2013 Newbery Medalist Katherine Applegate describes how the plight of a silverback gorilla kept on display in a shopping mall inspired her to pen her heartrending tale, The One and Only Ivan (HarperCollins).

Explore all the 2013 Newbery resources and author interviews on TeachingBooks.net.

2013 Caldecott Winner Jon Klassen explains his multimedia approach to illustrating This Is Not My Hat (Candlewick), a fun, playful story about a mischievous fish.

Explore all the 2013 Caldecott resources and author interviews on TeachingBooks.net.

Steve Sheinkin, 2013 Sibert Informational Book Award Winner, Newbery Honoree, YALSA Award for Excellence in Nonfiction Winner, and National Book Award Finalist, discusses the challenge of incorporating multiple complex storylines and characters into the gripping thriller Bomb: The Race to Build—and Steal—The World’s Most Dangerous Weapon (Roaring Brook).

Explore all the 2013 Sibert resources and author interviews on TeachingBooks.net.

Elizabeth Wein, 2013 Printz Award Honoree, delves into how her discoveries of the influential role of women in World War II motivated her to write Code Name Verity (Hyperion).

Explore all the 2013 Printz resources and author interviews on TeachingBooks.net.

Andrea Davis Pinkney, 2013 Coretta Scott King Book Award Author Winner, explores how the idea for Hand in Hand: Ten Black Men Who Changed America (Hyperion) came about after her middle-school aged son, bored with his own curriculum, begged her to write a more engaging historical work for children.

Explore all the 2013 Coretta Scott King Book Award resources and author interviews on TeachingBooks.net.

Ethan Long, 2013 Geisel Award Winner, shares how the characters in his humorous early reader, Up, Tall and High! (Penguin) originated as a way of coping after his father passed away.

Explore all the 2013 Geisel resources and author interviews on TeachingBooks.net.

(John) Newbery Medal
The One and Only Ivan by Katherine Applegate
HarperCollins Children’s Books
Fuse #8: Review of the Day

Honors:
Splendors and Glooms by Laura Amy Schlitz
Candlewick
Curriculum Connections: An Apprentice to Dickens: An Interview with Laura Amy Schlitz

Tall Tale: Laura Amy Schlitz (2008 profile)

Bomb: The Race to Build—and Steal—the World’s Most Dangerous Weapon by Steve Sheinkin
Flash Point/Roaring Brook
Curriculum Connections: Steve Sheinkin Writes a Thriller: An Interview with Steve Sheinkin

Three Times Lucky by Sheila Turnage
Dial/Penguin Young Readers
Heavy Medal: Three Times Lucky

(Randolph) Caldecott Medal
This Is Not My Hat by Jon Klassen
Candlewick Press
This Is Not My Sequel: Just Wait Till You See This New Book from Jon Klassen: Under Cover Interview

Honors:
Creepy Carrots! illus. by Peter Brown, written by Aaron Reynolds
Simon & Schuster
Fuse #8: Review of the Day: Creepy Carrots!

Extra Yarn illus. by Jon Klassen, written by Mac Barnett
HarperCollins/Balzer + Bray
SLJ Review of the Day

Green by Laura Vaccaro Seeger
Neal Porter Books/Roaring Brook
Fuse #8: Review of the Day: Green

One Cool Friend illus. by David Small, written by Toni Buzzeo
Dial/Penguin Young Readers
Book Verdict Review

Sleep Like a Tiger, illus. by Pamela Zagarenski, written by Mary Logue
Houghton Mifflin Harcourt
Review of the Day

Theodore Seuss Geisel Award
Up, Tall and High by Ethan Long
G. P. Putnam’s Sons

Honors:
Let’s Go for a Drive! by Mo Willems
Hyperion/Disney
Highlighted in Curriculum Connections: Fun and Fresh: Books for Emergent Readers

Pete the Cat and His Four Groovy Buttons by Eric Litwin, created and illus. by James Dean
HarperCollins
Book Verdict Review

Rabbit & Robot: The Sleepover written and illus. by Cece Bell
Candlewick
Fuse #8: Review of the Day

(Laura Ingalls) Wilder Award
Katherine Paterson
Katherine Paterson Named National Ambassador for Young People’s Literature in 2010

Katherine the Great: There couldn’t be a better choice for our new kids’ book ambassador than Katherine Paterson

Andrew Carnegie Medal
Anna, Emma and the Condors
Produced by Katja Torneman
Book Verdict Review

Robert F. Sibert Informational Book Medal
Bomb: The Race to Build—and Steal—the World’s Most Dangerous Weapon by Steve Sheinkin
Flash Point/Roaring Brook
Curriculum Connections: Steve Sheinkin Writes a Thriller: An Interview with Steve Sheinkin

Honors:
Electric Ben: The Amazing Life and Times of Benjamin Franklin by Robert Byrd
Dial/Penguin Young Readers
Book Verdict Review

Moonbird: A Year on the Wind with the Great Survivor B95 by Phillip M. Hoose
Farrar
A Chair, a Fireplace and a Tea Cozy: Review

Jonathan Hunt’s assessment on Heavy Medal

Titanic: Voices from the Disaster by Deborah Hopkinson
Scholastic
Someday My Printz Will Come: Titanic: Voices from the Disaster (Is Not a Disaster)

Mildred L. Batchelder Award
My Family for the War by Anne C. Voorhoeve
Dial/Penguin Young Readers
Book Verdict Review

Honors:
A Game for Swallows: To Die, to Leave, to Return by Zeina Abirached, tr. by Edward Gauvin
Graphic Universe/Lerner
SLJ Pick of the Day

Son of a Gun, written and tr. by Anne de Graaf
Eerdmans
Book Verdict Review

May Hill Arbuthnot Honor Lecture Award
Andrea Davis Pinkney
Celebration Time: Black History Month by Andrea Davis Pinkney
Teacher Appreciation Week: Andrea Davis Pinkney’s Letter to Mr. Dwyer

Pura Belpré Awards
Author: Aristotle and Dante Discover the Secrets of the Universe by Benjamin Alire Sáenz
Simon & Schuster
SLJ Review

Honor:
The Revolution of Evelyn Serrano by Sonia Manzano
Scholastic
Book Verdict Review

Illustrator: Martín de Porres: The Rose in the Desert
Illus. by David Diaz, written by Gary D. Schmidt
Clarion

Michael L. Printz Award
In Darkness by Nick Lake
Bloomsbury
Pick of the Day

Honors:
Aristotle and Dante Discover the Secrets of the Universe by Benjamin Alire Sáenz
Simon & Schuster
SLJ Review

Code Name Verity by Elizabeth Wein
Hyperion/Disney
A Chair, a Fireplace and a Tea Cozy: Review

Dodger by Terry Pratchett
HarperCollins Children’s Books
Someday My Printz Will Come: Review

The White Bicycle by Beverley Brenna
Red Deer Press

Odyssey Award
The Fault in Our Stars, written by John Green, narrated by Kate Rudd
Produced by Brilliance Audio
SLJ Review

Honors:
Artemis Fowl: The Last Guardian, produced by Listening Library, written by Eoin Colfer and narrated by
Nathaniel Parker

Ghost Knight, produced by Listening Library, written by Cornelia Funke and narrated by Elliot Hill

Monstrous Beauty, produced by Macmillian Audio, written by Elizabeth Fama and narrated by Katherine Kellgren

YALSA Award for Excellence in Nonfiction for Young Adults
Bomb: The Race to Build—and Steal—the World’s Most Dangerous Weapon by Steve Sheinkin
Flash Point/Roaring Brook
Curriculum Connections: Steve Sheinkin Writes a Thriller: An Interview with Steve Sheinkin

Finalists:
Steve Jobs: The Man Who Thought Different by Karen Blumenthal
Feiwel & Friends
Curriculum Connections: Karen Blumenthal Connects the Dots: Interview

Moonbird: A Year on the Wind with the Great Survivor B95 by Phillip Hoose
Farrar
Heavy Medal: Black Hole and Moonbird

Titanic: Voices from the Disaster by Deborah Hopkinson
Scholastic
Someday My Printz Will Come

We’ve Got a Job: The 1963 Birmingham Children’s March by Cynthia Levinson
Peachtree Publishers
Practically Paradise: Nonfiction Monday

William C. Morris Award
Seraphina by Rachel Hartman
Random House
Someday My Printz Will Come: Seraphina

Finalists:
Wonder Show by Hannah Barnaby
Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Books
A Chair, a Fireplace and a Tea Cozy

Love and Other Perishable Items by Laura Buzo
Knopf/Random House

After the Snow by S. D. Crockett
Feiwel and Friends
SLJ Review

The Miseducation of Cameron Post by emily m. danforth
Balzer + Bray/HarperCollins
Someday My Printz Will Come

Margaret A. Edwards Award:
Tamora Pierce for her “Song of the Lioness” series

Coretta Scott King Book Awards
Author: Hand in Hand: Ten Black Men Who Changed America by Andrea Davis Pinkney, illus. by Brian Pinkney
Hyperion/Disney
Books to Celebrate the Everyday Heroes of the Civil Rights Movement

Honors:
Each Kindness by Jacqueline Woodson, illus. by E. B. Lewis
Nancy Paulsen Books/Penguin Young Readers
Interview with Jacqueline Woodson

No Crystal Stair: A Documentary Novel of the Life and Work of Lewis Michaux, Harlem Bookseller by Vaunda Micheaux Nelson, illustrated by R. Gregory Christie
Carolrhoda Lab/Lerner
Heavy Medal

Illustrator: I, Too, Am America
illus. by Bryan Collier, written by Langston Hughes
Simon & Schuster

Honors:
H. O. R. S. E., illus. & written by Christopher Myers (listed in this interview highlighting the hottest books of Fall 2012)
Egmont USA
Included in Interview: JLG’s Susan Marson Talks About the Hottest Upcoming Books for Fall 2012

Ellen’s Broom, illus. by Daniel Minter, written by Kelly Starling Lyons
Putnam/Penguin Young Readers
Included in Black History Month 2012

I Have a Dream: Martin Luther King, Jr., illus. by Kadir Nelson, written by Martin Luther King, Jr. Schwartz & Wade/Random House (listed in this compilation of books for celebrating MLK Day
Included in Great Books for Celebrating Martin Luther King Day

Virginia Hamilton: Demetria Tucker
Practitioner Award for Lifetime achievement

Stonewall Book Award
Aristotle and Dante Discover the Secrets of the Universe by Benjamin Alire Sáenz
Simon & Schuster
SLJ Review

Honors:
Drama by Raina Telgemeier
Graphix/Scholastic Inc.
Good Comics for Kids

Gone, Gone, Gone by Hannah Moskowitz
Simon Pulse/Simon & Schuster

October Mourning: A Song for Matthew Shepard by Lesléa Newman
Candlewick
Interview with Lesléa Newman

Sparks: The Epic, Completely True Blue, (Almost) Holy Quest of Debbie, by S. J. Adams
Flux

Photo courtesy of Thinkstockphotos.com

Once upon a time, a new blog discussing possible contenders for the annual Michael L. Printz Award for exemplary teen titles was born on SLJ.com. Now in its second year, Someday My Printz Will Come is back and ready to take on the challenge of speculating which literary gem will wear this year’s crown.

Bloggers and former Printz committee members Karyn Silverman, high school librarian and educational technology department chair at LREI, Little Red School House & Elisabeth Irwin High School, and Sarah Couri, director of library and information systems at Grace Church High School, both in New York City, return to analyze books published in 2012 and written specifically for a teen audience that might be considered the best in “literary merit.”

Bestowed annually by the American Library Association (ALA), the Printz Award differs from the more well-known Newbery Medal because it can go to a title that wasn’t originally published in the U.S. That and other aspects of the criteria and eligibility governing the Printz are expected to be the subject of debate on the blog.

While “Someday” started last year with a list of 35 possible contenders, combed from starred journal reviews and highly touted releases, this time Couri and Silverman will consider 60 books, and they foresee a rich and contentious conversation ahead. “We’re looking forward to being challenged and pushed, and hoping to run some guest or rebuttal posts as well,” says Silverman.

Debuting later this year is Someday’s Mock Printz component, called the Pyrite Printz, in which readers will get the chance to parallel the work of the actual committee, reading all of the shortlist titles and considering them against one another, followed by a vote to determine the winner. Silverman will run a Mock Printz in her own school, sharing her best practices and results along the way.

These teen lit mavens are up to the task before them and are looking forward to the challenge ahead. Couri states, “Our discussions last year were so passionate and really had me thinking. I can’t wait to get going!” Silverman agrees. “It forced me outside my own comfort zone, which makes me a better librarian, and often leads me to wonderful books I might have never read otherwise,” she says.