The Children's Book Council: Archive

News and Information

Events, Programs, and Conferences
Employment and Internship Opportunities in Children's Book Publishing

Children's Book-Related News: Archive

Howard Greenfeld
Howard Greenfeld passed away Monday morning, May 22, 2006. He grew up in New York City, graduated from Columbia University, and lived in Rome, Florence, and Paris before making his home again in New York City. His twenty books for young adults include biographies of Marc Chagall, Gertrude Stein, and F. Scott Fitzgerald, and two critically acclaimed books about the Holocaust, The Hidden Children and After the Holocaust. He founded the Orion Press to publish English-language translations of European writers, and wrote the definitive book on publishing for young readers, Books: From Writer to Reader, a text often used in college courses. A celebration of his life will be held at a later date.

WNBA Announces Children's Bookseller Award Winners
The Women's National Book Association has given this year's Lucile Micheels Pannell Award in the children's specialty category to A Likely Story Children's Bookstore in Alexandria, Virginia; the award for a general bookstore goes to Northshire Bookstore in Manchester Center, Vermont. This is the second Pannell Award for A Likely Story. Northshire Bookstore impressed the jury with their commitment to young as well as adult readers. The jury awarded Changing Hands Bookstore in Tempe an honorable mention for distinctive work with teen readers. The awards will be presented at BookExpo America in Washington, DC on May 19 at an event sponsored by the American Booksellers Association-Children's Book Council Joint Committee, the Association of Booksellers for Children, and BookExpo America.

PEN/Phyllis Naylor Working Writer Fellowship
The 2006 PEN/Phyllis Naylor Working Writer Fellowship goes to Barbara Shoup, author of the forthcoming novel Everything You Want and author of Wish You Were Here and Stranded in Harmony, which were named ALA Best Books for Young Adults and New York Public Library Books for the Teen Age. Established in 2001, the award provides a writer with a measure of financial sustenance in order to make possible an extended period of time to complete a book-length work-in-progress. The fellowship is supported by an endowment fund established by prolific author Phyllis Reynolds Naylor. The 2006 PEN Literary Awards will presented in New York on the evening of Monday, May 22, at the Walter Reade Theater at Lincoln Center.

USPS Favorite Children's Book Animals stamps dedication ceremony
On Saturday, April 29, 2006, the Children's Book Council, the United States Postal Service, and Borders Books co-sponsored a dedication ceremony for the USPS Favorite Children's Book Animals stamps at the Borders store on Columbus Circle in New York City. Further information.

2006 Ezra Jack Keats New Writer and New Illustrator Awards
The 2006 Ezra Jack Keats New Writer Award has been given to Mary Ann Rodman for My Best Friend, and the New Illustrator Award goes to Yunmee Kyong for Silly Chicken, both published by Viking. The awards are jointly given by The New York Public Library and The Ezra Jack Keats Foundation. This year marks the award's fifteenth year. The awards will be presented Thursday, May 11, 2006, in the Central Children's Room of The New York Public Library's Donnell Library Center.

2006 Jane Addams Children's Book Awards
Winners of the 2006 Jane Addams Children's Book Awards were announced April 28 by the Jane Addams Peace Association. Delivering Justice: W. W. Law and the Fight for Civil Rights, written by James Haskins and illustrated by Benny Andrews (Candlewick Press), is the winner in the Books for Younger Children category. Let Me Play: The Story of Title IX, the Law that Changed the Future of Girls in America by Karen Blumenthal (Atheneum Books for Young Readers/Simon & Schuster) is the winner in the Books for Older Children category. Two books have won honors in the Books for Older Children category, each written as a prose poem: The Crazy Man by Pamela Porter (Groundwood Books/House of Anansi Press) and Sweetgrass Basket by Marlene Carvell (Dutton Children's Books). Poems to Dream Together=Poemas Para Soñar Juntos, written by Francisco X. Alarcón and illustrated by Paula Barrag´n (Lee and Low Books), was named an honor book in the Books for Younger Children category. Initiated in 1953, the Jane Addams Children's Book Award acknowledges books published in the U.S. that promote peace, justice, world community, and/or equality of the sexes and all races. The 2006 awards will be presented Friday, October 20, in New York City.

Writer's Digest 101 Best Websites
Writer's Digest has chosen CBC Online as one of Writer's Digest 101 best websites for writers for 2006.

Katherine Paterson wins 2006 Astrid Lindgren Memorial Award
The 2006 Astrid Lindgren Memorial Award has been given to Katherine Paterson, "a brilliant psychologist who gets right under the skin of the vulnerable young people she creates, whether in historical or exotic settings, or in the grim reality of the USA today." The award will be presented in Stockholm on May 31 in a ceremony open to the general public. Administered by the Swedish National Council for Cultural Affairs, the award is the world's largest for literature for children and young readers, with a prize of approximately $640,000. The object of the award is to increase interest in literature for children and young people, and to promote children's cultural rights on a global level. Last year's joint winners were Japanese illustrator Ryoji Arai and British author Philip Pullman.

ABC Announces Winners of the E. B. White Read Aloud Awards
This year, in recognition of the fact that reading aloud is a pleasure to be enjoyed by readers of all ages, the E. B. White Read Aloud Award was expanded to include two categories. Members of the Association of Booksellers for Children have chosen the following books for distinction: the E. B. White Read Aloud Award for Picture Books has been awarded to If I Built a Car by Chris Van Dusen (Penguin Young Readers Group), and the E. B. White Read Aloud Award for Older Readers has been awarded to Each Little Bird That Sings by Deborah Wiles (Harcourt Children's Books). The winners were announced on April 3, 2006.

IBBY Announces the Winners of the 2006 IBBY-Asahi Reading Promotion Award
The IBBY-Asahi 2006 Award has been given to Mongolian Children's Mobile Library Project and Foundation ABCXXI-Emotional Health Program: All of Poland Reads to Kids. The prizes will be presented at the 30th IBBY Congress in Beijing, China, at a special festive event on Friday, 22 September 2006.

IBBY Announces the Winners of the Hans Christian Andersen Awards 2006
The Hans Christian Andersen Jury of the International Board on Books for Young People (IBBY) has announced that Margaret Mahy (New Zealand) as the winner of the 2006 Hans Christian Andersen Author Award and Wolf Erlbruch (Germany) as the winner of the 2006 Hans Christian Andersen Award for Illustration. Margaret Mahy is widely published in the US. Wolf Erlbruch, as well, has had several books published in the US, including Oh, No! Where Are My Pants? and Other Disasters by Lee Bennett Hopkins (HarperCollins, 2005). The Awards will be presented to the winners at the opening ceremony of IBBY's Congress in Beijing, China, in September 2006.

John Reynolds Gardiner
John Reynolds Gardiner, who wrote only three children's books in his career as an author but saw his first one, Stone Fox (illustrated by Marcia Sewall; HarperCollins, 1980), sell more than 3 million copies and be made into a television movie, died March 4, 2006, at the age of 61. He kept up his writing while he worked as a contract engineer specializing in thermodynamics for such aerospace corporations as Rockwell International and McDonnell Douglas. His other two novels are Top Secret (illustrated by Marc Simont; 1985) and General Butterfingers (illustrated by Cat Bowman Smith; Houghton Mifflin, 1986).

Andre Norton Award
Nominees for the first Andre Norton Award have been announced: The Amethyst Road by Louise Spiegler (Clarion Books), Siberia by Ann Halam (Wendy Lamb Books), Stormwitch by Susan Vaught (Bloomsbury), and Valiant: A Modern Tale of Faerie by Holly Black (Simon & Schuster). The Andre Norton literary award recognizes outstanding science fiction and fantasy novels written for the young adult market, and is voted on by the 1400-plus members of the Science Fiction and Fantasy Writers of America. The winner will be announced as part of the Nebula Awards banquet on Saturday, May 6, 2006.

Octavia E. Butler (1947-2006)
Octavia E. Butler, author of numerous science fiction and fantasy novels for young adults and adults, passed away after a fall at her Seattle home on Saturday, February 25. Octavia Butler received the PEN Center West Lifetime Achievement Award, two Nebula awards and two Hugo Awards; in 1995 she was the recipient of a $295,000 MacArthur Foundation fellowship and remains the only science fiction writer to receive the "genius grant." She has been considered the most successful African American woman writing in the science fiction genre. Butler's most popular work is Kindred, a time-travel novel which became a popular staple of high school and college courses. Fledgling, her first novel in seven years, was released in the fall of 2005.

Lois Lenski Covey Foundation Grants
The Lois Lenski Covey Foundation annually awards grants ranging from $500-$5,000 to public and school libraries for the purpose of updating or expanding collections. The user-friendly, two-page application form may be downloaded here or may be requested by mail from Arthur F. Abelman, Moses and Singer LLP, 1301 Avenue of the Americas, New York, NY 10019-6076.

Lee Bennett Hopkins Poetry Awards
Penn State's College of Education, the University Libraries, and the Pennsylvania Center for the Book have announced the winner of the 2006 Lee Bennett Hopkins Poetry Award, Song of the Water Boatman by Joyce Sidman (Houghton Mifflin), as well as honor award winners A Wreath for Emmett Till by Marilyn Nelson (Houghton Mifflin) and A Maze Me by Naomi Shihab Nye (Greenwillow). The Lee Bennett Hopkins Poetry Award is presented annually to an American poet or anthologist for the most outstanding new book of children's poetry published in the previous calendar year. It is administered by the Pennsylvania Center for the Book and Penn State University Libraries, and selected by a panel of nationally recognized teachers, librarians, and scholars.

Martha Alexander
Author and illustrator Martha Alexander died on January 31 at the age of 85 from complications from a stroke. Martha Alexander was already a grandmother when she started her career in children's books. Her first book as illustrator was Charlotte Zolotow's Big Sister and Little Sister (Harper); her first work as both author and illustrator was Out! Out! Out! (Dial, 1968). She went on to publish over fifty children's books, including the popular Blackboard Bear series (Dial/Candlewick). Three of Martha Alexander's Dial picture books will be reissued by Charlesbridge this year: When the New Baby Comes, I'm Moving Out; Nobody Asked ME if I Wanted a Baby Sister; and I'll Protect You from the Jungle Beasts. Despite failing eyesight, she remained dedicated to her craft and was working on a new picture book at the time of her death.

Louise Erdrich awarded the 2006 Scott O'Dell Award for Historical Fiction
Louise Erdrich has been awarded the 2006 Scott O'Dell Award by the O'Dell Foundation for her novel The Game of Silence. The Scott O'Dell Award is presented to a children's or young adult book published in English by a U.S. publisher and set in the Americas. Established by the late historical fiction writer, Scott O'Dell, the award is administered by his wife, Elizabeth Hall. The Game of Silence is a sequel to the National Book Award Finalist The Birchbark House. Ms. Erdrich will be presented with the award and a $5,000 prize at a ceremony in the spring of 2006.

Coretta Scott King
Coretta Scott King, the widow of US civil rights leader Martin Luther King, has died at age 78. She suffered a serious stroke and heart attack in 2005, and in January missed the public commemoration of her husband's birthday for the first time in two decades. The Coretta Scott King book awards have been presented since 1970 by the Coretta Scott King Committee of the American Library Association's Ethnic Multicultural Information Exchange Round Table (EMIERT) for an outstandingly inspirational and educational contribution. New York Times obituary, BBC.

Tana Hoban
Tana Hoban, sister of author Russell Hoban and a photographer who created numerous award-winning children's books, primarily for Greenwillow, died in Paris on Friday, January 27. Her many titles include Cubes, Cones, Cylinders, & Spheres; So Many Circles, So Many Squares; Black on White; and White on Black. Tana Hoban was a well-known and much-admired photographer long before she began writing and illustrating books for children, and her photographs have been exhibited at the Museum of Modern Art in New York and in galleries around the world.

ALA Announces Newbery, Caldecott, Printz, Coretta Scott King, and Other Awards
The American Library Association announced its top books for children and young adults—including the Caldecott, Coretta Scott King, Newbery, and Printz awards—at its Midwinter Meeting in San Antonio. Winners include: Newbery: Criss Cross by Lynne Rae Perkins (Greenwillow); Caldecott: The Hello, Goodbye Window, illustrated by Chris Raschka, written by Norton Juster (Michael di Capua Books/Hyperion Books for Children); Printz: Looking for Alaska by John Green (Dutton Books); King Author Award: Day of Tears: A Novel in Dialogue by Julius Lester (Jump at the Sun/Hyperion Books for Children); King Illustrator Award: Rosa, illustrated by Bryan Collier, written by Nikki Giovanni (Henry Holt and Company).

2006 Sydney Taylor Book Awards Announced
Erica Silverman and Mordicai Gerstein, author and illustrator of Sholom's Treasure: How Sholom Aleichem Became a Writer, and Sarah Darer Littman, author of Confessions of a Closet Catholic, are the 2006 winners of the Sydney Taylor Book Award presented by the Association of Jewish Libraries.

The Whitbread Five
The winners of the five categories of the Whitbread Awards (the last to be sponsored by Whitbread) have been announced. The winner in the Children's Book category is The New Policeman by Kate Thompson. Shortlisted in this category were Framed by Frank Cottrell Boyce, Permanent Rose by Hilary McKay, and The White Darkness by Geraldine McCaughrean. The winners in the other categories are The Accidental by Ali Smith (Best Novel), The Harmony Silk Factory by Tash Aw (First Novel), Poetry Collection: Cold Calls by Christopher Logue (Poetry Collection), and Matisse the Master by Hilary Spurling (Biography). The five authors each receive £5,000 and compete for the Whitbread Book of the Year, which will be announced at a ceremony in London on January 24.

Margaret Hodges
Margaret Hodges, awarding-winning children's book author, died on December 13, 2005, at her retirement home near Pittsburgh. She is survived by her husband of seventy-three years, Fletcher Hodges, and by her three sons, her grandchildren and her great-grandchildren. Margaret Hodges's career as a writer began with One Little Drum published by Follett Publishing Company in 1958. Travel, folklore, mythology, and history are the focus of many of her books, including The Gorgon's Head; Persephone and the Springtime; Lady Queen Anne; The High Riders; Knight Prisoner: The Story of Sir Thomas Malory and His King Arthur; Baldur and the Mistletoe; and The Little Humpbacked Horse, a Russian Tale. In 1985, St. George and the Dragon, illustrated by Trina Schart Hyman, won the Caldecott Medal. One of Margaret Hodges's most recent works was Merlin and the Making of the King, also illustrated by Trina Schart Hyman. At the time of her death, three more children's books were in progress, including a book on Moses illustrated by Barry Moser and scheduled to be published in January. The family has announced a memorial service on January 21, 2006, at Calvary Episcopal Church, Pittsburgh. Memorial contributions can be made to the Margaret Hodges Scholarship Fund, School of Information Sciences, University of Pittsburgh or to the Elizabeth Nesbitt Room, University Library System, Pittsburgh, PA 15260.

Stan Berenstain
Stan Berenstain, who with his wife, Jan, wrote more than 250 books showing how the Berenstain Bears—Mama, Papa, Brother and Sister—confront and learn from life's little crises, died on Saturday in Doylestown, PA, at the age of 82. Stanley Melvin Berenstain was born in Philadelphia on Sept. 29, 1923, and met Janice Grant at a drawing class at what was then the Philadelphia Museum School of Industrial Art. He spent World War II working as an artist in the Army, and picked up spending money by drawing cartoons in his spare time and selling them to magazines. After the war he and his wife developed a thriving enterprise collaborating on cartoons and cover illustrations for magazines such as Colliers, The Saturday Evening Post, McCall's, and Good Housekeeping. They brought their first bear book to Theodor Seuss Geisel, who was then editing books for very young readers at Random House. Jan Berenstain and her sons plan to keep producing books through the family corporation, Berenstain Enterprises. New York Times obituary.

The Kennedy Center Presents The Night Kitchen Radio Theater Live on XM Satellite Radio
A new, ongoing dramatic radio series premieres December 21, 2005, at 7pm at the Kennedy Center. Every month The Night Kitchen Radio Theater, founded and directed by Arthur Yorinks, will perform in front of a live audience in a full-length radio play based on adaptations works by Hans Christian Andersen, H. G. Wells, and contemporary authors. XM Satellite Radio will record and broadcast the performance on their Sonic Theater and family channel; it will also be available to public radio stations around the country. In each show there will be guest actors from theater, film, sports, and politics, along with a segment hosted by Leonard Marcus exploring the background material of each month's play, and interviews and stories about children, produced by the Common Cents charitable organization. Reading is Fundamental will make available a literacy program including CDs of each show, scripts, and teacher/librarian guides.

2005 National Book Awards Winners
The winners of the 2005 National Book Awards were announced at the National Book Awards Benefit Dinner and Ceremony in Manhattan on November 16, hosted by Garrison Keillor. The winner in the category YOUNG PEOPLE'S LITERATURE is Jeanne Birdsall for The Penderwicks: A Summer Tale of Four Sisters, Two Rabbits, and a Very Interesting Boy (Alfred A. Knopf Books for Young Readers). (See the full list of finalists in this category below.) Receiving awards in other categories were: Europe Central by William T. Vollmann (Viking) for Fiction; The Year of Magical Thinking by Joan Didion (Knopf) for Nonfiction; and Migration: New and Selected Poems by W. S. Merwin (Copper Canyon Press) for Poetry.

Joseph-Beth's Books of the Year
The Joseph-Beth Group, which has eight stores under the Joseph-Beth and David-Kidd names, has selected its 2005 Book of the Year winners, voted on by Joseph-Beth Group booksellers:
Fiction: The Historian by Elizabeth Kostova (Little, Brown)
Nonfiction: Freakonomics by Steven D. Levitt and Stephen J. Dubner (Morrow)
Kids Illustrated: Leonardo the Terrible Monster by Mo Willems (Hyperion Books for Children)
Kids Non-Illustrated: Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince by J. K. Rowling (Scholastic)
The winning books will be decorated with gold foil seals and be displayed prominently in each store.

TD Canadian Children's Literature Award
Marthe Jocelyn has won the first TD Canadian Children's Literature Award for most distinguished book of the year for Mable Riley: A Reliable Record of Humdrum, Peril, and Romance (Candlewick Press). The award, including a cash prize of CDN$20,000 (about US$17,000), was created as part of TD Canadian Children's Book Week, sponsored by the Canadian Children's Book Centre and TD Bank Financial Group. The winner of the award for a French-language book will be announced on November 8.

Regina Medalist: Paul Goble
The Children's Library Services Section of the Catholic Library Association has selected Paul Goble, distinguished author and illustrator of over thirty-five children's books about the Native peoples of the American Plains, as the 48th Regina Medalist, based on his lifetime dedication to and excellence in the field of children's literature. Mr. Goble will receive the Regina Medal at a luncheon in his honor on April 19, 2006, in Atlanta, Georgia.

Nominations Open for 2006 PEN/Phyllis Naylor Fellowship
The PEN/Phyllis Naylor Working Writer Fellowship of $5,000 is offered annually to a North American author of children's or young-adult fiction. Eligible candidates are writers in financial need who have published at least two and no more than five books during the past ten years which have been warmly received by literary critics, but which have not generated sufficient income to support the author. Submissions are due by January 16, 2006. The Fellowship will be presented in May 2006 as part of the annual PEN Literary Awards. Writers must be nominated by an editor or fellow writer. For complete nomination instructions and more information, phone 212-334-1660 ext. 108, e-mail awards@pen.org, or contact Naylor Fellowship/PEN American Center, 588 Broadway, Suite 303, New York, NY 10012.

The Canada Council for the Arts announces finalists for the 2005 Governor General's Literary Awards
On October 17, 2005 the Canada Council for the Arts announced the names of the finalists for the 2005 Governor General's Literary Awards in the categories of fiction, nonfiction, poetry, drama, children's literature (text and illustration) and translation. In honour of the designation of Montreal as UNESCO World Book Capital for 2005-2006, the winners will be announced and presented in Montreal on November 16. Finalists:

Children's Literature—Text (English): Francis Chalifour, After, (Tundra Books) Barbara Nickel, Hannah Waters and the Daughter of Johann Sebastian Bach (Penguin Canada); Gail Nyoka, Mella and the N'anga: An African Tale (Sumach Press); Pamela Porter, The Crazy Man (Groundwood Books/House of Anansi Press); Shyam Selvadurai, Swimming in the Monsoon Sea (Tundra Books).

Children's Literature—Illustration (English): Kyrsten Brooker, City Angel, text by Eileen Spinelli (Dial Books for Young Readers/Penguin Young Readers Group); Wallace Edwards, Mixed Beasts, text by Kenyon Cox (Kids Can Press); Rob Gonsalves, Imagine a Day, text by Sarah L. Thomson (Atheneum Books for Young Readers/Simon & Schuster); Murray Kimber, The Highwayman, text by Alfred Noyes (Kids Can Press); Rajka Kupesic, Maria Chapdelaine, text by Louis Hémon (Tundra Books).

Children's Literature—Text (French): Alain M. Bergeron, Les Tempêtes ou Les mémoires d'un Beatle raté (Soulières éditeur); Camille Bouchard, Le ricanement des hyènes (Les éditions de la courte échelle); Jean-Pierre Davidts, Le Baiser de la sangsue (Les Éditions du Boréal); Danielle Marcotte, Delémont, Les sabots rouges (Les éditions de la courte échelle); Sylvain Meunier, for L'homme à la bicyclette (Les éditions de la courte échelle);

Children's Literature—Illustration (French): Isabelle Arsenault, Le coeur de monsieur Gauguin, text by Marie-Danielle Croteau (Les éditions Les 400 coups); Pascale Constantin, La vie comptée de Raoul Lecompte, text by Gilles Tibo (Les éditions de la courte échelle); Luc Melanson, Les compositeurs, text by Claudio Ricignuolo (Éditions Fides; distributed by Socadis) (ISBN 2-7621-2446-8); Stéphane Poulin, Un chant de Noël, text by Lucie Papineau (based on A Christmas Carol by Charles Dickens) (Dominique et compagnie/Les éditions Héritage); Pierre Pratt, Le jour où Zoé zozota, text by Pierre Pratt (Les éditions Les 400 coups).

2005 National Book Awards Finalists announced
The twenty finalists for the 2005 National Book Awards were announced Tuesday, October 12, by bestselling author John Grisham at Rowan Oak, the home of William Faulkner in Oxford, Mississippi. The winner in each of the four categories—Fiction, Nonfiction, Poetry, and Young People's Literature—will be announced at the National Book Awards Benefit Dinner and Ceremony in Manhattan on November 16, hosted by Garrison Keillor. Finalists in the category YOUNG PEOPLE'S LITERATURE are: Jeanne Birdsall, The Penderwicks (Alfred A. Knopf); Adele Griffin, Where I Want to Be (Putnam); Chris Lynch, Inexcusable (Atheneum); Walter Dean Myers, Autobiography of My Dead Brother (HarperTempest); and Deborah Wiles, Each Little Bird That Sings (Harcourt).

"This week in children's books": Publishers Weekly debuts Children's Bookshelf
Publishers Weekly has recently launched a free weekly e-mail newsletter covering children's and YA books and publishing. Children's Bookshelf contains features on new books, interviews with authors, stories on industry trends, links to articles about children's books in other media, and more, for children's publishers, booksellers, librarians, agents, authors, and children's literature teachers and professionals. A subscription to the magazine is not required to sign up for the newsletter. The first issue can be accessed here along with sign-up information (at the bottom of the page).

Toni Trent Parker, promoted the publishing of multicultural books
Toni Trent Parker, an author who helped advance the cause of books featuring black children, died September 15 at her home in Stamford, CT at the age of 58. Toni Trent Parker was born in 1947 in Winston-Salem, NC. She earned a bachelor's degree in history from Oberlin College in 1970, and did graduate work at the University of California, Berkeley. In 1998 she established Kids Cultural Books, a nonprofit organization that holds book festivals around the country to bring multicultural books and their authors together with children. The organization received a grant from the John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation in 2000. Ms. Parker wrote six children's picture books; her most recent title, Sienna's Scrapbook (Chronicle Books, 2005), portrays an young girl and her family visiting black cultural and historical sites in the United States.

James Patterson PageTurner Award open for nominations
Author James Patterson and Time Warner Book Group announced the debut of the James Patterson PageTurner Award, an annual cash prize to single out and support people, schools, and other institutions who find original and effective ways to promote the excitement of books and transform non-readers into lifelong page-turners. The total prize of $75,000 will be divided as follows: $25,000 to a person, company, or institution; $25,000 and a visit from James Patterson to an elementary, middle, or high school; and twenty-five $1,000 merit awards. First Book, a national nonprofit organization that gives children from low-income families the opportunity to own their first new books, will donate 1,000 books to programs serving disadvantaged children in cities of the two top winners' choosing. The 2005 winners will be announced in November. Details about the award and the nomination process can be found at www.PattersonPageTurner.org. Nominations must be received by or on October 15, 2005.

2006 Hans Christian Andersen Award candidates announced
IBBY (International Board on Books for Young People) has announced the names of the candidates for the 2006 Hans Christian Andersen Awards, presented biennially to an author and an illustrator whose works have made a lasting contribution to children's literature. IBBY National Sections from 28 countries selected 26 authors and 25 illustrators, including U.S. candidates E. L. Konigsburg (author) and Ashley Bryan (illustrator); and Jean Little (author) and Michèle Lemieux (illustrator) from Canada. The jury, under the chairmanship of Jeffrey Garrett (U.S.) and with members from Finland, France, Iran, Italy, New Zealand, Russia, Slovenia, South Africa, the USA, and Venezuela, will announce the winners at the Bologna Children's Book Fair in March, 2006. The awards will be presented at the 30th IBBY Congress in Beijing in September.

Alan Smagler to become new head of Houghton Mifflin's Children's Book Group
Alan Smagler, a past chair of the Children's Book Council, has been named Vice President and Publisher of Houghton Mifflin's Children's Book Group. All three children's imprints—Houghton Mifflin Books for Children, Clarion Books, and Kingfisher Publications—will report to him. He started his publishing career in 1988 as a National Account Rep for Random House Juvenile Division, and currently runs a successful management consulting business focusing primarily on the children's publishing industry. He was most recently Senior Vice President and Associate Publisher in Simon & Schuster's Children's Publishing Division, where he was instrumental in launching Simon Spotlight. He has worked with such authors and illustrators as Sandra Boynton, Robert Sabuda, Tony DiTerlizzi, Phyllis Reynolds Naylor, E. L. Konigsburg, Ian Falconer, and Andrew Clements, among many others. He will be based in Boston, starting July 11, 2005.

Georgia Author of the Year Award
The Georgia Writers Association has presented its 41st Annual Georgia Author of the Year Award in the category of Children's/Young Adult Literature to Gail Langer Karwoski for Miracle: The True Story of the Wreck of the Sea Venture (Darby Creek Publishing).

Sheila Egoff, pioneer Canadian children's literature critic and professor of children's literature
Sheila Egoff died on May 22, 2005, at the age of 88 in Vancouver, B.C. Born in 1918 in Auburn, Maine, she grew up in Galt (now Cambridge) Ontario. Recruited by the School of Librarianship at the University of British Columbia soon after its establishment in 1961, she was the first full-time tenured professor of children's literature at a Canadian university. Her groundbreaking The Republic of Childhood: A Critical Guide to Canadian Children's Literature in English (1967) was the first monograph on the subject, and her analysis of contemporary international children's literature, Thursday's Child, won the Ralph R. Shaw ALA Award for library literature. As the chief editor of three editions of Only Connect: Readings on Children's Literature, Egoff established this resource of critical essays as a fundamental choice in courses worldwide, and her study of fantasy, Worlds Within: Children's Fantasy from the Middle Ages to Today, is an important source in its field. A month before her death, she completed My Life with Children's Books, which will be published in the fall.

James A. Houston, writer and illustrator on Inuit life
Writer and illustrator James A. Houston died April 22 in New London, CT, at the age of 83. The only three-time winner of the Canadian Library Association Book of the Year for Children Award, he also is considered almost single-handedly responsible for introducing contemporary Inuit art to museums and collectors. Born in Toronto on June 12, 1921, Houston studied art in Toronto and Paris, and, after serving in World War II, spent more than a decade in the Arctic, helping local people establish a crafts cooperative. He preferred to work in pencil and ink, woodcut engravings, and dry point, and was for many years a leading designer for Steuben Glass. In 1962 he moved to New York, where a chance meeting with Margaret K. McElderry led to his first children's book, Tikta'liktak: An Eskimo Legend, for Harcourt.

2005 E. B. White Read Aloud Award Winner
Wild About Books (Alfred A. Knopf/Random House Children's Books), written by Judy Sierra and illustrated by Marc Brown, is the recipient of the 2005 E. B. White Read Aloud Award, announced on April 4 by the Association of Booksellers for Children. The award, established in 2004, honors a book that reflects the universal read aloud standards that were created by the work of author E. B. White in his classic books for children Charlotte's Web, Stuart Little, and The Trumpet of the Swan. Members of the Association of Booksellers for Children (ABC) select one book a year based on its universal appeal as a "terrific" read aloud book for children. The award encompasses both picture books and novels. The original nominations originated from the bookstore membership of the ABC, which represents independent bookstores, publishers, authors, illustrators, wholesalers, and others interested in supporting children's literature and promoting literacy.

Ted Rand, illustrator
Ted Rand, illustrator of children's books, died March 12 in Seattle at the age of 89 after a long battle with cancer. Born on Mercer Island, WA, Rand spent his early years travelling the world before becoming a graphic artist at Frederick & Nelson and the Bon Marché then co-founding the company Graphic Studios. Rand also spent more than two decades teaching illustration part time at the University of Washington before beginning his career in children's books in his 60s. Rand illustrated 78 children's books, working with his wife, Gloria Rand, on the Salty Dog series, and with authors Eve Bunting, Jean Craighead George, and Bill Martin Jr., among others. The latest Rand collaboration, A Pen Pal for Max, will be published this fall by Henry Holt.

2005 Ezra Jack Keats Book Award Winners
Janice N. Harrington (writer) and Ana Juan (illustrator) are the 2005 winners of the Ezra Jack Keats New Writer and New Illustrator Book Awards. Ana Juan was selected for her illustrations for The Night Eater (Scholastic Press), about a creature who turns night into day by eating up the darkness; Janice N. Harrington won for Going North (Farrar, Straus and Giroux), based on her experience moving out of the segregated South in the mid-1960s. Presented jointly by The New York Public Library and the Ezra Jack Keats Foundation and now in their 19th year, the awards are given annually to a writer and illustrator who "create vividly written and illustrated books that offer fresh and positive views of the complicated and multicultural world inhabited by children today." At an April 21st ceremony at the New York Public Library's Donnell Center, the honorees will each receive the medal and a $1,000 cash prize.

Andre Norton: 1912-2005
Andre Norton, 93, the "Grand Dame of Science Fiction and Fantasy," author of the Witchworld series, poet, editor, whose published works in the field of children's and young-adult literature span seven decades, died of congestive heart failure in her Murfreesboro, Tennessee home, early Thursday morning, March 17th, after an illness. Born Alice Mary Norton, she wrote more than 130 books in many genres during her career of nearly 70 years. She used a pen name—which she made her legal name in 1934—because she expected to be writing mostly for young boys and it was thought a male name would help sales. The Andre Norton Awards were recently created in her honor. Obituary on: SFWA, CNN

Tenth Annual Audie Award Finalists Announced
The Audio Publishers Association has announced the finalists for its 10th annual Audie Awards, which will be presented during a gala at Tavern on the Green in New York City's Central Park on June 3, 2005. The Audies recognize excellence in audiobook publishing in 31 different categories, including Audiobook of the Year. Finalists for Children's Titles for Ages 8+ are A Series of Unfortunate Events: The Bad Beginning by Lemony Snicket (HarperAudio); Dragon Rider by Cornelia Funke, narrated by Brendan Fraser (Listening Library); Keesha's House by Helen Frost (Recorded Books, LLC); Peter and the Starcatchers by Ridley Pearson and Dave Barry, narrated by Jim Dale (Brilliance Audio); The Chronicles of Narnia by C. S. Lewis (HarperAudio). Nominees for Solo Narration/Male include Peter and the Starcatchers, by Ridley Pearson and Dave Barry, narrated by Jim Dale (Brilliance Audio).

Max Velthuijs
Max Velthuijs, IBBY's 2004 Hans Christian Andersen Illustrator Award winner, passed away on 25 January 2005, at home in the Netherlands. Born in 1923, Velthuijs studied painting and graphic design at the Academie voor beeldednde Kusten in Arnhem. After World War II, he produced political prints and received commissions for posters, postage stamps, book jackets, animation films, advertisements, and television commercials. His career as an illustrator and writer of children's books took off in 1962 when, attracted by his powerful and fresh drawings, Swiss publishers Nord-Süd Verlag asked him to create a picture book.

Winners of 2005 Newbery and Caldecott Announced
This year's Newbery Medal winner is Kira-Kira by Cynthia Kadohata, Atheneum Books for Young Readers. Also announced on Monday, January 17 was the 2005 Caldecott Medal winner, Kitten's First Full Moon, illustrated and written by Kevin Henkes (Greenwillow Books).

The 2005 Caldecott Honor Books are: The Red Book, written and illustrated by Barbara Lehman (Houghton Mifflin); Coming on Home Soon, illustrated by E. B. Lewis, written by Jacqueline Woodson (G.P. Putnam's Sons); and Knuffle Bunny: A Cautionary Tale, written and illustrated by Mo Willems (Hyperion Books for Children). The 2005 Newbery Honor Books are: Al Capone Does My Shirts by Gennifer Choldenko (G.P. Putnam's Sons); The Voice that Challenged a Nation: Marian Anderson and the Struggle for Equal Rights by Russell Freedman (Clarion Books); and Lizzie Bright and the Buckminster Boy by Gary D. Schmidt (Clarion Books). Further information on this year's Newbery and Caldecott Medal winners can be found on the ALA Website.

In addition to the Newbery and Caldecott Awards, other major 2005 American Library Association-sponsored children's book awards announced on Monday, January 17 were: the BATCHELDER AWARD; CORETTA SCOTT KING AWARD and CORETTA SCOTT KING/JOHN STEPTOE NEW AUTHOR TALENT AWARD; ANDREW CARNEGIE MEDAL FOR EXCELLENCE IN CHILDREN'S VIDEO; 2006 MAY HILL ARBUTHNOT HONOR LECTURER; SIBERT MEDAL; and WILDER MEDAL.

Worth by A. LaFaye wins 2005 Scott O'Dell Award for Historical Fiction
Worth by A. LaFaye, published by Simon & Schuster Books for Young Readers, is the winner of the 2005 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. Worth tells the Orphan Train story from the viewpoint of a boy displaced by the orphan. A. (Alexandria) LaFaye is also the author of The Year of the Sawdust Man; Nissa's Place; and Dad, in Spirit.

USBBY seeks reviewers, librarians, booksellers, and others for new bibliography
In 2006, the United States Board on Books for Young People (USBBY), in cooperation with the Children's Book Council, will introduce a new bibliography, Outstanding International Books for 2006, for books originally published outside the United States and subsequently published in the U.S. USBBY is in the process of composing the first selection committee. They are looking for reviewers, librarians, booksellers, and others who work closely with Children's Books. For more information download the PDF (9KB).

CBC Extreme Trivia Challenge
Eleven different Children's Book Council Member publishers were represented at the first-ever CBC Extreme Trivia Challenge on December 1, 2004. Questions were submitted by children's librarians and booksellers from all over the U.S. Read more and see the list of trivia questions.

Willo Davis Roberts
Willo Davis Roberts died on November 19 of congestive heart failure, at the age of 76. Ms. Roberts wrote mystery novels, mostly for children, over the last 30 years. She sold her first book, Murder at Grand Bay, in 1955, and won Edgar Allan Poe Awards for three of her young adult mysteries. She was still writing until the last hours before her death, and had just completed her one-hundredth book.

Providence, RI Public Library Wins 2004 Mora Award
REFORMA, the National Association to Promote Library and Information Services to Latinos and the Spanish-Speaking, has announced that Providence Public Library, Rhode Island, has been selected as winner of the 2004 Estela and Raúl Mora Award for participation in the celebration of Día de los Niños/Día de los Libros (Day of the Children/Day of the Books). The award is donated by author Pat Mora and her three siblings in honor of their parents and was established to honor children, promote bilingual literacy, and encourage reading among all children. The stipend and plaque have been awarded annually since 2000. Contestants are judged on quality of their program, encouragement of bilingual or multilingual literacy, and successfulness in reaching their target audience; involvement of partnering organizations; change in level of activity; and quality of publicity. Providence Library plans to use the prize money to engage author/illustrator Yuyi Morales as a featured speaker and storyteller at next year's program. The Mora Award will be formally presented at the American Library Association Midwinter Conference in Boston, MA, January 14-19, 2005.

Miriam Schlein
Miriam Schlein, who wrote picture books, novels, chapter books, fiction, and nonfiction for children for half a century, died November 23 in New York City. Ms. Schlein won a Parenting Best Book of the Year Award in 1996 for More than One (Greenwillow), illustrated by Donald Crews. She was also the author of the 1954 Caldecott Honor Book When Will the World Be Mine? illustrated by Jean Charlot (Scott).

Trina Schart Hyman
Trina Schart Hyman, illustrator of more than 150 books for children, passed away on November 17, 2004, of complications resulting from breast cancer. She was born in Philadelphia in 1939 and grew up in Doylestown, PA, and attended the Philadelphia Museum School and the Boston Museum School. Among her works are three Caldecott Honor books—her retelling of Little Red Riding Hood; Hershel and the Hanukkah Goblins by Eric A. Kimmel; and A Child's Calendar, written by John Updike—and Caldecott medal-winner St. George and the Dragon by Margaret Hodges. She created the 1980 poster for Children's Book Week. She is survived by her partner, Jean Aull; a daughter, Katrin Tchana; two grandsons, Michou and Xavier Tchana; and a nephew, Richard Sabol.

Godless by Pete Hautman selected as 2004 National Book Awards Winner for Young People's Literature
"In Godless, Pete Hautman has created a Holden Caulfield for our time. Sick of what he perceives as phony pieties espoused in the church group his parents make him attend, Jason Bock half-jokingly creates his own religion, one that worships the town's water tower. To his surprise, people actually start taking the religion seriously—too seriously. In often-hilarious prose, Hautman brilliantly takes on the question—of religion, of politics, or almost any organized activity in our lives—of how ordinary people can let themselves be swept up by dubious ideas." —National Book Awards Judges' Citation.
The other four finalists for the award were Deb Caletti for Honey, Baby, Sweetheart (Simon & Schuster Books for Young Readers); Pete Hautman for Godless (Simon & Schuster Books for Young Readers); Laban Carrick Hill for Harlem Stomp! A Cultural History of the Harlem Renaissance (Megan Tingley Books/Little, Brown & Company); Shelia P. Moses for The Legend of Buddy Bush (Margaret K. McElderry Books/Simon & Schuster Children's Publishing Division); and Julie Anne Peters for Luna: A Novel (Megan Tingley Books/Little, Brown & Company).

Katherine Paterson receives 2004 David McCord award
Katherine Paterson received the 2004 David McCord Children's Literature Citation for "significant contribution to excellence in books for children" on November 4, 2004, at ceremonies sponsored by Framingham State College (MA) and the Nobscot Reading Council, Inc. of the International Reading Association.

Judy Blume To Receive Award From The National Book Foundation
The National Book Foundation will bestow its 2004 Medal for Distinguished Contribution to American Letters upon Judy Blume. The first author of young-adult literature to receive the award, she will be honored on November 17 at the 2004 National Book Awards Ceremony.