Kid lit awards:

There were also four Honor recipients—fiction: Code Name Verity by Elizabeth Wein (Hyperion); nonfiction: We’ve Got a Job by Cynthia Levinson (Peachtree); picture book text: A Leaf Can Be by Laura Purdie Salas; picture book illustration: Electric Ben (Dial) by Robert Byrd.

Additionally, the Sid Fleischman Award for Humor, named for the late-Newbery winner, went to Mo Willems for Goldilocks and the Three Dinosaurs (HarperCollins). A list of previous Golden Kite Award winners and honor books is also available. The Golden Kite and the Sid Fleischman Awards will be presented August 4 in Los Angeles, CA, at a luncheon during SCBWI’s 42nd Annual Conference on Writing and Illustrating for Children.

More Awards

Horror: The Horror Writers of America (HWA) have announced the Final Ballot for the 2012 Bram Stoker Award. The nominees in the young adult novel category are: Libba Bray’s The Diviners (Little, Brown), I Hunt Killers by Barry Lyga (Little, Brown), Flesh & Bone (S & S) by Jonathan Maberry; Michael McCarty’s I Kissed a Ghoul (Noble Romance), The Raven Boys (Scholastic) by Maggie Stiefvater, and Jeff Strand’s A Bad Day for Voodoo (Sourcebooks).

The Bram Stoker Award is named for the author of Dracula. Since its inception in 1987, the Award has been given for “superior achievement” for books published in the previous year. HWA’s active and lifetime members will vote on these Final Ballot titles, with voting closing on March 31. The awards will be presented during the World Horror Convention, June 13–16 in New Orleans, LA.

Going Digital

Online databases: Gale, part of Cengage Learning, and the Smithsonian Institution have announced a partnership to digitize Smithsonian assets and make them available in online databases for libraries. Cengage will have access to the archives of Smithsonian Magazine and Air and Space magazine as well as collections covering American history, science, world cultures, and more. “We’re elated to be working with the Smithsonian Institution,” said Frank Menchaca, executive vice president, research solutions for Cengage Learning. “This agreement puts us closer to our goal of becoming the largest humanities research experience for the academic library. Through our extensive distribution channels throughout the world, in classrooms as well as in libraries, we’ll put into the hands of students, teachers and researchers, a universe of materials that is structured for research in a way never before possible.”

Video Challenge

Make a difference: Students in middle and high school are urged to take part in the IWitness Video Challenge sponsored by USC Shoah Foundation–The Institute for Visual History and Education, founded by Steven Spielberg after his work on the film Schindler’s List, and “dedicated to making audiovisual interviews with survivors and other witnesses of the Holocaust and other genocides.” The IWitness Video Challenge asks students to do something positive in their community that reflects the movie’s message: that one person can make a difference.

Students can’t enter the challenge on their own—teachers must sign up groups of students or an entire class. After teachers register, kids will have to complete the “IWitness Video Challenge” activity on the IWitness website. The activity asks them to “listen to testimonies of survivors and other witnesses on IWitness, develop insight into the opportunities for change in their community, get motivated to make a difference, and build a video essay telling their story of how they made their community and our world a better place.” Students participating in the Challenge must create a one to four minute video essay using a video editing tool on the IWitness website that allows them to link their voices to those in the archive who inspired their actions.

The teacher of each participating group of students or class must select one winning video that will be entered into a regional competition. Regional winners will then be entered into a national competition. Teachers must sign up their students by June 30, and video essays must be submitted by October 31. The winning student’s video will be screened as part of the Institute’s 20th anniversary activities in Los Angeles in March 2014.

The challenge was announced in conjunction with the Schindler’s List 20th Anniversary Limited Edition Blu-ray version released March 5. The film includes the USC Shoah Foundation story with Steven Spielberg, as well as the documentary Voices from the List, featuring testimonies from Holocaust survivors.

Check Connect the Pop blogger Peter Gutierrez’s interview with Stephen D. Smith, Executive Director of the Shoah Foundation, and Dr. Kori Street, its Director of Education.

You Have to Be in It…

Win a document camera: K–12 educators in the U.S. and the District of Columbia have the chance to win one of four Epson DC-20 document cameras. All they have to do is enter the Epson Document Camera in the Classroom Contest by sharing their top five benefits of using document cameras in the classroom. Entries will be judged on creative use of document cameras, practicality of implementing the idea, and how using the camera impacts student learning. The top four entries will be selected by Epson and they will be highlighted on the Epson document camera website. Educators can submit their entries online between March 15 and May 10. Winners will be announced in June.

The DC-20 document camera is a visual presentation tool that offers a variety of features: PC-free annotation, built-in microphone to record audio with video lessons, application software, microscope adapter, image storage, split-screen function, and camera flexibility.

Scholastic

During the webcast—which will be globally accessible—Baldacci will present some of the most fascinating artifacts in the Smithsonian’s national collections, including the Lewis and Clark compass (which is featured in Baldacci’s 39 Clues book), Abraham Lincoln’s pocket watch, and the original Star-Spangled Banner, the flag that inspired Frances Scott Key to compose our national anthem. Viewers will also “meet” renowned museum curators and explore some of the most mysterious moments in American history.

“I’m thrilled to be part of the joint program between the powerhouse combination of Scholastic and the Smithsonian,” Baldacci says. “History and books, what could be better? Each entertains and educates. And The 39 Clues series and the Smithsonian do both, splendidly.”

Day of Doom will be the sixth and final book in the multi-platform series of books, collectible cards, and an online game that debuted in September 2008 for ages 8-12.

Prolific and bestselling author David Baldacci‘s first book, Absolute Power, was published 1996; he has since written more than 25 novels, plus two titles for young readers in the Freddy and the French Fries series. He was inducted into the International Crime Writing Hall of Fame in 2011.

David Baldacci. Credit: Travis Riggs, Creative Edge Studios.

“Scholastic is honored to have author David Baldacci as part of our groundbreaking and innovative 39 Clues team and we couldn’t be more excited that he has agreed to lead our exclusive webcast,” says Ellie Berger, President, Scholastic Trade. “We are also thrilled to collaborate with the renowned institution, Smithsonian’s National Museum of American History, on this unique and educational virtual tour that will reach countless classrooms and libraries around the globe and is a perfect way to merge history, mystery, and storytelling.”

According to the company, the webcast will help teachers meet the “Speaking & Listening” Common Core Standards for English and Language Arts. There are currently more than 15 million copies in print worldwide of the series and more than 2 million registered users for the online game.

A movie is currently in development with Dreamworks.

Presidential inauguration: “Teaching the 57^th U.S. Presidential Inauguration” is an online conference series being launched by the Smithsonian Center for Education and Museum Studies. Participation is free, and it’s opened to students, teachers, and the general public. According to a recent news release, it will focus on “the historical and contemporary significance of the inauguration ceremonies” and it will offer “context and information for student groups that will be traveling to Washington for inaugural events as well as for classes that will be viewing these activities through various forms of media.”

There are two parts to the conference. On Monday, January 7, 2013 at 4pm EST, there will be a 50 minute teacher preview session during which educators at the Smithsonian will highlight relevant museum resources and discuss teaching strategies to prepare students to participate in the main online conference to be held on Thursday, January 10th starting at 1pm. These three 50-minute sessions will have a Q&A format with Smithsonian curators and a moderator providing information and answering questions sent to them by students.

The website also features a virtual exhibit hall that includes museum website links, interdisciplinary resources, and activities for students to engage in before, during and after the online sessions. Among those resources are a video, “The Curators’ Tour of Inaugurations Past,” and an online exhibition that examines the history of the American presidency, “The American Presidency: A Glorious Burden.” For more information and to register, visit the conference website.

Grammy nominations:  Five children’s music albums were nominated for a 2013 Grammy Award by the Academy of Recording Arts on December 6. The top contenders in the Children’s Album category are Can You Canoe (RedEye Dist.), performed by the Okee Dokee Brothers (childhood friends Joe Mailander and Justin Lansing); Bill Harley’s High Dive and Other Things That Could Have Happened (Round River); the JumpinJazz Kids’s A Swinging Jungle Tale (JumpinJazzKids), narrated by James Murray and featuring Dee Dee Bridgewater, Al Jarreau, Hubert Laws, and various artists; Little Seed: Songs for Children by Woody Guthrie (Smithsonian Folkways), re-imagined renditions of classic Guthrie favorites by Elizabeth Mitchell; and the Pop Ups’s (Brooklyn-based music duo Jason Rabinowitz and Jacob Stein) Radio Jungle (CDBaby.com). The winner will be announced at the awards ceremony on February 10.

Early Childhood Education

A learning initiative: What role should libraries and museums play in early learning? On December 5 leaders from the Institute of Museum and Library Services (IMLS) and the Campaign for Grade Level Reading hosted the first in a series of activities that will become the basis for a policy report that “will lay the foundation for decision makers at the local, state, and federal levels to fully use the capacity of libraries and museums in their early learning efforts.” The report is expected to be released in April 2013.

The meeting included representatives from the Smithsonian Institution, the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, the U.S. Department of Education, the National League of Cities, the National Governors Association, libraries, museums, public and private funders, and others. The topics under discussion included how libraries and museums are expanding early childhood learning in their communities, strategies to engage museums and libraries in early learning decision making, and ways to establish relationships with civic leaders, policy makers, and others to influence libraries and museums to help meet our nation’s early learning challenges.

Libraries and museums reach millions of children each year, and it is exciting to bring that capacity into focus,” said IMLS director Susan Hildreth. “I am delighted that we will be able to tap expertise nationwide so that libraries and museums can more effectively engage in early learning strategies at the community, state, and national level.”

The Campaign for Grade Level Reading is “a collaborative effort by foundations, nonprofit partners, states and communities across the nation to ensure that more children in low-income families succeed in school and graduate prepared for college, a career, and active citizenship. The Campaign focuses on the most important predictor of school success and high school graduation—grade-level reading by the end of third grade.”