CMIS Evaluation Fiction Focus

A new annual children’s literature award has been announced in the United States. The Horace Mann Upstanders Book Award is sponsored by Antioch University in Los Angeles, and will be awarded to the best fiction book published in North America in 2007/8 for children in years K-6 that ‘best exemplifies the ideals of social action and in turn encourages young readers to become agents of change themselves’. The award will be presented in June.

In Australia, the Psychologists for Peace Children’s Peace Literature Award has a similar remit but with a scope that includes books for teenagers. This biennial award went to Michael Gerard Bauer in 2007 for Don’t Call Me Ishmael.

The first literature awards of the year have been announced. The American Library Association presents a number of prestigious awards each January, notably the Newbery Medal and the Caldecott Medal. The Young Adult section of ALA (YALSA) presents the Michael L. Printz Award for the outstanding Young Adult novel of the year.

Winners for 2008 were:

• Newbery Medal : Laura Amy Schlitz (a school librarian) for Good Masters! Sweet Ladies! Voices from a Medieval Village.
  Honor Books: Elijah of Buxton by Christopher Paul Curtis
  The Wednesday Wars by Gary D. Schmidt
  Feathers by Jacqueline Woodson
• Caldecott Medal: Brian Selznick for The Invention of Hugo Cabret
  [See the video interview with Brian Selznick, courtesy of the AdLit site]
• Honor Books: Henry’s Freedom Box : a true Story from the Underground Railroad, illustrated by Kadir Nelson, written by Ellen Levine
• First the Egg, written and illustrated by Laura Vaccaro Seeger
• The Wall : Growing Up Behind the Iron Curtain, written and
  illustrated by Peter Sis
  
• Michael L. Printz Award: Geraldine McCaughrean for The White Darkness
  Honor Books: One Whole and Perfect Day by Judith Clarke (Australia)
  Dreamquake by Elizabeth Knox (NZ)
  Repossessed by A.M. Jenkins
  Your Own, Sylvia : a Verse Portrait of Sylvia Plath by Stephanie Hemphill