Children’s Librarian Patron Wins Newbery, Wiesner Nabs Caldecott

Rick Margolis, Debra Lau Whelan -- School Library Journal, 1/22/2007

Librarians woke extra early this cloudy morning in Seattle to attend one of the biggest events of the year—the Newbery, Caldecott and other awards, which took place at 7:45 a.m. local time during the American Library Association’s midwinter meeting.

Hundreds of attendees jammed two ballrooms, some sprawled across the floor, while others peered through packed doorways. The biggest surprise this year? Susan Patron’s sleeper, The Higher Power of Lucky (S & S/Atheneum/A Richard Jackson Bk.) nabbed the Newbery Award for a book about a motherless 10-year-old who searches for a higher power to gain control of her life.

When Jeri Kladder, chairman of the Newbery committee, called Patron to tell her the news this morning, the children’s librarian at Los Angeles Public Library initially thought she’d won an honor. When Patron realized that she actually won the Newbery Medal, she started to cry. Her editor Richard Jackson is technically retired, but still editing a handful of books.

It wasn’t surprising, however, that the Caldecott Medal went to the award-winning illustrator David Wiesner for Flotsam (Clarion), a wordless picture book about a curious young boy who discovers an old-fashioned camera that washes ashore. Wiesner has won two Caldecott Medals for Tuesday in 1992 and The Three Pigs in 2002, as well as two Caldecott Honors for Sector 7 (all Clarion) and Free Fall (HarperCollins).

Another shocker of the morning that brought on thunderous applause and made the audience whoop it up was Michael L. Printz Award-winner Gene Luen Yang, whose American Born Chinese (Roaring Brook/First Second) marked the first time a graphic novel has won a major children’s book award.

SLJ has spoken to many of this year’s award winners (and even done video interviews with some of them!) See what they had to say.

Full list of winners:

Newbery Medal for the most outstanding contribution to children’s literature.

• The Higher Power of Lucky (S & S/Athenuem/A Richard Jackson Bk.) by Susan Patron, illustrated by Matt Phelan

Newbery Honors:

• Penny from Heaven (Random) by Jennifer L. Holm
• Hattie Big Sky (Delacorte) by Kirby Larson
• Rules (Scholastic) by Cynthia Lord

Randolph Caldecott Medal for the most distinguished American picture book for children.

• Flotsam (Clarion) by David Wiesner [see our Q&A]

Caldecott Honors

• Gone Wild: An Endangered Animal Alphabet (Walker) written and illustrated by David McLimans
• Moses: When Harriet Tubman Led Her People to Freedom (Hyperion/Jump at the Sun) illustrated by Kadir Nelson, written by Carole Boston Weatherford

Michael L. Printz Award for excellence in literature written for young adults.

• American Born Chinese (Roaring Brook/First Second) by Gene Luen Yang [see our Q&A and NBA winners talk]

Printz Honor Books

• The Astonishing Life of Octavian Nothing, Traitor to the Nation; v. 1: The Pox Party (Candlewick) by M. T. Anderson [see our Q&A, the October 2nd Book Pick, announcement of the National Book Awards winners, and NBA winners talk]
• An Abundance of Katherines (Dutton) by John Green [see our Q&A]
• Surrender (Candlewick) by Sonya Hartnett
• The Book Thief (Knopf) by Markus Zusak [see our Under Cover Video interview]

Coretta Scott King Book Award recognizing an African American author and illustrator of outstanding books for children and young adults.

• Copper Sun (S &S/Atheneum) by Sharon Draper

King Author Honor Book

• The Road to Paris (Putnam) by Nikki Grimes

King Illustrator Book

• Moses: When Harriet Tubman Led Her People to Freedom (Hyperion/Jump at the Sun) illustrated by Kadir Nelson, written by Carole Boston Weatherford

King Illustrator Honor Books

• Jazz (Holiday House) illustrated by Christopher Myers, written by Walter Dean Myers [see our Q&A]
• Poetry for Young People: Langston Hughes (Sterling) illustrated by Benny Andrews, edited by David Roessel and Arnold Rampersad

Coretta Scott King/John Steptoe New Talent Author Award

• Standing Against the Wind (Farrar) by Traci L. Jones

Robert F. Sibert Informational Book Award for most distinguished informational book for children.

• Team Moon: How 400,000 People Landed Apollo 11 on the Moon (Houghton) by Catherine Thimmesh

Sibert Honor Books

• Freedom Riders: John Lewis and Jim Zwerg on the Front Lines of the Civil Rights Movement (National Geographic) by Ann Bausum
• Quest for the Tree Kangaroo: An Expedition to the Cloud Forest of New Guinea (Houghton) by Sy Montgomery, photographs by Nic Bishop
• To Dance: A Ballerina’s Graphic Novel (Novel (S & S/Atheneum/A Richard Jackson Bk) by Siena Cherson Siegel [see our Q&A], artwork by Mark Siegel

Schneider Family Book Award for books that embody the artistic expression of the disability experience for child and adolescent audiences.

• The Deaf Musicians (Putnam) by Pete Seeger and poet Paul DuBois Jacobs, illustrated by R. Gregory
• Rules (Scholastic) by Cynthia Lord
• Small Steps (Delacorte) by Louis Sachar

Theodor Seuss Geisel Beginning Reader Award for the most distinguished beginning reader book.

• Zelda and Ivy: The Runaways (Candlewick) written and illustrated by Laura McGee Kvasnosky

Geisel Honor Books

• Mercy Watson Goes for a Ride (Candlewick) by Kate DiCamillo [see our Q&A and Under Cover Video interview]
• Move Over, Rover! (Harcourt) by Karen Beaumont, illustrated by Jane Dyer
• Not a Box (HarperCollins) written and illustrated by Antoinette Portis

Margaret A. Edwards Award for lifetime achievement in writing for young adults.

• Lois Lowry, author of The Giver (Houghton/Lorraine)

Laura Ingalls Wilder Award for a substantial and lasting contribution to literature for children.

• Author-illustrator James Marshall for his George and Martha books, the Fox easy reader series, The Cut-Ups, and Goldilocks and the Three Bears

Andrew Carnegie Medal for excellence in children's video.

• Author/illustrator Mo Willems [see our Under Cover Video interview] and Weston Woods Studios, producers of Knuffle Bunny, a DVD based on Willems’ book Knuffle Bunny: A Cautionary Tale. The DVD is performed by Willems, his wife Cheryl and their daughter Trixie. It is directed and animated by MaGiK Studio, with music by Scotty Huff and Robert Reynolds.

Mildred L. Batchelder Award for the most outstanding children’s book translated from a foreign language and subsequently published in the United States.

• Delacorte Press is the winner for The Pull of the Ocean. Originally published in France in 1999 as L’enfant Océan, the book was written by Jean-Claude Mourlevat and translated by Y. Maudet.

Batchelder Honor Books

• The Killer’s Tears (Delacorte)
• The Last Dragon (Hyperion/Miramax)

Alex Awards for the ten best adult books that appeal to teen audiences.

• The Book of Lost Things (S & S/Atria) by John Connolly
• The Whistling Season (Harcourt) by Ivan Doig
• Eagle Blue: A Team, A Tribe, and A High School Basketball Season in Arctic Alaska (Bloomsbury) by Michael D’Orso
• Water for Elephants (Algonquin) by Sara Gruen
• Color of the Sea (Thomas Dunne Bks.) by John Hamamura
• The Floor of the Sky (Univ. of Nebraska) by Pamela Carter Joern
• The Blind Side: Evolution of a Game (Norton) by Michael Lewis
• Black Swan Green (Random) by David Mitchell
• The World Made Straight (Holt) by Ron Rash
• The Thirteenth Tale (S & S) by Diane Setterfield

May Hill Arbuthnot Honor Lecture recognizing an individual of distinction in the field of children's literature, who then presents a lecture at a winning host site.

• David Macaulay will deliver the 2008 lecture. Macaulay’s work varies from the Caldecott Medal-winning Black and White to the satiric fiction of Motel of the Mysteries.