new posts in all blogs
Viewing: Blog Posts Tagged with: Scott ODell Award, Most Recent at Top [Help]
Results 1 - 17 of 17
How to use this Page
You are viewing the most recent posts tagged with the words: Scott ODell Award in the JacketFlap blog reader. What is a tag? Think of a tag as a keyword or category label. Tags can both help you find posts on JacketFlap.com as well as provide an easy way for you to "remember" and classify posts for later recall. Try adding a tag yourself by clicking "Add a tag" below a post's header. Scroll down through the list of Recent Posts in the left column and click on a post title that sounds interesting. You can view all posts from a specific blog by clicking the Blog name in the right column, or you can click a 'More Posts from this Blog' link in any individual post.
Congratulations to Louise Erdrich!
Chickadee was selected as the recipient of the 2013 Scott O'Dell Award for Historical Fiction. From the
Horn Book website:
The 2013 Scott O’Dell Award for Historical Fiction goes to Louise Erdrich for Chickadee, published by Harper, an imprint of HarperCollins Publishers. The annual award, created by Scott O’Dell and Zena Sutherland in 1982 and now administered by Elizabeth Hall, carries with it a prize of $5000, and goes to the author of a distinguished work of historical fiction for young people published by a U. S. publisher and set in the Americas. This is the second O’Dell Award for Louise Erdrich; she won it in 2006 for The Game of Silence, also published by Harper. (The honors don’t stop there; Erdrich also just won the 2012 National Book Award for her adult novel The Round House.)
Here's more from their remarks about the book:
The book has humor and suspense (and disarmingly simple pencil illustrations by the author), providing a picture of 1860s Anishinabe life that is never didactic or exotic and is briskly detailed with the kind of information young readers enjoy: who knew, for example, that an oxcart train would be so loud, or that mosquitoes could be so terrifying? Anishanabe beliefs about the spiritual connections between humans and the natural world are conveyed matter-of-factly as Chickadee gets help and encouragement from his namesake bird; the Christian faith of the “Black Robes” is also given nuance and respect. Chickadee’s first taste of a peppermint stick in the burgeoning city of St. Paul is just one sign of the increasingly multicultural nature of his family’s world, a world that we hope this author continues to chronicle.
Do you have a copy of it yet?
Order one today from Birchbark Books.
In September, 2012, Martha V. Parravano of
Horn Book interviewed Erdrich. Check it out, too! In the interview, she says that her next book will be titled
Makoons. In it she says that she will be "writing from the living memory" of her relatives. Her writing is exquisite. It'll be hard to wait, but also something to look forward to!
Five questions for Louise Erdrich
photo by Lolly Robinson
Reigning (wait, is it incoming until he actually gets his mitts on the goods?) O’Dell and Newbery Medalist Jack Gantos stopped by the office last Friday for a bit of cake and champagne to celebrate the success of Dead End in Norvelt. (And to fortify himself for his daughter’s pajama party, which he was supervising that evening.) We were glad to learn he was already working on his Newbery speech, which is good because it’s due in less than a month.
By:
Betsy Bird,
on 1/25/2012
Blog:
A Fuse #8 Production
(
Login to Add to MyJacketFlap)
JacketFlap tags:
LEGOs,
bookshelves,
Edgar Awards,
Eleanor Roosevelt,
Sweet Valley High,
adult authors up to no good,
Fusenews,
American Indian Youth Literature Awards,
Twenty-One Balloons,
V.C. Andrews,
banned books,
Scott O'Dell Award,
Uncategorized,
ALA Notables,
Add a tag
Oh, you think the award season is done, old bean? Why we have only but BEGUN to hand out the 2011 awards! The Newberys, Caldecotts, and other ALA Media Awards are just the tip of the old iceberg. There are so many others to explore. For example, did you get a chance to really examine the 2012 Notable Children’s Books list from ALSC that was recently released? Absolutely fascinating stuff. Some books delight, some baffle, and some I’ve not even heard of. To the library! Don’t forget that the Sydney Taylor Awards were given out recently too. Offered to books that “authentically portray the Jewish experience” there were twenty-eight for 2011 alone. Woot! The Scott O’Dell Award went to a book that’s a bit better known since this past Monday. Fun Fact: That award hasn’t gone to a Newbery Award winner since 1998’s Out of the Dust. Then on the mystery side of the things the Edgar Award nominations were released. I adore that they distinguish between “Juvenile” and “Young Adult” books. Icefall is a particularly clever inclusion (I hadn’t categorized it as a “mystery” but I suppose that it is in the old-fashioned sense of the term). Heck, I’m surprised they didn’t include Dead End in Norvelt as well. And if I’m not mistaken, at some point here the American Indian Youth Literature Awards for 2012 should be released. Anyone know roundabout when that might be?
- Meanwhile, other blogs have been doing their post-ALA Award round-ups as well. There are many to pick and choose from, but I think I’ll highlight the Seven Impossible Things post that shows some prototypes from A Ball for Daisy and Travis at 100 Scope Notes who gives everything a once over.
- Who told me about this on Twitter? Was it you, Rocco? Or you, Mr. Schu? Whoever it was I’m still puzzling it over. Basically it boils down to five words: Sweet. Valley. High. Television. Musical. Throw in Diablo Cody and the guys behind Next to Normal and . . . words, for once, fail me.
By:
Betsy Bird,
on 1/9/2011
Blog:
A Fuse #8 Production
(
Login to Add to MyJacketFlap)
JacketFlap tags:
Australian authors,
Australian children's books,
Wind in the Willows,
Fusenews,
Tanita Davis,
gender and award winners,
Jonathan Auxier,
Sounder,
William H. Armstrong,
Scott O'Dell Award,
Uncategorized,
obits,
Newbery Award,
Lemony Snicket,
Caldecott Award,
Dick King-Smith,
Ricky Gervais,
Add a tag
I am writing this post today around 9 p.m. on Sunday. As such, many of you will read this, knowing full well who the Newbery and Caldecott winners are. I will be a little behind you in this respect. Amusingly, I realized too late that I scheduled my latest sonogram for the PRECISE moment the ALA Media Awards will be announced. I blame time zones. Or, rather, my apparent lack of understanding about time zones. So just picture me on the doctor’s table, Android phone in hand, watching the Twitter updates scroll past. That’s priorities for you, eh?
- Speaking of Caldecotts and Newberys (I always come this close to writing “Newberies”), Elizabeth Bluemle over at ShelfTalker recently figured out how many men vs. women win those two awards. In short, boys get lots of Caldecotts, girls get lots of Newberys. Harold Underdown points out in the comments that when he did similar research ten years ago he pretty much got the same results. The more things change, the more things stay the same. For her part, Kyra Hicks at Black Threads in Kid’s Lit calculated similar stats a year ago for male to female winners of the Coretta Scott King Award. She’ll have to update those stats after today, of course. Fingers crossed for Rita Williams-Garcia (I want her to win everything).
- I was talking with an author the other day about the books that I’m working on. Infinitely lucky, I’m publishing books with two of my favorite companies/imprints: Greenwillow of Harper Collins and Candlewick. When I mentioned this and that I was trying to get all my favorites under my belt (I’m eyeing you hungrily, Chronicle) they replied, “Ah. How about Abrams?” Well, I’ve been very impressed with Abrams over the last two to three years, and not just because they know how to raise a Wimpy Kid. They just do good work. So it was with great pleasure that I learned that one of my husband’s fellow screenwriters, Jonathan Auxier, has a book with Abrams due later this year in the fall called Peter Nimble and His Fantastic Eyes. Keep that title in your brain for a while and check out Jonathan’s new blog The Scop if you’ve a chance to do so.
Yes my husband Matt is a screenwriter and he sports a jaunty blog of his own called Cockeyed Caravan. From time to time he’ll allow friends and folks in the field to write posts there with their own cinematic recommendations. Not too long ago our best buddy Geoff went on with his own, and danged if one of films he came up with wasn’t Sounder, based on the 1970 Newbery Award winning novel by William H. Armstrong. I swear he didn’t do that film for me, as (I’m ashamed to admit) I’ve never seen it. I want to now, though. A nice continuation of our Newbery themed day, eh?
- Hey, do you remember a couple months ago when I asked you guys to mention any books about Afr
Prompted by the announcement that The Storm in the Barn had won the Scott O'Dell Award, there's been a question asked over at Twitter about the eligibility of a graphic novel for a prize for historical fiction. I can't speak for the other judges but it never occurred to me to think otherwise. As far as I'm concerned, historical fiction is an invented tale which not only takes place in the past but proposes to shed some kind of light on an actual event or situation of historical import. The Storm in the Barn has all the ingredients of great fiction--astute characterization, evocative atmosphere, a compelling story, a theme rewarding consideration--and gives us a unique vision of the Dirty Thirties. How is it not historical fiction? Yes, it mostly tells its story through pictures, but it's still a book, still a narrative, still fiction. While the criteria for the O'Dell Award do require that a winning book be published and set in the Americas, they say nothing about judging an entrant on the basis of words alone. (This is different from the Newbery Medal, which is specific about being solely for text. Unfortunately.)
Book awards are always comparing apples to oranges, even in a genre-specific award like the O'Dell or the Edgar or the numerous prizes for science fiction and romance. You are always comparing different stories told in different ways to different ends, thank goodness. And why shouldn't we look at the pictures?
I'm pleased to be able to tell you that the winner of the 2010 Scott O'Dell Award for Historical Fiction is Matt Phelan for The Storm in the Barn, published by Candlewick. The award, administered by Elizabeth Hall and judged by Hazel Rochman (chair), Ann Carlson, and yours truly, is a cash prize of 5000 dollars.
I'm pleased to announce that Laurie Halse Anderson has won the 2009 Scott O'Dell Award for Historical Fiction for her novel Chains, published by Simon & Schuster. Congrats, Laurie!
According to Read Roger, Elijah of Buxton by Christopher Paul Curtis, has won the Scott O'Dell Award for Historical Fiction. As of the time I am posting this message, it wasn't posted on the Award website yet.
I hope it will be a big year for Christopher Paul Curtis. Fuse #8 predicts that Elijah of Buxton will win a Newbery Honor. It was one of my favorite books of 2007 too.
From Hazel Rochman:
Elijah of Buxton by Christopher Paul Curtis (Scholastic Press) is the winner of the 2008 Scott O’Dell Award for Historical Fiction. The award is presented to a children’s or young adult book published in English by a U. S. publisher and set in the Americas. The members of the Award committee are Ann Carlson, Hazel Rochman (chair), and Roger Sutton.
With comedy and anguish, Curtis tells the gripping story in the voice of smart, funny Elijah, 10, the first child born free in the Buxton Settlement established for escaped slaves in Ontario, Canada, over the border from Detroit. Elijah loses his innocence when he crosses the border on a dangerous mission to the U. S. and encounters the horrifying cruelty his parents have escaped from. Curtis now lives near the Buxton Settlement, and, based on his careful research, he tells of ordinary people who are heroes.
Established by the late writer Scott O’Dell in 1984 and administered by his wife, Elizabeth Hall, the award comes with a $5000 prize. More information about the award and past winners can be found at www.scottodell.com.
By: Jennie,
on 4/18/2007
Blog:
Biblio File
(
Login to Add to MyJacketFlap)
JacketFlap tags:
Scott O'Dell Award,
Ellen Klages,
Fiction,
banned,
WWII,
historical fiction,
Susan Patron,
Juvenile,
Newberry,
Kirby Lawson,
WWI,
Jean-Claude Mourlevat,
Batchelder,
French,
YA,
Add a tag
Now Reading: Un Lun Dun
Just Finished: The Invention of Hugo Cabret, Diary of a Wimpy Kid, Persepolis: The Story of a Childhood, Special Topics in Calamity Physics, The Brothers Grimm: Two Lives, One Legacy, The Talented Clementine,Persepolis 2: The Story of a Return
The Green Glass Sea by Ellen Klages was this year's winner for the Scott O'Dell prize for historical fiction.
Dewey is a weird kid-- there's something wrong with her leg that makes her limp and she spends all of her time making gadgets and fiddling with stuff. Her dad is working on some top secret project that is going to help win the war and when her grandmother dies, she goes off to live with him.
Dewey didn't realize how top secret this project was. She didn't realize she was moving to a place that didn't officially exist... All she knew was everyone was living out in the desert working on the gadget. The gadget would win the war. The gadget would make everything better.
Suze has been living at Los Alamos for awhile when Dewey moves there-- Suze is a bit awkward and bossy and both of her parents are working on the project-- her mom's a real scientist, not just a typist or secretary like the other moms. When Dewey's dad has to go to Washington for awhile, Dewey moves in and the pair form an unlikely, but entirely realistic, friendship.
What's great about this book is the portrait of day-to-day life at Los Alamos-- you never think about kids living with their families, going to school, and being kids. You never think about the divisions between scientist kids and military kids. And you never think about Los Alamos just plain not existing... (well, at least I never thought about those things.)
This balances the line perfectly of being meticulously researched and historically wonderful, while not letting this detail overshadow the actual story. I liked how realistic the interactions between the kids were-- this unlikely friendship took a long time to develop and it never came across as hokey or simplisitic.
My favorite part of the book was how delicately it dealt with some very large issues that need to be tackled when dealing this topic-- it put them in there so you knew people were worrying about them, but Dewey hears about them and deals with them in a way that is very true to her age. In Surely You're Joking, Mr. Feynman! (Adventures of a Curious Character) Feynman (a minor character in this book, much to my delight) talks about the horror of what they had done after the first test. The book captures this horror well with the adults and the confusion of the kids at what's going on.
Something happens about 3/4 of the way through the book that is a bit of a spoiler so I'm not going to talk about it too much, but it was just too much and I don't really think it was necessary (but it might be for the sequel that I am very much looking forward to!)
The other thing is... I'm assuming that if you're reading my blog, you know what the gadget was-- you know what was invented at Los Alamos during WWII to win the war. Dewey and Suze, and therefore the reader, never find out was the gadget was, and I'm not sure how much sense the ending of the book is going to make if you don't know. I also don't know if the intended audience is going to automatically know what the gadget was...
Still, an excellent book and a well-deserving win.
Once upon a time, a very long time ago, I promised I'd review this years Newberry winner, The Higher Power of Luckyby Susan Patron.
I wanted to wait down until all the fervor over SCROTUM faded away. And then it came back. And then it faded again.
Anyway... Lucky really surprised me. I hadn't heard anything about it before Newberry day and in reading the description-- it didn't sound kid-friendly. It sounded like it was going to be really nostalgic and an adult book written for kids.
It wasn't! I was so happy!
Lucky lives with her French guardian (he absent father's ex-wife) in the middle of the desert. She likes to eavesdrop on 12 step meetings to find out how people find their higher power-- higher power sounds like a handy thing to have, but Lucky's hoping to avoid hitting rock bottom in order to get it. Hitting rock bottom doesn't sound like much fun.
At the same time, Lucky's worried her guardian is going to go back to France-- she seems homesick and her passport was out the other day.
Deep down, this is a really sweet tale that will appeal to younger readers, but also has some really big issues for older readers to get into.
Most enjoyable was the large cast of wacky, but believable, characters. A good book and my favorite Newberry winner of the last few years.
Hattie Big Sky by Kirby Lawson was a Newberry Honor book that is being found in the YA section at all the libraries I've visited!
Hattie is an orphan who inherits a homesteading claim in Montana. In order to keep the claim, she has to cultivate a large portion of it (which involves clearing it first!) and fence off most of it. By hand. By herself. She knows nothing about farming. Or cooking. Or anything. She wants to keep the claim, but she'll be lucky if she even survives.
Her next door neighbors are helpful and nice and the first friends Hattie makes, but one of them is German, and it's smack in the middle of WWI. Montana is rife with anti-German sentiment, loyalty leagues and other things making things hard for Hattie's friends. How can she reconcile her soldier-friends killing Germans across the ocean with her German neighbor fencing her claim in the middle of the night?
Tragedy and hope about in another great example of what historical fiction should be in this book that's perfect for Tweens and those right on the kidlit/YA break.
My favorite part was the ending and how it was handled. The author's note at the end is great, as are the recipes!
The Pull of the Ocean by Jean-Claude Mourlevat won the Batchelder award for translated work this fall.
The Doutreleau children are all sets of twins, except for the Yann, the seventh and the last. Yann is small and mute, but notices everything and communicates with his older brothers silently. One night he wakes up to his parents fighting and lets his brothers know they have to leave, to escape. For days they walk, following Yann's inner compass to the ocean.
This is more than just a retelling of the Tom Thumb. This story is told in brief accounts of people who saw the children and interacted with them only briefly-- sometimes only seconds, never more than an hour or so. Interspersed are the accounts of the children, but never Yann.
This book is surprisingly powerful and moving without ever being overwrought, over-contrived, or melodramatic. I couldn't put it down and it haunts you long after you turn the final page-- I highly recommend!
Remember how I reported on the Scott O'Dell Award ceremony? At the time, I may have mentioned the speech of Ellen Klages. I may even have said something along the lines of, "It was one of those speeches you wish Horn Book would consider reprinting in one format or another." Well, Horn Book be damned, me mateys, I'LL reprint it! How's that for initiative? And lest you think I've spent hours transcribing these words from the tiny tape recorder I keep in my pocket at all times, I have Ms. Klages herself to thank for sending me the speech in its entirety. Voila.
First of all, I want to thank Scott O’ Dell and his wife Elizabeth Hall, for founding this award and for recognizing the importance of historical fiction, especially for children. I want to thank Hazel Rochman and Ann Carlson and Roger Sutton, the members of the O’Dell committee, for selecting The Green Glass Sea out of the hundreds of amazing books that were published in 2006. I want to thank my editor, Sharyn November, and her boss, Regina Hayes, for taking a chance not only on a first novel, but one that seemed an unlikely topic for a children’s book. And all the people at Viking, all the sales reps who were so enthusiastic and hand-sold this book to booksellers and librarians. And thanks to my agent, Michael Bourret, who shepherded it from a manuscript to an object out in the world.
A lot of people think that history is boring. It’s just names and dates and facts that you have to memorize for a test. I suspect that I’m preaching to the choir here; I don’t think most of the people in the room feel that way. But too many people do.
Up until last October, I was primarily a science fiction writer. Which means I’m in a unique position to recognize that this -- [holds up GGS] -- is a time machine. ‘Cause that’s really what we want out of historical fiction. We want to go there. We don’t want to be on the outside, looking in. We want the backstage tour. We want to be there as the events of history are unfolding around us.
That’s what we want as readers. Most writers are also readers, but for a writer, it’s slightly different. If I’m going to spend a year or two of my life someplace in the past, there has to be a hook. We writers are observant magpies, taking shiny bits back to our nests to play with. And we’re easily distracted -- ooh, shiny!
For me, that shiny was the green glass. I read one sentence about it in an account of the Trinity Test, and I thought -- cool -- and I wanted to find out more. And there isn’t much more about it, because the glass was a footnote, a side effect. It wasn’t all that important to the scientists at the time. But it was what got me hooked.
So I read some more books, and in each of them I found another, one sentence, description of the glass, or of people going to go see the glass. And I took those single sentences home and collected them, lined my little magpie nest with them, until I had enough information that I could almost see it, in my mind’s eye.
And I wanted to go there.
I wanted to go there more than I’ve ever wanted anything in my life. But it’s gone. It was bulldozed before I was even born, and the only picture I’ve ever been able to find of it is in black-and-white.
If I was a painter, I would have made a big color picture, hung it on my wall and looked at it. But I can’t even draw. My tools are words. So I wrote myself a story in which I got to go to the green glass sea, in the company of two odd, quirky little girls named Dewey and Suze. And I saw it -- through their eyes.
Because that’s the other important thing about historical fiction. It reminds us that history isn’t just dates and facts and places. It’s people and their lives and their stories. Sometimes it’s extraordinary people in ordinary times, changing the world. And sometimes it’s ordinary people in extraordinary times, as the world changes around them.
By seeing the past through their eyes -- how they live, what they do, how they think -- we get a new perspective on the present.
[Picks up GGS] If you accept that this is a time machine, then there’s one thing you need to know, the one unbreakable law of time travel -- you cannot change the past.
But I hope that when you close the cover of The Green Glass Sea, and return to your own life, you may discover that the past has changed you.
Thank you.
Yes, that's trinitite, the mineral created in 1945 in Alamogordo, New Mexico, when scientists exploded the world's first atomic bomb. A sample of it is here held in the hand of Ellen Klages, author of The Green Glass Sea, winner of the 2007 Scott O'Dell Award for Historical Fiction.
I met Ellen and her trinitite at a party graciously thrown for her by publisher Viking/Penguin in New York this past Monday. Fuse #8 has a lively account of the evening, and I interviewed Ellen Klages for a podcast you be able to hear, oh, next month or so. She's a good talker. When I re-read The Green Glass Sea for the occasion I was again struck by the absolute assurance of its opening pages, pulling readers right into empathy with its protagonist and making them companions on the journey--and, praise Jesus, not a metaphorical one, but an actual trip with an actual destination--she immediately begins. It's a model for How to Start a Book.
In the lineup below are, from left to right, Green Glass Sea editor Sharyn November, O'Dell committee chair Hazel Rochman, me, Ellen Klages, Penguin Books for Young Readers President Doug Whiteman, sponsor of the award Elizabeth Hall, and fellow juror Ann Carlson.
Usually when I've detached myself from an event that involved delicious food and kidlit chatter I like to give myself a few days to decompress before hammering out some kind of encapsulation of the event. That works especially well if no one at said event knows who I am. Yesterday, however, Sharyn November (editor extraordinaire, y'all) asked if I'd be blogging about the thingy thing I was attending and my reaction was peppier than I'd intended. I seem to have said, "YOU BET!" Then again, why not? Let's try the whole while-it's-still-fresh-in-your-mind approach. What have I got to lose?
So yesterday was the day the Scott O'Dell Award was officially bestowed upon author Ellen Klages for her book The Green Glass Sea. The bestowing, as it happened, occurred at a little restaurant called Choice. Inside, the place was reserved entirely for the O'Dellolites (well YOU try to come up with a name for them then) and I was happy. Roger Sutton was there. The charming Laura Lutz from Queens (who should seriously consider blogging, missy) was there. Rita Auerbach. TWO (count 'em) TWO Newbery committee members including Monica Edinger and my BPL homie Michael Santangelo. There were numerous others who will forgive me for not mentioning them by name, and of course, star of the evening, author Ellen Klages.
Let me tell you a little something about Ellen Klages. I love her. I'm not saying I didn't love her before I met her or anything. Sure, her book was well-written and a helluva lot of fun. And it certainly fulfilled every requirement a person could possibly have in mind regarding smart historical fiction. But see, the thing about writers is that you just never know. It would be nice if every book gave a clue as to how cool its respective author is, but this is simply not always the case. Ms. Klages, however, is the kind of person you want to sit down with over a cup of coffee for hours at a time just so you can pick her brain for a while. She was much in demand, however, so brain picking had to be foreshortened. I was able to ask her about the cover change The Green Glass Sea went through. As you might recall, Roger Sutton displayed the before and after of that particular image and it turns out that the girl in Cover #1 was from an old photograph owned by Ms. Klages herself. And yes, sure as shooting, people assumed that the kid was Anne Frank so the entire look was reworked before publication.
The presentation of the award was in fine fettle. Ms. Klages was introduced by, I believe, chair Hazel Rochman. She in turn gave props to her fellow committee members Roger Sutton and Ann Carlson. She also happened to mention some interesting facts regarding Mr. Scott O'Dell's Island of the Blue Dolphins. Many people turned the book down, it seems, because they wanted the lead character to be a boy rather than a girl. Huh.
Then Ellen Klages stood up to speak and she killed, brother. Killed. It was one of those speeches you wish Horn Book would consider reprinting in one format or another. Klages has the enviable ability of speaking naturally in front of a large group while at the same time never straying off topic, losing her train of thought, or being anything less than truly interesting. She described her fascination with the original glass sea, and how no one ever took a single color photograph of it before it was bulldozed out of existence. She mentioned that she has a piece of the glass which she carries around in her pocket within small black pouch. She used to carry it around in her own homemade lead container, but the glass tended to shatter that way. We then got a rousing explanation of how Ms. Klages melted down lead soldiers on her stove, then poured the lead into an Altoids container to create the box. Someone had apparently pointed out to her that the melting of lead was probably more dangerous than the radioactive glass, but she certainly took precautions. The conclusion drawn by one and all was that there was more than a drop of Dewey (the book's protagonist) in Ms. Klages. That's for sure.
Another thing I took away from the evening was that Ms. Klages has previously worked on adult sci-fi. This caused me to prick up my ears. Perhaps... perhaps she might consider writing some sci-fi children's books? I'm waiting for that particular trend to pick up and take wing, but so far no great sci-fi American children's author has appeared in the last decade or so. Perhaps Ms. Klages could fill this void.
The tables about the room were spotted with lovely roughened green sea glass which was just enchanting, if also mildly unnerving. The food consisted of tender meats, cheeses, wine, crab-like balls of something, wine, brownies, fruit salads, quesadillas, and wine. All in all, a brilliant little ceremony and proof positive that the Scott O'Dell Award is making some excellent choices these days.
I know I promised another post re chicklit earlier today, but my thoughts never got quite where I wanted them. I was pushing an enormous book-truck's worth of the stuff back to the Guide after rejecting it for review in the Magazine and I found myself thinking, I bet old Michiko never has to do this. That the grown-up book world recognizes distinctions between literary, commercial, and genre fiction that we barely observe in children's book publishing. Is this a good thing or a bad thing? Or is it a bad thing for Literature, but a good thing for Children? But my thinking is still half-baked so I'm not ready to offer any conclusions. Feel free to draw yours, however. I would appreciate being beaten to the punch.
Posting sporadically until Wednesday as my beloved Limoliner is taking me and a bagful and an earful of unread adult books to New York, where I'll be attending the Scott O'Dell Awarding to Ellen Klages for The Green Glass Sea, interviewing Ellen for the Horn Book podcast which is to debut in May, I think, and hanging out with Elizabeth. We're seeing Company, and she is going to explain to me the mystery of Sanjaya, and I also hope she--or someone here--can point my in the direction of a good classical cd store, as we have lost all of ours in Boston--you can get El Divo and Andrea Bocelli at Borders, but that's about it. But E and I also hope to send some posts your way. I hope you all have swell weekends, too.
Everything's back to normal. A big old award came out and I missed hearing about it until now. Apparently the more than deserving Ellen Klages has won the Scott O'Dell Award for The Green Glass Sea. Roger Sutton, who announced the results on his blog, was on the committee that selected the winner. A big congrats going out to Ms. Klages, then. Hers was a truly enjoyable novel and worthy of the honor.
Thanks to Roger Sutton for the link.
I am thrilled to learn via Read Roger that Ellen Klages has won the Scott O'Dell Award for her novel The Green Glass Sea. Roger, who is on the committee, writes, "The award is presented to a children's or young adult book published in English by a U.S. publisher and set in the Americas."
Here's a link to my recent review.
I mean, beyond 
Hi,
I discovered your blog because you did a link to mine (Reel Girl) about a post on Lego for girls and the letter from the 14 yr old girl to Lego. I am so happy to discover it your blog! I love it. Can you recommend great blogs that focus on MG books, especially ones centered on girls? I’ve written quite about about politics and culture, but recently published short fiction for adults and am currently writing an MG book. On Reel Girl, I review and rate kids media and products for girl empowerment. I have three daughters ages 2 – 8.
Thanks so much,
Margot
Thanks for the kind words, Margot. As for blogs that focus on MG novels for girls, none come immediately to mind though many (including myself) will cover such things. But if anyone else knows of any, just mention it here.
We don’t focus exclusively on girls, Margot, but I invite you to visit http://www.fromthemixedupfiles.com. We cover all things middle grade.
Great post, as usual, Ms. Bird!
Thank you! I linked both of your blogs to Reel Girl. Will be following your posts.
MM