Award-winning author and illustrator, Brian Floca, is going to be a guest speaker for the Williamsburg Area Reading Council! You may know Brian Floca for his most recent award, which was winning the 2014 Caldecott Award for Locomotive.
The event will occur on October 16, 2014 at the School of Education at the College of William and Mary. Specific times and other details are being ironed out at this time, but please save the date in your calendar! You can follow the Williamsburg Area Reading Council on Facebook or find out more via WARC's blog.
From May 12-18, 2014, schools and libraries across America will celebrate Children's Book Week! It is sponsored by the Children's Book Council, who is a "national nonprofit trade association of children’s book publishers,
dedicated to supporting and informing the industry and fostering
literacy." (You can find out more about the CBC and its mission at its official website: http://www.cbcbooks.org/). This year, Children's Book Week is celebrating its 95th year. Ever since 1919, this special event has highlighted the magic of children's books and reading with boys and girls. That's quite a feat of achievement to continually recognize the importance and influence of children's literature!
Children's Book Week features its own stand alone website at: http://www.bookweekonline.com. Also, the actual voting website is http://ccbookawards.com/, where you can find the link to vote as an individual or as a group consensus from a short list of finalists for these six categories:
Illustrator of the Year
The Day The Crayons Quit - Illustrated by Oliver Jeffers
Emeraldalicious - Illustrated by Victoria Kann
Pete the Cat: The Wheels on the Bus - Illustrated by James Dean
Llama Llama and the Bully Goat - Illustrated by Anna Dewdney
Sofia the First: The Floating Palace - Illustrated by Grace Lee
Author of the Year
Diary of a Wimpy Kid: Hard Luck - by Jeff Kinney
Heroes of Olympics: The House of Hades - by Rick Riordan
Allegiant - by Veronica Roth
Rush Revere and The Brave Pilgrims: Time-Travel Adventures with Exceptional Americans - by Rush Limbaugh
Dork Diaries 6: Tales from a Not-So-Happy Heartbreaker - by Rachel Renee Russell
Kindergarten to Second Grade Book of the Year
The Day the Crayons Quit - by Drew Daywalt, illustrated by Oliver Jeffers
Mustache Baby - by Bridget Heos, illustrated by Joy Ang
Alphabet Trucks - by Samantha R. Vamos, illustrated by Ryan O’Rourke
Bear and Bee - by Sergio Ruzzier (Disney/Hyperion)
Chamelia and the New Kid in Class by Ethan Long
Third to Fourth Grade Book of the Year
Bean Dog and Nugget: The Ball - by Charise Mericle Harper
Cougar - by Stephen Person
The Matchbox Diary - by Paul Fleischman, illustrated by Bagram Ibatoulline
Pancho Rabbit and the Coyote: A Migrant’s Tale - by Duncan Tonatiuh
Bugs in My Hair! - by David Shannon
Fifth to Sixth Grade Book of the Year
Prince Puggly of Spud - by Robert Paul Weston
Lawless: Book 1 - by Jeffrey Salane
National Geographic Kids Myths Busted! - by Emily Krieger, illustrated by Tom Nick Cocotos
Hokey Pokey - by Jerry Spinelli
Battling Boy - by Paul Pope
Teen Book of the Year Allegiant - by Veronica Roth Eleanor & Park - by Rainbow Rowell Clockwork Princess - by Cassandra Clare
Smoke - by Ellen Hopkins
The 5th Wave - by Rick Yancey
Children's Book Week is featured on the Children's Book Council's YouTube page. Specifically, you can follow the "Children's Book Week Champions 2014" playlist, where you can watch new videos that are posted each week. Here's a peek at the first YouTube video for 2014 from author and illustrator Jarrett Krosoczka:
You can follow the Children's Book Council on Facebook to find out the most up-to-date information on this year's event. Also, you can follow the CBC on Twitter, Pinterest, and their CBC website.
Click on the links below to go directly to the PDF files. You can easily bookmark and save the documents electronically to refer to them again. It's a great reference for you to use during your next visit to the public library or book store. You are sure to find some new titles that you will fold into your instruction or classroom libraries. Finding new favorite books will invigorate both your book selections for lessons and simply sharing with children for enjoyment!
The list for the Children's Choices is also the starting ground for the finalists for the annual Children's Choice Book Awards with the Children's Book Council. You can click on this link to see who the finalists and winners were for 2012. Here is a clip of author Jarrett J. Krosoczka introducing the awards gala in May 2012.
You can also find out more about the Children's Book Council's Children's Choices Book Awards through their Facebook page which is dedicated just to the awards. The Children's Book Council can also be found on Pinterest, Twitter and Facebook as well. The International Reading Association can be accessed here through these links for Facebook and Twitter, too.
Here are a few of the first place winners which are relevant to the elementary levels:
Illustrator of the Year: Brian Selznick for Wonderstruck (Scholastic Press, 2011)
K-2 Winner: Three Hens and a Peacock Written by Lester Laminack and Illustrated by Henry Cole (Peachtree, 2011)
Grades 3-4 Winner: Bad Kitty Meets the Baby Written and Illustrated by Nick Bruel (Square Fish, 2012)
Grades 5-6 Winner: Okay for Now Written by Gary D. Schmidt (Clarion, 2011)
Four of my personal favorites from Lee Bennett Hopkins includes:
Sharing the Seasons (Margaret K. McElderry, 2010)
My America: A Poetry Atlas of the United States (Simon & Schuster Children's Publishing, 2000)
Incredible Inventions (Greenwillow, 2009)
Wonderful Words (Simon & Schuster Children's Publishing, 2004)
His newest collection, I Am the Book (Holiday House, 2011) was just released on March 15th. I certainly love the topic and I can't wait to explore it at a library or bookstore soon! Remember, April is National Poetry Month. I'll be posting about some additional favorite poetry books and authors in the month of April as well!
Last Monday, the American Library Association announced its 2011 award winners for the Newbery, Caldecott, Coretta Scott King, and more. This is like the Oscars of the children's literature world! In case you haven't had a chance to check out the winners, be sure to visit ALA's press release announcement to explore the medalists.
Here is the rebroadcast of the announcement provided by ALA. It's approximately an hour and 12 minutes long. You can skip ahead to the sections that you are interested in by hovering over the bottom of the video to bring up the sliding fast forward button. It can inspire you to discover a new book at our media center, public library, or from a colleague's collection. If you've read one and would like to recommend it, feel free to leave a comment. :) Enjoy!
Countdown by Deborah Wiles (Scholastic Press, 2010)
In the world of children's literature, there will be a BIG annual announcement made on January 10th! That's the day that the Newbery and Caldecott awards will be announced at the American Library Association's Midwinter Conference in San Diego. As you probably know, the Newbery is awarded for the children's book which was found to be the best written book published in the last year. The Caldecott is awarded for the book that is regarded as the best illustrated children's book published in the past year. I decided to focus this blog entry on the Newbery, with a "part 2" coming up soon on the Caldecott.
One Crazy Summer by Rita
Williams-Garcia
(Amistad, 2010)
A few of the many news articles and blogs that give us a peek at the possible Newbery Medal Winners for 2011:
From Fuse #8, a blog from the School Library Journal, predicted in December on what might be the contenders for the Newbery. Click here to see their post and see if you've read or seen these books. You can find out more mock Newbery voting on SLJ's blogs by typing "Newbery 2011" in the site's search box. Numerous posts will come up from readers and bloggers aross the nation. You can also go to Fuse #8's "Mock Newbery Award" predictions.
The Dreamer by Pam Munoz Ryan (Scholastic Press, 2010)
What are my guesses for which books are in the running based on what I've had a chance to read? In no particular order, my pool of books that I think the picks should come from include Keeper by Kathi Appelt, Touch Blue by Cynthia Lord, Countdown by Deborah Wiles, Dark Emperor and Other Poems of the Night by Joyce Sidman, One Crazy Summer by Rita Williams-Garcia, and The Dreamer by Pam Munoz Ryan. However, there are more critically acclaimed books from the past year that I have NOT had a chance to read that I am curious about such as Forge by Laurie Halse Anderson, The Night Fairy by Laura Amy Schiltz, Kneebone Boy by Ellen Potter, Ninth Ward by Jewell Parker Rhodes, and A Conspiracy of Kings by Megan Whalen Turner. Therefore, I can't really predict the proper winners. I'm excited to keep reading! :)
Do you agree with the predictions for this year's Newbery awards? Which ones have you read or seen? Feel free to leave a comment on your predictions and favorite books of the year! :)
P.S. - I recently planned a third grade literacy coaching lesson using Dark Emperor and Other Poems of the Night by Joyce Sidman for mid-January! :) It will be my first time using the text that I received from Amazon the other day. :) I have enjoyed Sidman's other fabulous collections of poetry and love this one, too! Be sure to check in January for a blog post about my lesson! :)
Additional Links of Interest
American Library Association: This association awards the Newbery Medal annually. You can check out past winners by going to this link:
Anita Silvey: Check out children's literature expert on Facebook, Twitter (@anitasilvey), and her websites. She updates on all of these social networking tools quite often! It was thanks to her Facebook update today that I heard about this afternoon's Scripps news article. :) (Thank-you so much Anita Silvey! :)
Anita Silvey's Book-A-Day Almanac online (This is a GREAT link for parents on Edline!)
Pam Munoz Ryan: You can visit Ryan's newly revised website to learn more about her books and read some interview responses.Ryan is a guest blogger for this post on Teaching Books. Click here to listen to her introduce and read an excerpt from her book The Dreamer. You can preview the a portion on the book through this Google books link, too. There is an official Teaching Guide from Scholastic as well, and you can download it as a PDF. In this Scholastic's On Our Mind You Tube video entry, Ryan was interviewed about the book and her inspirations.
Cynthia Lord: This link will take you to her blog, and this link will take you to her website. Lord has posted a Teacher's Guide to use with her book Touch Blue. Explore more of Lord's offerings for teachers and librarians by looking at the interview and blog links for her books on this page of her official website as well. This Google books link will take you to a preview of Touch Blue.
Rita Williams-Garcia: Preview One Crazy Summer through this widget from publisher Harper Collins. You can also listen to Rita Williams talk about her book in a very informal conversation, taped by her friend Kathi Appelt (small writing world!) at the Vermont College of Fine Arts. I love how hearing the author talk about their book brings an extra dimension of life and understanding to the reader's experiences.
Kathi Appelt: Here is Kathi Appelt's website link, and this link will take you to the blog portion of her site. You can preview the beginning of the text through this Google books link. (For fun, you can catch other video clips from Appelt on You Tube. She posted a few with Rita Williams-Garcia on fun aspects and observations with their real life friendship. I love her voice! She must be give an amazing read aloud. It makes me miss Vermont, too!)
Deborah Wiles: This link will take you to the author's blog, and this link will take you to her website. Through this link from Scholastic, you can download the publisher's discussion guide for Countdown. Also available on Scholastic's site is a sample of Chapter One that you can read online, and you can hear an audio read aloud sample through this link. You can also go to a multimedia page where the YouTube book trailer for Countdown is posted, as well as the "Duck and Cover" video from the early 1960s that school children saw. In addition, all of the music mentioned in the book is available as an iTunes playlist. What an innovative novel!
Are you looking for a new trade book for a read aloud or mini-lesson? The October 2010 Children's Choices Awards have been announced from the International Reading Association. Click on the link below to go directly to the PDF file from IRA's website. I love discovering a fresh new book!
