Children’s Award Winners

Hannah Owen
Youth Services Librarian

The American Library Association announced the top awards in children’s literature recently. As usual, the announcement sent all librarians, booksellers, and anyone else having an interest in children’s books scurrying to buy them. Not as usual, two of the awards have caused a big uproar.

The Caldecott Medal is awarded to the artist of the “most distinguished picture book.” The uproar ensued because this award will be the third Caldecott for the winner, David Wiesner. Can’t they find someone else who deserves this award, went the complaints. You will see that the book, “Flotsam,” is indeed beautiful and I think children will be poring over the pictures.

The Newbery Medal goes to the author of the “most distinguished contribution to American literature for children published in the United States during the preceding year.” The award went to Susan Patron for “The Higher Power of Lucky.” LOTS of uproar due to her use of the word “scrotum.” The word comes up because the heroine, Lucky, overhears Sammy telling a story at an Alcoholics Anonymous meeting. It seems that Sammy’s dog was bitten in this very spot by a rattlesnake. He promised that he would stop drinking if the dog lived. The dog did survive, and Sammy kept his promise. Her father has abandoned Lucky and her mother is dead. She is being cared for by her father’s first wife, who she is afraid will move back to France. Sounds perfectly dreadful, but actually it is a pretty good story with a happy ending. Not sure if children will embrace it, though.

Other awards include the Coretta Scott King award recognizing an African American author of outstanding books; the Michael Printz award for excellence in literature written for young adults; and the Theodor Seuss Geisel award for the most distinguished beginning reader book.

Want to decide for yourself if these books are wonderful and will be loved by children forever, or are in fact not worthy of these highest honors? You can find all of them at the Hickory Public Library. You can find the complete list of winners and runners-up at www.ala.org. Click on “Awards” and then “Book/Media Awards.” The Hickory Public Library is a department of the City of Hickory. The Patrick Beaver Library is open 9-9 Monday-Thursday; 9-6 Friday and Saturday; and 2-6 Sunday. The Ridgeview Branch is open the same hours except it is closed on Sunday.