch

Batchelder Honor Book: A Book of Coupons (Viking) by Susie Morgenstern

May Hill Arbuthnot Honor Lecture Award: Maurice Sendak, author and illustrator of Where the Wild Things Are (Harper, 1963) and many other children's books

Other recent children's book awards of significance: Sydney Taylor Book Award for Older Readers (sponsored by the Association of Jewish Libraries): Sigmund Freud: Pioneer of the Mind (Clarion) by Catherine Reef

Taylor Award for Younger Readers: Rivka's First Thanksgiving (S & S/Margaret K. McElderry) by Elsa Okon Rael, illustrated by Maryann Kovalski

Taylor Honor Book for Younger Readers: A Cloak for the Moon (Holiday House) by Eric A. Kimmel, illustrated by Katya Krenina

Charlotte Zolotow Award (for outstanding writing in a picture book): Margaret Willey, author of Clever Beatrice (S & S/ Atheneum), illustrated by Heather Solomon

Zolotow Honor Award: Emily Jenkins, author of Five Creatures (Farrar/Frances Foster Bks.), illustrated by Tomek Bogacki

Scott O'Dell Award for Historical Fiction: The Land (Penguin Putnam/Phyllis Fogelman Bks.) by Mildred Taylor