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The American Library Association has announced that Last Stop on Market Street author Matt de la Peña is the winner of the prestigious John Newbery Medal. Throughout his career, de la Peña has written 6 young adult novels, 2 middle grade novels, and 2 picture books.

Last Stop on Market Street features illustrations created by Christian Robinson. Robinson earned a Caldecott Honor for this picture book.

We’ve linked to free samples of the Newbery Medal-winning title and the Newbery Honor books below. In addition to the newest winner of the Newbery Medal, the organization has also revealed that Finding Winnie illustrator Sophie Blackall has won the Randolph Caldecott Medal, Bone Gap author Laura Ruby has won the Michael L. Printz Award, Simon vs. The Homo Sapiens Agenda author Becky Albertalli has won the William C. Morris Award, and Boy Meets Boy author David Levithan has won the Margaret A. Edwards Award. Follow this link to access free samples from last year’s pool of Youth Media Award winners.

Free Samples of the ALA Youth Media Award Recognized Books

Newbery Medal Winner

Last Stop on Market Street written by Matt de la Peña and illustrated by Christian Robinson

Newbery Honor Winners

The War That Saved My Life by Kimberly Brubaker Bradley

Roller Girl written and illustrated by Victoria Jamieson

Echo by Pam Muñoz Ryan

Talks with Roger is a sponsored supplement to our free monthly e-newsletter, Notes from the Horn Book. To receive Notes, sign up here.

Where to start? Echo begins in fairy-tale Germany but swiftly moves to the twentieth century, hopping from the German countryside to Philadelphia to Southern California, all settings tied together by…a harmonica? I called Pam Muñoz Ryan to find out the origin of this unlikely story.

Roger Sutton: Echo is such an ambitious book. What was your point of entry? Where did you start?

Pam Muñoz Ryan: Like with many of my books, I set out to start one book, and along the way I get diverted. I was doing research on the nation’s first successful desegregation case, in 1931. It’s a little-known case, Roberto Alvarez v. the Board of Trustees of the Lemon Grove School District; people don’t know much about it because he won in a lower court, so precedent wasn’t set. I was at the historical society in Lemon Grove, which is east of San Diego, with this wonderful docent who was helping me go through all these yearbooks. I came across a picture of a country school from the early 1930s. On the steps are integrated classes of children, and each one of them is holding a harmonica. The docent tried to kind of flip past it, saying, “No, no, that was before the segregation issues,” and I said, “Wait, wait, wait, what is that, exactly?” And she said, “Oh, you know, that was our elementary school harmonica band. Everybody had one in the twenties and thirties. You know, during the big harmonica band movement.”

RS: Absolutely.

PMR: Of course. Why not? Well, that was just dangling a carrot. I asked her more about it, and she said, “Oh, yeah, if we flip forward, you’ll find my brother.” I went home and couldn’t stop thinking about it. I started doing research and found out that there were over 2500 elementary school harmonica bands in the United States during that time, including Albert N. Hoxie’s then-famous Philadelphia Harmonica Band of Wizards. They played for Charles Lindbergh’s parade, and for three presidents, and at FDR’s inauguration.

I love historical fiction. I don’t always write it, but I have a huge affection for it, and when I find some little nugget that’s a different angle, or something people don’t really know about — especially something as endearing and quirky as a harmonica — I’m really taken with it. Two characters started coming to the fore: a girl in this little country school band, maybe in a school that was integrated and then segregated; and a boy in Hoxie’s band — through my research I had discovered that the band was full of orphans. So these two characters, Mike and Ivy, started taking shape, and then I started wondering if the same harmonica could have traveled from one character to the other. And then I wondered who had it before them. In the meantime, I was doing all this research on a particular model of harmonica, the Hohner Marine Band, because it was in both photographs — the picture of Hoxie’s band that I found and the one of all the kids in the country school (they’re all holding that same model). So then I contacted Hohner in the U.S., and they put me in touch with people in Trossingen, Germany, who run a harmonica museum, and they were just wonderful and gracious. I flew to Germany, and the museum was remarkable. Hohner was a master of marketing, and for every world event, there’s a commemorative harmonica.

RS: After reading your book I went to the Hohner website to look at the history of some of their models, and there are some really beautiful pieces.

PMR: It’s amazing. The museum was very complete. They have models of what the factory looked like at the time of my book. That’s where I learned about the young apprentices who worked there, and about the demise of the six-pointed star engraving. And so the character of Friedrich started taking shape. Now I had these three characters, but I didn’t want the book to just be episodic, having a harmonica that just travels from person to person to person. I wanted a richer thread to hold it all together, so that’s how I started imagining the harmonica’s backstory. These three characters are living through some of the darkest and most challenging times in history. Friedrich is in Nazi Germany, for Mike it’s the Great Depression, and Ivy is living through the era of segregation. There was something in me that wanted to give them some beauty and light that would give them the impetus to carry on. Something that lifted their self-esteem, or gave them some sort of strength and confidence.

RS: And then how did you get those three sisters in, in the fairy tale that opens the novel?

PMR: I have always been intrigued by fairy tales. I was one of those obsessive readers as a young girl, very much able to suspend disbelief in whatever I was reading, so I really loved fairy tales. I’d always wanted to write one, but I didn’t want to write one just for the sake of it. I wanted it to be organic to whatever it was that I was doing, so I set out to write an original fairy tale where magic became imbued into the harmonica. I studied the genre, and I reread a lot of fairy tales. I also reread Philip Pullman’s Fairy Tales from the Brothers Grimm. I love all of his analysis. I think what I love most about fairy tales is that the genre is very different from a novel. In a fairy tale, you tell instead of show. In a novel, you show instead of tell. I had to really adjust my way of thinking, but it was also freeing on some level. I created the fairy tale element so that the harmonica could have the magic it needed, so that each character could feel this euphoric sense of well-being.

RS: Did you write from page one to page six hundred, or were you concentrating on different parts at different times?

PMR: I had started working on it, on some level, before I even went to Trossingen, before I had that third character, so I didn’t work on it chronologically. But I did understand the chronology that I wanted in the end.

RS: So you knew you were going to bring two characters together, you just didn’t know about the third?

PMR: I knew I needed a third story arc, and I found it when I went to Germany. Once I knew the framework, that it would be three stories framed by a fairy tale, then I was able to begin each story. You have to remember this is six years in the making, so it’s hard for me to remember precisely the order. I did work on it in chunks, and of course went back and forth with my editor, but there was so much weaving and reweaving that it’s hard to distinguish, especially in the last few years. I am sort of a recursive writer anyway, always going back to the beginning and pulling that thread. I bought a huge seven-foot-long, four-foot-high whiteboard and put it in my office. I wrote the months for each year in which the characters’ stories took place, and I had all the leitmotifs—the recurring themes, people, places, and things—in long lists of words and phrases that echoed in each story. Some of them I think the reader will be able to pick out, but many of them I just wanted more on a subconscious level. And then there are these threads of warehousing: in the fairy tale the warehousing of women, in Friedrich’s story the warehousing of the Jews, and the warehousing of children in Mike’s story, the warehousing of the Japanese and the Mexican Americans in Ivy’s story. There were these odd little threads that were woven through the whole book, so it helped me to have this big diagram on the whiteboard, and it helped me to have this visual.

RS: Did I make up the shout-out to Holes?

PMR: You know, you are not the first person to see that. But if I did, it was completely — you mean Louis Sachar’s Holes?

RS: Yup. There are peaches.

PMR: What?

RS: You have a jar of peaches in there.

PMR: Oh my god. That is really interesting. I guess as a writer there are so many things you do subconsciously.

RS: Well, I thought of it because you have the same kind of mythic base, and then these braiding stories coming together.

PMR: And I do have that jar of peaches. I didn’t do it consciously, though, to be honest.

RS: I think of a book of yours I love, The Dreamer, which is really beautifully contained, kind of gemlike. And now with Echo we have this huge canvas. How was it different to work on?

PMR: Number one, it takes a lot longer. The Dreamer was about one person’s life, Pablo Neruda, and it was more linear. This one was just bigger. It’s three stories and they needed to have some threads that held them together. Also, because The Dreamer is illustrated, I knew in the back of my mind that Peter Sís was going to say things in his art that I didn’t need to say in the book.

RS: It’s funny, you keep saying three stories, and I’m thinking about the three stories in the book, but I’m also thinking about the three stories of a house, because they’re really built on top of each other.

PMR: Oh, interesting!

RS: The three stories aren’t working at the same time. Each one depends upon the one before.

PMR: Right. That’s very true. I love that. Whether I ever accomplish it or not, as a writer I want all of that to happen, but I want it to feel organic and integrated. At the end, more than anything, I think my most ardent goal is I want the reader to turn the page.

RS: I remember when Lizette Serrano [from Scholastic] handed the book to me at ALA, and I thought, “Oh, it looks so long.” And I started on my diatribe about long books, and Lizette said, “Don’t worry. It goes really quickly.”

PMR: Did you find that it went quickly?

RS: I did.

PMR: Oh, good. I was happy when I saw the book, because the leading is easy on the eyes, too. There’s enough space. It doesn’t feel really burdensome.

RS: We old folks bless you.

PMR: Do you want to ask me if I play the harmonica?

RS: Do you play the harmonica?

PMR: I kind of learned how to play some of the songs in the book. It’s very easy to do, but I’m not really a musician. I will tell you something interesting that has happened after writing this book. Everywhere I go, I am almost always asked if I still play the cello. It took a long time to figure out why people were asking me that. I think they thought because of how I wrote about the cello music in Friedrich’s story that I play the cello.

RS: You’re a very accomplished woman. Harmonica, cello, writing.

PMR: Maybe I should say, “Oh, no, I gave that up years ago.”

RS: “I gave it up for the harmonica.”

PMR: Yes. But I will say this: the wonderful thing about music is you don’t have to be a musician to love music, and you don’t have to be a writer to love and appreciate books, and you don’t have to be an artist to love and dedicate your life to art. That’s what I wanted for the story. I wanted that beauty to illuminate my characters’ tasks.

The post Pam Muñoz Ryan Talks with Roger appeared first on The Horn Book.

The Arne Nixon Center for the Study of Children’s Literature is pleased to state that registrations are still being accepted  for the following conference:

“Peace the World Together with Children’s Books” is the theme of the International Board on Books for Young People regional conference hosted by California State University, Fresno this fall.

Co-sponsored by the Arne Nixon Center at Fresno State, IBBY’s 9^th United States Regional Conference will be held at Fresno State on Oct. 21-23.

Conference chair Ellis Vance of Fresno said about 250 people – professors, librarians, teachers, authors, illustrators, publishers, collectors and fans – are expected. Registration so far includes participants from 48 states and every continent except Antarctica, Vance said.

The conference offers an opportunity to interact with authors and illustrators around the world, including Alma Flor Ada, Shirin Yim Bridges, F. Isabel Campoy, David Diaz, Margarita Engle, Kathleen Krull, Grace Lin, Roger Mello, Beverly Naidoo, Pam Muñoz Ryan and Peter Sis. Petunia’s Place Bookstore will sell books.

Activities will include exhibitions (including one by the International Youth Library), book discussion groups and tours. Optional activities are available to those who stay on beyond the conference closing at noon on Oct. 23. They include a tour of the Shinzen Japanese Garden in Fresno and a one-day bus trip to Yosemite National Park.

For information on the conference and registration visit www.usbby.org/conf_home.htm.

February has arrived and with it Black History Month in Canada and African American History Month in the USA. To see some of the celebrations planned in the USA click here and in Canada click here. In honor of the month, many websites and bloggers are highlighting the richness of children’s literature that focuses on Africa, African Americans, African Canadians and the African diaspora. Here’s a small sample of what’s being offered:

The Brown Bookshelf has launched 28 Days Later, a month-long showcase of the best in picture books, middle grade and young adult novels written and illustrated by African Americans.

Margo Tenenbaum’s blog The Fourth Musketeer specializes in historical fiction for children and teens, and throughout the month of February will focus on reviewing African American titles.

Reading Rockets.Org has just updated it’s Black History Month section where you’ll discover great online resources for the classroom and for family discussions. I’ve just spent the morning watching the video interviews with award-winning writers and illustrators.

The Canadian Children’s Book Centre has compiled a list of Canadian books that are recommended reads for Black History Month.

Check out School Library Journal‘s Places in the Heart: Celebrating Black History Month article in which top children’s authors were asked to choose their favorite children’s book about the black experience. Rick Margolis says “The title could be for kids of any age—fro

Australian author Susanne Gervay (visit her website and blog) has had a very busy year this year and social justice has been high on her agenda. She is one of the contributors to Fear Factor: Terror Incognito, an anthology of short stories featuring ten Australian and ten Indian writers, edited by Meenakshi Bharat and Sharon Rundle (Macmillan Australia/ Picador India, 2010). She has been writing about her travels to India and Kiribati, a “Pacific atoll nation drowning under climate change”. She has just launched Always Jack, the third book about Jack, following on from her wonderful I Am Jack and Super Jack. Most recently, Susanne was in South Korea for the Nambook-010 Fesival, the 5th Nami Island International Children’s Book Festival. She was there because she was taking part in Peace Story, a very special project. We are very grateful to Susanne for telling us all about it here. For those of us who couldn’t be there in person, Susanne’s description and photographs are definitely the next best thing!

In these troubled times with North Korea’s military attack on South Korea, the international publication of Peace Story is poignant and important. Twenty-two children’s authors and twenty-two illustrators from twenty-two countries engaged in an international cooperative to create a unique anthology, Peace Story, for young people. Respected academic author on Irish children’s literature Valerie Coghlan and Irish Laureate for children’s literature Siobhán Parkinson were the co-editors of Peace Story.

‘Peace Story’ was part of the Nami Island International Children’s Book Festival, South Korea which was first held in 2005 to commemorate the 200th anniversary of the birth of Hans Christian Andersen. It is a six-week bi-annual festival of children’s books, the environment and peace, featuring outstanding exhibitions of children’s books and illustrations from all over the world. Much loved Korean illustrator Kang Woo-hyon, President of the Nambook-010 International Committee headed the ‘Peace Story’ project with the support of the Nami Island Minn family who published and translated some of the stories, and hosted the authors and illustrators on Nami Island. It was supported by National YMCA Korea, UNICEF and UNESCO Korea, the Korean Ministry of Culture, Sport and Tourism, and Nami Island the official sponsor of the IBBY Hans Christian Anderson Awards.

My Australian story ‘To East Timor with Love Australia’, illustrated by the award-winning Frané Lessac, opens the anthology Peace Story. Frané Lessac’s vibrant colours of bright pink bougainvillea and yel

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After our Jul/Aug special literacy focus, we now make way for Hispanic Heritage Month (Sep 15 - Oct 15), a celebration of the cultures and traditions of US residents who trace their roots back to Spain, Mexico and the Spanish-speaking nations of Central America, South America and the Caribbean. The theme this year is “Getting Involved: Our Families, Our Community, Our Nation.”

There will be all sorts of events happening throughout the country, and here’s what you’ll find on our website: interviews with author Pam Muñoz Ryan and youth services librarian Rose Zertuche-Treviño; gallery features showcasing the work of David Diaz and Susan Guevara; original heritage-related essays by Yuyi Morales and Juan Felipe Herrera, and plenty more. So dive in, and have fun – and check back here, too, as we continue the fiesta of Hispanic Heritage Month by blogging about it through Oct 15. There’s plenty of pride, information and fun to be gained from going deeper into this celebration!

Guest Blogger Lydia Breiseth is the manager of the bilingual English-Spanish website Colorín Colorado, whose mission is to provide educators and parents with information about teaching English language learners to read and succeed.   Ms. Breiseth began her career teaching English to adults in Ecuador with the educational exchange program WorldTeach, and has subsequently taught English and Spanish in a variety of educational and family literacy programs to students of all ages. Prior to working at Colorín Colorado, Ms. Breiseth served as the Community Affairs Liaison at Telemundo Washington DC, managing outreach initiatives to the region’s Hispanic community.

Each fall, we have the opportunity to celebrate the contributions and accomplishments of Hispanic and Latin Americans during Hispanic Heritage Month.  For some fresh ideas on how to mark this month, take a look at Colorín Colorado’s Hispanic Heritage pages in English and Spanish for booklists, ready-to-use tools for the ELL classroom, and many multimedia resources.  From bilingual stories and author interviews to lesson plans, there are lots of great resources online to get the celebration started at home or at school!

Here are five ideas for ways to celebrate Hispanic Heritage Month:

1. Look for children’s books by authors such as Alma Flor Ada, George Ancona, Francisco X. Alarcón, Pam Muñoz Ryan, Pat Mora, Monica Brown, Lulu Delacre, Gary Soto, or Jorge Argueta.  While these authors write about a number of themes, many of them focus on culturally relevant stories, traditions, and events that students of all backgrounds will find engaging.
2. Talk about the biographies of important Hispanic and Latin American figures from history and look for children’s books about those figures. For example, César: Yes, We Can!/César: ¡Sí, Se Puede! by Carmen T. Bernier-Grand offers poems about César Chávez, while Harvesting Hope: The Story of César Chávez by Kathleen Krull and Yuyi Morales focuses on Chávez’s famous march on behalf of California’s migrant farmworkers.
3. With older students, talk about what it means to be Hispanic American in the U.S. today.  What are the opportunities and challenges for young Hispanic Americans and immigrants of different backgrounds?  What has their family experience been?  How might Hispanic Americans’ vote play a part in the upcoming presidential election?
4. Look for cultural events in your area that you can attend with students or your family.  During Hispanic Heritage Month, many schools, museums, libraries, cultural associations, and performance groups offer presentations with art, music, poetry, puppet shows, cinema, drama, or other activities for audiences of all ages.  You may even be able to do some taste-testing of yummy cuisine while you’re at it!
5. Local PBS stations are offering Hispanic Heritage programming, including documentaries, performances, and bilingual children’s shows.  Check out some of the special programs PBS will be showcasing.

Also check out local PBS listings for Reading Rockets’ newest television program, Toddling Toward Reading.  Hosted by country music legend (and First Book Board member) Reba McEntire, the show offers a look at how pediatricians are getting involved in bringing books to babies; the crucial need for family-support services to engage and involve parents of young children; and the benefits of inclusion for the special needs preschooler. The show also features master teacher Dr. Rebecca Palacios who runs a dual-language immersion preschool in Corpus Christi, Texas. While teaching her kids, she also mentors teachers-in-training on how to provide top-notch teaching in a preschool environment.

Find ways to connect babies, toddlers and preschoolers with books with these parent tip sheets on reading in both English and Spanish.  Hispanic Heritage Month is a great opportunity to introduce even soon-to-be readers to poems, stories, and traditional songs found in books.