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Brian Floca’s homage to the locomotive follows the same format as his acclaimed MOONSHOT, presenting a fully involving work textually and visually that becomes a challenge to dissect from a Newbery perspective. The large, square picture book format and long-ish length suits the subject: one family’s trip from Omaha, Nebraska, to Sacramento , CA, by [...]
Back in October, Jonathan posted about The Year of Billy Miller and other beginning chapter books, but we haven’t gone back to look at more of these. What are the other standouts this year…and here I’m casting a very wide net…among those books for beginning readers, from, say the PENNY AND HER MARBLE crowd [...]
Jonathan included Sidman’s WHAT THE HEART KNOWS among his October Nominations, noting that it’s for a slightly older audience than her picture book collections. These mostly free verse poems engage at different levels, and to different audiences. Some of my favorites: “Silly Love Song” (p.61) speaks best to those in the flush of romance, though [...]
A little back and forth about what kind of writing lasts longer got me thinking about this frequently cited non-criteria for the Newbery. Nowhere do the Newbery Criteria say that a winner must be “lasting.” For good reason, I think, as there is really no way to tell, from our relative point of view in time, [...]
While we’re spending some time in the upper age ranges of the Newbery, I wanted to talk about Jack Gantos’ FROM NORVELT TO NOWHERE. Jonathan touched on it in his post Revisting Sequels, where I was tickled to hear him confess he likes it better than the first, since I’ve been toying with that [...]
We broached The Age Question in September when the NBA longlist was announced. Having just finally finished Tom McNeal’s FAR FAR AWAY, I can’t think of a more interesting title to challenge the question. Here we have a ghost narrator who establishes a tone of other-worldliness while setting us firmly in a very normal (-seeming) [...]
The National Book Award Finalists were announced last week; the Longlists cut by half into Shortlists. Among the Young People’s Lit titles that are squarely within Newbery range, TRUE BLUE SCOUTS and THE THING ABOUT LUCK are hanging in there. FLORA & ULYSSES did not make the final round, nor did A TANGLE OF KNOTS or [...]
In SLJ's recent “Common Core and the Public Librarian” one-hour live webcast, Olga Nesi, regional coordinator for the New York City Department of Education, Division of Library Services, and Nina Lindsay, the children’s services coordinator for Oakland (CA) Public Library, discussed the national initiative and, in particular, what it means for public librarians.
As I review the titles that seem to stand out strongly so far… I note a LOT of previous medal winners (Kadohata, Williams-Garcia, Appelt, DiCamillo, Henkes, Spinelli, Choldenko, Vanderpool…), and common favorites (Ursu, Urban, Pennypacker…). This always gives me pause. The committee is able to read broadly enough, they can level that “star” effect, but [...]