A celebration of the written word, Children's Book Week introduces young people to new authors and ideas in schools, libraries, homes, and bookstores. Through Children's Book Week, the Children's Book Council and the CBC Foundation encourage young people and their caregivers to discover the complexity of the world beyond their own experience through books. Children's Book Week will be observed May 12-18, 2008. This will be the first Children’s Book Week to be celebrated in the Spring.
One hallmark of the new Children's Book Week is the culmination a national child-selected book awards program. Since the 1970s, the CBC and the International Reading Association have run a program called Children's Choices. 10,000 children in five teams from around the US spend months reading and evaluating books submitted by publishers. They look at 500-700 titles and the favorite 99 make the final list, approximately 33 titles in each of three grade categories: K-2, 3-4, and 5-6. This year, as the results are submitted by the 5 teams, we will tally the results to determine which books received the highest number of votes. In March and April 2008, we will present the five favorite books published in 2007 in each of these categories for nation-wide vote. Kids across the country can vote electronically online or in their school, library, or bookstore via paper ballot. The winner in each category will be named at a gala during Children's Book Week 2008 in New York City.
If you are a parent, caregiver, teacher, librarian or bookseller, please encourage all children to get involved and make their voice heard. If you are a teacher, librarian or bookseller, please help promote the voting process. Display the finalists. Provide instruction for online voting. Provide and collect paper ballots. Check back here at the beginning of March 2008 for more details. Voting will be open during March and April. In May, invite kids who participated in the voting (and others) to a party to hear which books won and to celebrate their contribution to the world of children's literature as opinion makers.
We're working with other organizations on book drives, children's events, and national media coverage as well. The move to May is going to be great. Great for you. Great for the books. And, most importantly, great for the kids.