Morning Notes: John Newbery, Ladies’ Man Edition

ONE CRAZY WINNER

Sure, it made every best of the year list you can name (including our Top 20), but One Crazy Summer is due for some legitimate hardware. It came yesterday in the form of the prestigious Scott O’Dell Award, handed out to the best historical fiction of the year. Alright! Click here to read all about it.

(Thanks to Read Roger for the link)

IT’S FINAL: CYBILS SHORTLISTS ANNOUNCED

Finalists for the Cybils Awards have been announced and there is a boatload of great titles. Especially interesting to me was the Middle Grade Novels category, which is as notable for the books it didn’t pick as the ones it did. I was a member of the Fiction Picture Book committee, so be sure to check out that list. Click here to see every category.

LET THE MISCELLANEA CONTINUE!

I encourage you to turn your attention to A Fuse #8 Production’s Golden Fuse Awards. More unique and interesting bits of 2010 children’s lit that a stick can be shaken at. Click here to read.

JOHN NEWBERY (MEDAL) LOVES WOMEN

Have we added love of data to the cannon of librarian stereotypes yet? If not, I feel like we should because every librarian I know would enjoy this bit of literary number-crunching. The blog Shelftalker takes a look at gender as it applies to Newbery, Caldecott, and Printz-winning authors. Click here to read.

(Thanks to @HUnderdown for the link)

A VIRAL EPIC FAIL

Not exactly children’s lit-related, but still in the literary realm. Each year LSSU (that’s Lake Superior State University for the Michigan-challenged out there) puts out a list of words that should, due to complete overuse/being terrible, should never be spoken again. The results are always fun to read. Click here to do just that.

YOU GOT A COMMENT?

Blogging folks take note – the 2011 comment challenge is about to get under way. Act accordingly.

(Thanks to MotherReader for the link)

Even newspapers are getting into the Caldecott/Newbery predicting game. Click the image above to read The Seattle Times’ picks.

(Thanks to Earlyword for the link)

I get an unusually large amount of enjoyment out of watching President Obama read his recently-released picture book Of Thee I Sing to a group of kids. I think it’s the fact that I can critique his read-aloud skills. We have two versions of this one, short and uncut:

And the more entertaining (although worse quality) long version:

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