…or barcode win? You be the judge.

(I’ve talked about barcode placement in the past)

The 10 title longlist for the Young People’s Literature category of the National Book Awards has been announced, and it’s a varied assortment of Newbery contender-ish middle grade (The Real Boy, A Tangle of Knots), YA (Two Boys Kissing), and (alright!) a graphic novel (Boxers & Saints), among others. As I mentioned last week, it’s [...]

The National Book Awards are a wholly different award animal than, say, the Newbery Medal. Whereas the Newbery is selected by a 15 person panel of librarians, the Young People’s Literature category of the National Book Awards is decided by a small group of five authors. It’s always interesting to see which books come out [...]

Forgive me – after last week’s number crunching (So You Want to Win the Newbery Part I & Part II), I can’t seem to stop myself. Seriously, keep me off this page. But the questions keep coming. Such as: What percentage of Newbery Medal/Honor winners never won again? What percentage did? In figuring this out, [...]

EVERYTHING IS STARTING Snnniiiifffff! Ah, the smell of fall. Now that it’s September, thoughts begin to turn to Newbery and Caldecott medal contenders. Right on time, blogs Heavy Medal and Calling Caldecott are back in business taking a hard look at the books that might win the big awards come January. NEWBERY AND CALDECOTT WINNERS [...]

A few months back a video of the Seattle Public Library’s record-breaking book domino made the rounds. It was incredible: Well, now the Central Library in Cape Town, South Africa has bested Seattle’s record. As evidenced by the video below. I sincerely hope this book domino arms race continues. (Thanks to Book Patrol for the [...]

Yesterday in Part I, we looked at which month has produced the most Newbery winners. Today is all about critical acclaim. (Many thanks to Elizabeth Fama, John Cochrane, and Jen Baker who inspired me with this post at Someday My Printz Will Come.) As fans of the Newbery know, not all medal winners arrive to unanimous praise from the [...]

The only way to win the Newbery Medal, of course, is to write the most distinguished contribution to American literature for children and then sleep with The Story of Mankind under your pillow until the winner is announced (some people do weird things to bring good luck). But, you know, what else? Today and tomorrow we’ll take [...]

What if we treated the past year of children’s books like a class of students? The Horn Book had some fun whipping up their 2012-13 Yearbook Superlatives. Awards include Best dancers, Class clown, and, of course, Most conceited. Click here to ch…

In August… …we previewed fall book releases. I picked 10 books to look out for in the coming months. …we made book request magic. I gave the screenshot-heavy lowdown on using Google forms for students to request books. …we stared slack-jawed at rare book values. Some well-known children’s books are fetching large sums at AbeBooks. [...]

POPPINS APPRAISAL I love this Antiques Roadshow video (sent to me by school librarian John Schumacher) of a woman getting a signed first edition of Mary Poppins appraised. 800 channels, and we can’t get an Antiques Roadshow: Children’s Books Edition? INDIE TOP 10 FOR THE FALL Every season the American Booksellers Association puts out a [...]

Can you guess the classic children’s book by its scathing one-star review on GoodReads or Amazon? Someone get me some crayons and a word processor with Courier font! [...] Is it about emotional intelligence? A masked attack on “bird brained” people? Union loyalty? I am underwhelmed. Click here for the answer. One Star Review Guess Who (#1) One Star [...]

The New York Times Bestseller lists – to my eyes, they never cease to make for an interesting read. Let’s take a look at the titles at the top of the picture book and middle grade lists this week, shall we? Click the links below to see the rest of the top 10s. Picture Books [...]