News and interviews with award winning authors and illustrators including Newbery, Caldecott, and more, from School Library Journal
Nominations Open for the I Love My Librarian! Award By Rocco Staino - 09/14/2009
Know a librarian whose work has improved the lives of people in their communities? The New York Times, the Carnegie Corporation of New York, and the American Library Association (ALA) are encouraging the nominations of public, school, college, and academic librarians for the I Love My Librarian! Award. More
Hurry and Enter the Amazon Breakthrough Novel Award Competition By SLJ Staff - 02/03/2010
Think you have what it takes to be the next Stephenie Meyer? Here’s your chance to prove it. Amazon.com, its subsidiary CreateSpace, and the Penguin Group USA are accepting submissions for the third annual Amazon Breakthrough Novel Award competition, an international contest that’s seeking the next popular novel.
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Caldecott Confidential: What's next year's best picture book for kids? Please, don't ask. By Nell Colburn - 02/01/2010
Talk about confidentiality. It’s probably easier to uncover the identity of a new pope than to find out the name of the next Caldecott winner. That’s because the tight-lipped group that chooses our nation’s premier children’s picture book is sworn to secrecy, and it takes that charge very seriously.
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Is It the Process or the Product? Love them or hate them, the awards are a great opportunity By Brian Kenney, Editor-in-Chief - 02/01/2010
I hate to admit it, but deep in my heart I’m a bit skeptical about the Youth Media Awards, which include the Newbery, Caldecott, Printz, and many other honors. It’s not that I don’t love all of the anticipation leading up to the announcements and the drama of the event itself. But I always wonder whether it makes sense in this day and age for one book, as in the case of the Ne...
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Edgar Awards Snub Stead’s ‘When You Reach Me’ By Rocco Staino - 01/27/2010
It might be more interesting to note what didn’t get nominated for this year’s Edgar Awards than what did. Among the missing from last week’s list are When You Reach Me (Random, 2009) by Rebecca Stead, the 2010 winner of the John Newbery Medal for outstanding literature.
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Sydney Taylor Book Award Winners Named By Lauren Barack - 01/18/2010
Stories about the Jewish New Year, Staten Island in the 1980s, and the sale of Cuban visas to Jewish refugees during World War II were named winners in this year’s Sydney Taylor Book Awards, which celebrates new books that combine literary excellence with an accurate portrait of the Jewish world.
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Random House Leaks Newbery Winner on Twitter By Debra Lau Whelan with Rick Margolis and Barbara Genco - 01/18/2010
An overly eager person at Random House tweeted this year’s winner of the Newbery Award about 17 minutes before the official announcement was made this morning during the American Library Association’s (ALA) midwinter meeting in Boston.
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Heavy Medal: A Mock Newbery Blog Jonathan Hunt, Librarian and teacher, Modesto City Schools January 30, 2010 Signing Off
REBECCA STEAD REDUX
Peter Sieruta talks about the first printing.
Monica E... More
2009 National Book Awards On the red carpet with nominees in the Young People's Literature category.
Photos by Rocco Staino.
SLJ Covers 2009 A bigger and better view of SLJ's covers from 2009
BookExpo America 2009: SLJ's Day of Dialog School Library Journal held a Day of Dialog in conjunction with the annual BookExpo America on May 28, 2009 at the Brooklyn Public Library. Full story: bit.ly/1a0G7o
Rockin’, Rollin’ and Ridin’ with Rebecca Frezza & Big Truck. CD. 23 min. Prod. by Big Truck Music. Dist. by CDBaby.com. 2009. $8.99.
Gr 1-5–A veteran of Noggin Channel and PBS Kids, Frezza created these eight exceptional rock ‘n roll songs for elementary grade children who are too old for Raffi, but not old enough for adult pop music.
Friends and colleagues of the late Effie Lee Morris may enjoy this photo of the children's librarian, which Nicholas Glass, founder and executive director of Teachingbooks.net, recently found on his computer. It was taken at the 2009 ALA Annual Conference in Chicago, and features (from left) Ashley Bryan, Christopher Myers, and Morris, also an advocate for children's literature and library service to youngsters with impaired vision, who died of cancer on November 10, 2009.
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Rockin’, Rollin’ and Ridin’ with Rebecca Frezza & Big Truck. CD. 23 min. Prod. by Big Truck Music. Dist. by CDBaby.com. 2009. $8.99. 
