Gosh, I just love award season! Every year I anxiously await finding out which books received the top honors, and cross my fingers that I've already read at least a few of them. Here is just a quick peek at a few of those fabulous titles:
Newbery Award Winner:
Moon Over Manifest by Clare Vanderpool
(historical fiction - I have not even heard of this one!)
Printz Award Winner:
Ship Breaker by Paolo Bacigalupi
(also a National Book Award nominee)
Coretta Scott King Award Winner for Writing:
One Crazy Summer by Rita Williams-Garcia
(I haven't read One Crazy Summer, but after reading MissAttitude's phenomenal post about the Coretta Scott Award at Reading in Color, I was really rooting for 9th Ward by Jewell Parker Rhodes, which ended up being honored as a CSK honor book!)
Pura Belpre Award Winner: The Dreamer by Pam Munoz Ryan
(I have been wanting to read The Dreamer forEVER)
I was EXTREMELY excited to learn who would be the first ever winner of the
Stonewall Award for books that have "exceptional merit relating to the gay/lesbian/bisexual/transgendered experience." While I am still pretty shocked that
Will Grayson, Will Grayson didn't take home the big prize (it was an honor book; I love you, Tiny Cooper!), I can't wait to get my hands on the winner:
Almost Perfect by Brian Katcher. If you, like me, are unfamiliar with
Almost Perfect, here is a link to a
review from The Story Siren.
Click ahead for the
complete listing of the 2011 ALA Award Winners and Honor Books! Or read
Ms. Bird's post from A Fuse #8 Production for way more in-depth details on many of the winners and nominees.
Tell me, Book Lovers. Which winners are your favorites? Which are you completely unfamiliar with? Do you get as hyped up as I do about the ALA awards?
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I'm especilly excited to read Moon Over Manifest....all the winners look great!
ReplyDeleteI was excited that I had read four of the five Newbery titles (not the poetry book, but the other four were all historical fiction!) and reviewed all but the winner on my blog. I've read the winner, but hadn't reviewed it yet (I kept waiting for my library to get it, and finally bought it!)
ReplyDeleteJust read one of the Printz books, Revolver. That would not have been my choice, but I never seem to agree with that committee. And I was very happy to see Sick Day for Amos McGee win and Dave The Potter get an honor--haven't read the other honor book yet.
And yes, I get hyped up about these awards--I actually had a dream last night that the Newbery was announced and I had never heard of either the winner or any of the honor books! Isn't that funny!
To be honest, I haven't read ANY! But Ship Breaker has been on my TBR for quite some time, so I'm thinking it's time for me to get down to business and buy it.
ReplyDeleteThis was the first year I was really truly excited and could actually feel like I knew more about what I was listening to. It was really fun!
ReplyDeleteThe books I was most excited about were definitely Mo Willems winning the Honor award for Theodore Suess Giesel and then The Knife of Never Letting Go for the Odyssey Award. Both are favorites of mine and I was so happy to see them win!
As for the Newbery, to be honest...I haven't read a single one. Which is really surprising considering how much I read. But that doesn't mean I won't read them now! :o)
Great post!
Have to go with Heart of A Samurai, because I think that is the book my students will like best!
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