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You know what’s even better than serving on an award committee?  Having someone else write about it.  As I’ve mentioned in the past, I was on the judging committee for this year’s Boston Globe-Horn Book Awards alongside Chair Joanna Rudge Long and Roxanne Feldman.  It was Roxanne who reported on our discussion, and even took photos of where we met (Joanna’s gorgeous Vermont farmhouse), what we ate, and more.  There is also a particularly goofy shot of me that is impressive because even without knowing that there was a camera pointed in my direction, I seem to have made a silly face.  I am nothing if not talented in that respect.

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Speaking of listening in on committees and their discussions, ALA is next week (she said, eyeing her unfinished Newbery/Caldecott Banquet outfit nervously) and that means you have a chance to sit and listen to one particular committee talk the talkety talk.  I am referring, of course, to the ALA Notables Committee.  This year they’ve released the list of books on their discussion list online for your perusal.  A lot of goodies there, as well as room for a lot of books I hope they get to eventually.

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I was very sad to hear about the passing of Lois Duncan. Like many of you, she was a staple of my youth.  When Jules Danielson, Peter Sieruta, and I were writing our book Wild Things: Acts of Mischief in Children’s Literature we initially had a section, written by Peter, on why Lois stopped writing suspense novels for teens.  It’s a sad story but one that always made me admire her deeply.  She was hugely talented and will be missed.

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Speaking of Wild Things, recently I was sent a YA galley by Marcus Sedgwick called Blood Red, Snow White.  But lest you believe it to be a YA retelling of the old Snow White / Rose Red fairytale, it ain’t.  Instead, it’s about how Arthur Ransome (he of Swallows and Amazons) got mixed up with Trotsky’s secretary and a whole lotta Bolsheviks.  What does this have to do with Wild Things?  This was yet ANOTHER rejected tale from our book.  Read the full story here on our website where we even take care to mention Sedgwick’s book (it originally was published overseas in 2007).

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As I’ve mentioned before, my library hosts a pair of falcons each year directly across from the window above my desk.  I’ve watched five eggs laid, three hatch, and the babies get named and banded.  This week the little not-so-fuzzyheads are learning to fly.  It’s terrifying.  Far better that I read this older Chicago Tribune article on the banding ceremony.  They were so cute when they were fuzzy.  *sigh*

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In other news, Harriet the Spy’s house is for sale.  Apparently.

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Sharon Levin on the child_lit listserv had a rather fascinating little announcement up recently.  As she told it, she’d always had difficulty finding a really fast way to catalog her personal library.  Cause let’s face it – scanning every single barcode takes time.  Then she found a new app and . . . well, I’ll let her tell it:

“Shelfie is a free app for iOS and Android (www.shelfie.com) where you can take a picture of your bookshelf and the app will automatically recognize your book spines and generate a catalog of your library. In addition, the team behind the app has made deals with over 1400 publishers (including HarperCollins, Macmillan, and Hachette) to let you download discounted (usually around 80% off) or free ebook or audiobook edition of your paper books (right now these publisher deals cover about 25% of the books on an “average” shelf). The app also lets you browse other readers’ shelves. Shelfie will also give you personalized book recommendations based on how readers with similar taste in books to you organize the books on their shelves. The founder of Shelfie is named Peter Hudson and he’d love to hear any suggestions about how he can make the app better. Peter’s email is [email protected].“

Thanks to Sharon Levin for the heads up.

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I leave NYPL and its delightful Winnie-the-Pooh toys and what happens?  The world goes goofy for the story of A.A. Milne and Christopher Robin.  Now we just found out that Domhnall Gleeson (a.k.a. Bill Weasley in the Harry Potter films) has just been cast as Milne in an upcoming bio-pic.  Will wonders never cease?

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Are you familiar with the works of Atinuke?  An extraordinary storyteller, her Anna Hibiscus books are among my favorite early chapter books of all time.  They do, however, occasionally catch flack of saying they take place in “Africa” rather than a specific country. Recently, K.T. Horning explained on Monica Edinger’s recent post Diversity Window, Mirror, or Neither that Atinuke did this on purpose so that kids in Africa could imagine the stories as taking place in their own countries.  That makes perfect sense.  The ensuing discussion in Monica’s post is respectful, interesting, and with a variety of different viewpoints, all worth reading.  In short, the kind of talk a blogger hopes for when he or she writes something.  Well done, Monica.

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Big time congrats to the nominees for the Neustadt Prize.  It’s a whopping $10,000 given to a children’s author given on the basis of literary merit.  It may be the only children’s award originating in America that is also international.  Fingers crossed for all the people nominated!

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Hooray!  The Children’s Book Council has released their annual Building a Home Library list.  I love these.  The choices are always very carefully done and perfect for clueless parents.

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In other CBC news, I got this little press release, and it’s worth looking at:

“For the second consecutive year, the Children’s Book Council has partnered with The unPrison Project — a 501(c)3 nonprofit dedicated to empowering and mentoring women in prison — to create brand-new libraries of books for incarcerated mothers to read with their babies at prison nurseries. Fourteen of the CBC’s member publishers answered the call by donating copies of over 35 hand-picked titles for children ages 0-18 months for each library. The books will be hand-delivered and organized in the nurseries by Deborah Jiang-Stein, founder of The unPrison Project and author of Prison Baby. Jiang-Stein was born in prison to a heroin-addicted mother, and has made it her mission to empower and mentor women and girls in prison.”

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You know who’s cool?  That gal I mentioned earlier.  Julie Danielson.  She’s something else.  For example, while many of us might just say we were interested in James Marshall, she’s actually in the process of researching him.  She even received the James Marshall Fellowship from The University of Connecticut’s Archives & Special Collections at the Thomas J. Dodd Research Center. As a result she spent a week looking through the James Marshall Papers there. Their sole stipulation?  Write a blog post about it.  So up at the University’s site you’ll find the piece Finding the Artist in His Art: A Week With the James Marshall Papers. Special Bonus: Rare images you won’t find anywhere else.

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Daily Image:

I take no credit to this.  I only discovered it on Twitter thanks to Christine Hertz of Burlington, VT.  It may constitute the greatest summer reading idea I’ve seen in a very long time.  Public libraries, please feel free to adopt this:

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To commemorate Black History Month, the Texas Book Festival has posted an interview with Don Tate and me about his book Poet: The Remarkable True Story of George Moses Horton and our book The Amazing Age of John Roy Lynch. Here’s a bit of what Don has to say about the stories he wants to […]

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The author of American Born Chinese sits down to talk with us about his new role as the first comics alumnus to hold the prestigious position of ambassador of young people's literature.

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ARLINGTON, Va.—November 13, 2015 — The National Science Teachers Association and the Children’s Book Council have released their annual list of “Outstanding Science Trade Books for Students K-12: 2016.” The list represents the best trade books published in 2015 for students in kindergarten through 12th grade.

“The books on the Outstanding Science Trade Books list help students to explore the world around them,” said NSTA President Carolyn Hayes. “These amazing books will fascinate and captivate student readers with both their content and style, leaving students wanting to revisit them again and again to learn more.”

Members of a book review panel made up of science educators and literacy professionals appointed by NSTA selected 49 books for the list from a roster of roughly 200 submissions. The list of winning titles includes topics that range from Steve Jobs to flying cars and features beautifully illustrated picture books, heart-warming stories, reference and encyclopedia-type texts, and poetry.

The review panel based their decision on their extensive knowledge of the field and looked for the very best books that they believed would inspire kids. Books also meet rigorous subject matter guidelines including:

· Science content must be accurate;

· Where conflicting scientific theories exist, as many views as possible are
represented; and

· Facts are not oversimplified so that information becomes misleading.

NSTA and CBC have collaborated on the list of Outstanding Science Trade Books for Students since 1973 in an effort to help science educators access quality books that support student learning in science education. In addition to being featured on both organizations’ websites, the list will appear in the March 2016 issues of NSTA’s elementary, middle level, and high school journals for teachers.

About NSTA

The Arlington, VA-based National Science Teachers Association is the largest professional organization in the world promoting excellence and innovation in science teaching and learning for all. NSTA’s current membership includes approximately 55,000 science teachers, science supervisors, administrators, scientists, business and industry representatives, and others involved in science education.

NSTA Press® produces 25–30 new books and e-books each year. Focused on the preK–college market and specifically aimed at teachers of science, NSTA Press titles offer a unique blend of accurate scientific content and sound teaching strategies. Follow NSTA Press on Facebook for the latest information and new book releases.

About the Children’s Book Council

The Children’s Book Council (CBC) is the nonprofit trade association of children’s book publishers in North America, dedicated to supporting the industry and promoting children’s books and reading.

The CBC works annually on reading lists and round-ups to help teachers, librarians, parents, caregivers, and booksellers discover wonderful books for the kids and teens in their lives. Learn more at cbcbooks.org/reading-lists/.

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I'm so happy to share the news that LITTLE AUTHOR IN THE BIG WOODS has been included in the Children's Book Council's 2015 Notable Social Studies Trade Books for Young People list!

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• Recently I’ve grown rather fascinated with the academic children’s collections of the world.  The rare book collections in particular.  With that in mind, what do you do if you’re an institution that specializes in archived materials, and yet you still want to engage young readers in some capacity?  Enter Teaching the untouchable, a great article by Dana Sheridan at the Cotsen Collection of Princeton University.  Written for College and Research Libraries News the piece really delves deep into how to best conduct rare book programs with real honest-to-goodness children.  Great stuff.

• I’m also fond of international children’s book festivals.  Monica Edinger just got back from FILIJ: Mexico’s International Children’s Book Festival and is willing to tell all.  Sounds like it was absolutely amazing.

• Whatcha up to tonight?  Got big Tuesday night plans?  No?  Excellent since there’s to be a Twitter chat between Debbie Reese of American Indians in Children’s Literature and brilliant librarian Allie Jane Bruce at 9:00 p.m.  Just go to #SupportWNDB.  Be there or be square.

• So cool.  Over at Seven Impossible Things Before Breakfast, Jules got cartooned up.  I would love it if that became a regular thing at her site.  Everyone should cartoonify her when interviewed.

• Jules also tackled a recent re-illustrated title that will have librarians everywhere just shaking their heads, trying desperately to figure out where to put the darn thing in their collections.  If you’re familiar with the 2001 picture book Jim’s Lion by Russell Hoban then you’ll have a hard time looking at its new incarnation without blanching.  It’s one of the most innovative children’s books of the year but a psychological nightmare that would actually pair magnificently with Patrick Ness’s A Monster Calls, if nothing else.  Jules has the scoop.  Well played, she.

Wow.  Just, wow.  Kidlit TV is live, people, and boy does it look fancy.  I mean just LOOK at that site!  Someone put their heart and soul into it, that’s for sure.  Makes me feel like a bit of a slacker, if I’m going to be honest.  Boy howdy.

I am always very pleased with folks take public review sites like Amazon or Goodreads and use them to have a bit of fun.  One Hamilton Richardson evidently must have sat through one Mr. Men book too many and the result is a series of thoroughly enjoyable “reviews” that are all distinctive in their own little ways.  Thanks to Steve for the link.

• Sometimes you just don’t know if the name you see on a series is a real person or not.  Take R.A. Montgomery, for example.  Recently he passed away in his Vermont home, and if his moniker is ringing a couple bells that might be because he’s the fellow behind the Choose Your Own Adventure series.  Like any good child of the 80s I devoured my own fair share of CYOA titles back in the day, perfecting the art of sticking all my digits in between the pages so that the moment I chose poorly I could instantly retrace my steps.  There’s a metaphor lurking in that statement somewhere, I’d wager. Thanks to Mom for the link.

• Daily Image:

Christmas is on the horizon and you know what that means?  Time to start trying to figure out what to purchase for the children’s literature-obsessed person in your life.  Want an early idea?  I know it isn’t even Thanksgiving yet but I just discovered that that Children’s Book Council sells their old Children’s Book Week posters in a variety of different forms, dating back to 1921.  Everyone from N.C. Wyeth to the most recent one by Robin Preiss Glasser.  Here are some of my own personal favorites:

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I can’t decide if the p.r. disaster that was the Children’s Choice Awards last night is exacerbated or ameliorated by the fact that the Children’s Book Council website is down this morning (and, according to Facebook) has been offline since the announcements last night.(Edit 11.45AM:It’s back up.) I do know that the CBCBook Twitter account went silent for what were supposed to be the big announcements of the night: Author of the Year (Rush Limbaugh) and Illustrator of the Year (Grace, uh, Lee).

Predictably, there’s a lot of social media outrage about Rush’s win–accusations of inaccuracy in his book, Rush Revere and the Brave Pilgrims; accusations of stacking the deck and/or ballot fraud–but really, it’s just people being mad that Rush Limbaugh won. Any inaccuracies are beside the point, because the winner of this award is determined by popular vote. It really is a popularity contest. And if Rush had his Dittoheads auto-voting through the wee hours–well, welcome to the Internet. In the case of the Illustrator prize (for Sofia the First: The Floating Island, a Disney TV-tie-in product), I’m guessing that little kids presented with the webpage of the nominees (all chosen by virtue of being bestsellers) pointed their little fingers at Sofia, screeching “Da one wid da pwincess, Daddy! DA ONE WID DA PWINCESS!!” (I  really am guessing here, as the marketing departments for Simon & Schuster (Rush Revere) and Disney chose not to send these books to us for review.)

The Author and Illustrator of the Year Awards were piled on top of the IRA-CBC Children’s Choice Awards some years back because those winners weren’t usually very sexy and did not attract sponsorship money or media attention. Now  they have a glam, pricey event and lots of attention. These awards worked exactly the way they were supposed to. But I bet they won’t work this way next year.

 

The post The elephant was in the room appeared first on The Horn Book.

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This will be the seventh year in which you can choose a favorite book to win the CHILDREN'S CHOICE BOOK AWARD. The award is given by the Children's Book Council.

You'll find the list of books in the running for the award at the link above. The voting continues into May, so you have plenty of time to read all of the books in your age bracket. The winners will be announced during Children's Book Week, May 12-18. When you visit the Children's Book Week site, you'll find cool freebies:

the official bookmark you can print out by nonfiction illustrator, Steve Jenkins

the official poster by Fancy Nancy artist, Robin Priess Glasser. You can request as many of these as you need.

 You can also find out above local events that you can participate in. Most likely your school or a local library will be planning something special during Children's Book Week--because we all know how very special both books and children are!

And books for kids are the absolute best!!!

Happy reading. :)

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While technically this isn’t a proper press release, I think it’s worth noting.  I once conducted a Children’s Literary Salon at NYPL about alternative children’s libraries in New York City.  Libraries that are free and open to the public, but you have to know about them.  The Children’s Book Council’s library was amongst those included.  Here then is some news on their newest site.  Please make note of the Job Openings section in particular:

A brand-new version of the CBC site is now live at www.cbcbooks.org!

Some features that might be of particular interest to you:

·         A search function for our reading lists and round-ups that will enable parents/caregivers, teachers, librarians, and booksellers to easily find the perfect books for their young readers. As you can see, there are options to search by age, format, genre, Seasonal Showcase theme, & by Children’s Choice Book Awards Winners. Additional functionality that will enable visitors to search for a book that falls within as many categories as they select is coming soon.

·         For all books featured on our site, we now have the ability to embed the book trailer and to link to more information/a preferred purchasing site for the title. See example here.

·         A showcase for titles featuring diversity on our home page (curated by CBC Diversity), and in our reading lists section here

·         Under Reading Lists, a new section detailing all the previous winners and finalists of the Children’s Choice Book Awards

·         A detailed FAQs section designed to help aspiring authors and illustrators, non-member publishers, and more visitors to our site find the information they need

·         A comprehensive (nearly!) archive of all of the job moves at our member publishing houses over the last few months

·         Online newsletter sign-up for both members and the kid lit community at large

·         and much more

Continued features include:

·         Kid lit news – the best in children’s and young adult literature and literacy news!

·         Kid lit events – fun children’s and young adult literature events from coast to coast!

·         Job openings – recent job openings at our member publishers

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Earlier this year the Children’s Book Council (located in the USA) launched the  CBC Diversity Committee in order to:

increase the diversity of voices and experiences contributing to children’s literature. To create this change, the Committee strives to build awareness that the nature of our society must be represented within the children’s publishing industry.

We endeavor to encourage diversity of race, gender, geographical origin, sexual orientation, and class among both the creators of and the topics addressed by children’s literature. We strive for a more diverse range of employees working within the industry, of authors and illustrators creating inspiring content, and of characters depicted in children’s literature.

Click here to visit the CBC Diversity Committee Blog and here to access their Resources page which contains information put together by the Committee for anyone interested in producing, promoting, buying, or writing diverse books for children.

Click here to read John A. Sellers’ recent Publisher Weekly article CBC Diversity Committee: Starting Conversations and Building a Following.

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The roots of Children's Book Week and the Children's Book Council goes back to 1919, when Children's Book Week "was introduced to focus attention on the need for quality children's books and the importance of childhood literacy."

The Council is a national nonprofit trade association for children's trade book publishers. In my quick count of its members, there's over fifty different book publishers in the Council.

This week, CBC Diversity will take up a discussion about diversity. They've titled it "It's Complicated" and invited me to submit a post for it. I did, and I look forward to reading the discussion it generates.

There will also be a post by Cynthia Leitich Smith, author of several terrific books, including one of my all-time favorites, Jingle Dancer.

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I am grateful to Robin Adelson, Executive Director,  Children’s Book Council and Every Child A Reader, for inviting me to a wonderful evening in Celebration of Children’s Book Week. It was a night to remember!  Once my videos are finished downloading, I will share some clips from the awards presentation but in the meantime, guess who?

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Children’s Book Week is May 7–13, 2012. Visit the Children’s Book Council’s website for events and information.

You may also get a kick out of these early ads for Children’s Book Week. They came to us courtesy of K. T. Horning whose article in the upcoming July/August 2012 Horn Book Magazine examines the old-as-the-hills arguments about popular vs. distinguished when awards season rolls around.

 

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Calling all young publishing professionals (sorry, Early Career Committee events are for employees of CBC member houses only) -

Join us for the 1st Annual Hunger Pub Games!  See below for the event invite I created… and RSVP to see in person all the challenges that await. It’s going to be a ton of fighting- I mean, fun!

Filed under: happenings, publishing Tagged: children's book council, early career committee, hunger games, the hunger games

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Horn Book alum Alvina Ling helps kick off the Children’s Book Council’s new blog CBC Diversity (And thank you, Shelftalker, for pointing me to it.)

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It’s finally time to resurrect my blog from its long hiatus!  I’ve actually missed being on Walking In Public… digging up blog content has always kept me engaged with the publishing/art/design industries, and it motivates me to write and draw regularly.  So, I’ll be back on the blog for a long while, with all-new features and updates on my journey to success in the children’s book world!

What have you missed while I’ve been away from the blog? Here are the best things that happened, circa 2011:

Annie’s Top 5 2011 Professional Developments

1. Illustrated and designed the Little Farmer app.

You may remember that I began a project working on a toddler game app, called Little Farmer, back in May.  Well, after months of illustrating, designing and developing, we released it for sale in the iTunes store in October!  It has been a really wonderful experience working with a talented developer, Anita Hirth, to create artwork that children can interact with, right there on any iPhone.  There’s much more to say about the process of creating an app, and my future in the digital world… but those are subjects for bigger posts!

In the meantime, purchase the app here, or watch the video trailer, above!

2. Joined the Children’s Book Council’s Early Career Committee.

I’ve been attending events for young adults in the publishing industry for awhile, so it was exciting to be asked to represent Penguin Young Readers (and designers everywhere) on the Children’s Book Council’s Early Career Committee.  This organization creates opportunities for those in the first 5 years of the children’s book industry to network, learn, and become more involved in their fields… so their mission is right up my alley!  Since becoming a part of the team this summer, I’ve had a TON of fun making great friends with 20-somethings in different houses, through planning creative programming.  I’m also having a blast designing fliers, making good use of my design time and talents.

If you haven’t already, make sure to catch up on the CBC and ECC’s fabulous social media enterprises – Facebook, Twitter, and Pinterest!

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I was saddened to learn of the death of children’s author Georgess McHargue on Monday, July 18th.  It seems that this was a death our community missed and I am sorry for it.  Ms. McHargue penned many a fine children’s novel, but my favorite would have to be Stoneflight, a tale of New York City’s statuary come to life.  According to her obituary, “After working at Golden Press, Georgess became an editor at Doubleday. In her long career as an author, she published 35 books, many are for young adults, some focused on archaeology, mythology and history. She was nominated for a National Book Award for The Beasts of Never, and wrote many reviews over the years for the NY Times Book Review.”  Jane Yolen was a friend of hers and alerted me to her passing.  Thank you, Jane, for letting us know.  She was a brilliant writer.

• Diane Roback, now I doff my hat to you.  The recent PW article on Colorful Characters is a boon to the industry.  I dare say it’s brilliant.  One does wonder how Walter Mayes, who is not old, feels about being included amongst the dead and elderly.  I hope he enjoys it!  Being known as a “colorful character” will keep folks talking about you (and writing about you) for decades to come.

• That’s cool. Zetta Elliott had a chance to interview and profile Jacqueline Woodson in Ms. Magazine’s blog recently.  Good title too: Writing Children’s Books While Black and Feminist.  The part where she’s asked to name “five other black LGBTQ authors of children’s literature” is telling.  I don’t know that I could either.

• Living as we do in an essentially disposable society, Dan Blank’s piece on Preserving Your Legacy: Backing Up Your Digital Media makes for necessary reading.  As someone who has lost countless photos and files through my own negligence, this piece rings true to me.  Particularly the part where Dan says he makes sure that “Once a day, I backup my photo library onto an external hard drive.”  Anthony Horowitz once told me the same thing.  How’s THAT for name dropping, eh eh?

• Jobs!  Jobs in the publishing industry!  Jobs I say!

• And much along the same lines, were you aware that there’s a group out there made up entirely of youngsters who are entering the publishing industry?  At 33 I reserve the right to call twenty-somethings “youngsters”.  I am also allowed to shake my cane at them and use phrases like “whippersnappers” and “hooligans”.  But I digress.  The Children’s Book Council has an Early Career Committee
  11 Comments on Fusenews: Who reviews the reviewers?, last added: 8/2/2011
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  Peter D. Sieruta said, on 8/1/2011 9:06:00 PM
  

  Quick correction: Georgess McHargue got her NBA nomination for THE IMPOSSIBLE PEOPLE, not THE BEASTS OF NEVER.

  Colleen said, on 8/2/2011 1:12:00 AM
  

  Wow. Now that I know I was being manipulated by a “band of hippie hammer-lovers” or imperialist loving trains I don’t think I’ll look back on my son’s early childhood the same again. Although honestly, he just loved the trains and talking construction vehicles. Is that sooooo bad???

  Elizabeth Bird said, on 8/2/2011 4:47:00 AM
  

  Good catch, Peter! And bad show, oh obituary writer.

  Colleen, I think you’re in the clear. Unless you son starts colonizing other kids’ sandboxes “for their own good”. Then at least you know who to blame.

  Walter Mayes said, on 8/2/2011 7:34:00 AM
  

  I am absolutely thrilled to be a Colorful Character and honored to be among such greats!

  Genevieve said, on 8/2/2011 8:07:00 AM
  

  Love the Children’s Book Council Harry Potter link! I am totally going to name a local trivia team That’s So Ravenclaw, if the originators wouldn’t mind.
  (And as I’m headed to The Wizarding World of Harry Potter at Universal Studios this weekend, I’ll look for a chance to use the phrase.)

  Sharon said, on 8/2/2011 9:34:00 AM
  

  Love the minimalist posters, especially the ones for The Princess and the Pea and The Wizard of Oz (though it was missing ‘home’). Thanks for the link.

  Adam Rex said, on 8/2/2011 11:32:00 AM
  

  Is that Spinelli cover supposed to be about a boy and his older triplet brothers? Or did the illustrator have only the one model and not enough imagination to change somebody’s hair color?

  Carl in Charlotte said, on 8/2/2011 1:16:00 PM
  

  Thanks so much for mentioning my post. I’m thrilled! And that cover is obviously a young Henry Winkler, dreaming of being the Fonz.

  Doret said, on 8/2/2011 1:46:00 PM
  

  Elliott posted the full and unedited interview with Woodson in two parts on her blog. Its a must read if you like the profile in Ms. Magazine

  Carin Siegfried said, on 8/2/2011 6:02:00 PM
  

  Speaking of youngsters to publishing, the AAP has been sponsoring the Young to Publishing Group for 10 years now! I really enjoyed it when I was a newly minted editorial assistant in New York in the early 2000s and hopefully it’s still helpful for other newbies. Check it out at: http://youngtopublishing.com/

  Jen said, on 8/2/2011 7:27:00 PM
  

  You might appreciate today’s drawing lesson on how to draw bunnies: http://www.guardian.co.uk/books/gallery/2011/aug/02/how-to-draw-bunnies-simone-lia
  (and note that Simone Lia, as well as Oliver Jeffers in his post (Same series) on how to draw penguins…. both compare various appendages to sausages). Ah, the UK. Not sure our american illustrators would use the same analogy.

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The Children’s Book Council (CBC) announced the winners of the fourth annual Children’s Choice Book Awards. Our congrats to John Green and David Levithan for Teen Choice Book of the Year, Will Grayson, Will Grayson. 


Way to go, guys! 

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“Is this story worth telling?” -Jerry Pinkney

(This quote, the photo, and the media alert are via  Children’s Book Council website)

Meet Jerry Pinkney at The Carle
MEDIA ALERT

A Story Worth Telling with Jerry Pinkney
at The Eric Carle Museum of Picture Book Art

on

Saturday, February 12, 2011 at 1:00 pm

Email > [email protected]

Follow me on Twitter > @abowllan

Find me on Facebook > amy bodden bowllan

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HOW TO SUBMIT

E-mail entries to [email protected]. Please paste everything. No attachments. 

WHAT TO SUBMIT

The first 150-200 words of your unpublished, book-length work of middle grade or young adult fiction . You must include a contact e-mail address with your entry and use your real name. Also, submit the title of the work and a logline (one-sentence description of the work) with your entry.

Please note: To be eligible to submit, I ask that you do one of two things:

1) Mention and link to this contest twice through your social media—blogs, Twitter, Facebook; or

2) just mention this contest once and also add Guide to Literary Agents Blog (www.guidetoliteraryagents.com/blog) to your blogroll. Please provide link(s) so I can verify eligibility!

CONTEST DETAILS

      1. This contest will be live for approximately fourteen days—from March 31 through the end of Wednesday, April 14, EST. Winners notified by e-mail within 14 days of end of contest. Winners announced on the blog thereafter.
      2. To enter, submit the first 150-200 words of your book. Shorter or longer entries will not be considered. Keep it within word count range please.
      3. This contest is solely for completed book-length works of middle grade and young adult fiction (kids novels).
      4. You can submit as many times as you wish. You can submit even if you submitted to other contests in the past, but please note that past winners cannot win again.
      5. The contest is open to everyone of all ages, save those employees, officers and directors of GLA’s publisher, F+W Media.
      6. By e-mailing your entry, you are submitting an entry for consideration in this contest and thereby agreeing to the terms written here as well as any terms added by me in the “Comments” section of this blog post. (If you have questions or concerns, write me personally at [email protected].)

PRIZES!!!

Top 3 winners all get: 1) A critique of 10 pages of your work, by your agent j

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The Children’s Book Council and Every Child a Reader are excited to announce that voting for the Children’s Choice Book Awards is now open on the Children’s Book Week website.  Reader will be able to vote for their favorite books until May 3.

Kids can select their age group and vote here.

Teens can go straight to the Teen Choice Book Award page to vote.

Teachers, booksellers, and librarians can enter group votes for their young patrons here.

Take a moment to spread the word and give young readers a voice in their reading choices!

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You might have noticed this new widget I have on my sidebar, courtesy of JacketFlap and the Children’s Book Council. It is announcing several nominees for the Children’s Choice Book Awards. In case you didn’t know, the Children’s Choice Book Award nominees have been announced in each category: Kindergarten to second grade, third to fourth grade, fifth to sixth grade, teen choice, author of the year, and illustrator of the year. There are five books or people nominated in each category.

Here’s a little blurb about the contest from the CBC website: “The favorite book finalists were determined by close to 15,000 children and teens. Thousands more will be able to cast their votes for their favorite book, author, and illustrator at bookstores, schools, libraries, and at BookWeekOnline.com from March 15 to May 3.

The Children’s Choice Book Awards winners will be announced live at the Children’s Choice Book Awards gala on May 11 in New York City as part of Children’s Book Week (May 10-16, 2010), the oldest national literacy event in the United States.”

When looking at the list, I am just thrilled. Here are some of my favorites from the list of nominees:

*Catching Fire by Suzanne Collins
*City of Glass by Cassandra Clare
*Carl Hiassen for Scat
*Rick Riordan for The Last Olympian
*James Patterson for Max
*Victoria Kann for Goldilicious (Illustrator)

To see the full list of nominees, you can go here.

So, mark your calendars to let your children or your students vote on their favorites. If you haven’t read these books, then go to the library or bookstore and check them out! You have until May 3 to vote, so that’s plenty of time to devour these titles. If you have a favorite from the list, let us know here. You can find some of these authors and their books on this site. Go to the second sidebar on the right-hand side of this page, go to the category they write (such as YA), and click on their name. I have reviewed and provided activities for Suzanne Collins, James Patterson, Cassandra Clare, and Carl Hiassen.

Happy reading!

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Teenreads.com in association with the Children’s Book Council is giving you an opportunity to tell them your five favorite reads of 2009.   By filling out the form available through a link on the site by Feb. 10, you can vote for or select your favorites.  Five finalists will be chosen and a winner selected in May 2010.  Check out the website for more details.  And by the way,Teenreads has a blog, too!

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We received many original and fun submissions for our latest giveaway contest in celebration of TeachingAuthor Esther Hershenhorn's S is for Story: A Writer's Alphabet. I have drawn a winner, but have yet to hear back from her. If she doesn't reply soon, I'll choose a new winner. Meanwhile, I'd like to share some other news.

First off, congratulations to our own TeachingAuthor Mary Ann Rodman. Her middle-grade novel Jimmy's Stars was named a 2009 Children's Choice for grades 5-6 by the International Reading Association and the Children's Book Council. See the complete list of winners here.

And if you're thinking of using Jimmy's Stars in conjunction with a study of World War II, be sure to check out the wonderful online resources set up by Usborne Publishing, the book's UK publisher.

Speaking of wonderful online resources for teachers, our friends April Pulley Sayre and Gretchen Woelfle of the group blog INK: Interesting Nonfiction for Kids have announced the launch of a free online database of nonfiction books called the InkThinkTank. The database is designed to help teachers, librarians, and homeschoolers find the books they need to meet curriculum requirements in grades K-12. We've included a link to the database in our sidebar.

Our loyal readers may have noticed some other new features in our sidebar, including:

• more links to reading lists, websites, graduate writing programs, and author/illustrator blogs 
• a new "search" function that allows readers to search for posts containing a word or phrase not listed in our subject index
• a "Bookmark and Share" link that lets you quickly add our blog to social bookmarking sites like Delicious and Digg, and/or share our blog with your friends and colleagues
• and, in addition to receiving our blog posts by email, as a Google follower, or via an RSS feed, you can now include it in your JacketFlap blog reader.

As always, if you know of other resources that would be helpful for aspiring writers or writing teachers, please let us know.

And now, for our "Sneak Preview:" In case you haven't heard, next Tuesday, October 20, is the National Day on Writing, sponsored by the National Council of Teachers of English (NCTE).

According to NCTE:

Today people write as never before—texting, on blogs, with video cameras and cell phones, and, yes, even with traditional pen and paper. People write at home, at work, inside and out of school.

The National Day on Writing is meant to celebrate all forms of writing. In conjunction with the event, NCTE has created a National Gallery of Writing, a digital archive of writing samples showing how and why Americans are writing every day. The Gallery will be unveiled on Tuesday.

This Friday, October 16, we will begin a series of posts to commemorate the National Day on Writing. We will also join other Kidlitosphere bloggers by submitting our posts to the local Gallery called A Lifetime of Reading, curated by Franki Sibberson and Mary Lee Hahn, two teachers who blog at A Year of Reading. We hope you'll make plans to take part in the National Day on Writing, and post those plans here on our TeachingAuthors blog!

Carmela

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