Awards

Johnsonville Sausage wants to learn about the educators that make your school, town and community a better place to be. If you or a colleague are helping to "create better places to live through actions taken both inside and outside the walls of the classroom," are a U.S. citizen over the age of 18, and are employed in a school or organization that supports education, you're eligible to apply for the 2013 Johnsonville Best of Us award.

Fifth grader Louie Burger figures that with a goofy name like his, he must be destined to be a king of comedy like his idol Lou Lafferman. One huge problem: he has stage fright. With the school talent show coming up, Louie’s wondering if now is his moment to kill (that’s comedian talk for “make actual people laugh”). Four lucky winners will receive a copy of The Barftastic Life of Louie Burger by Jenny Meyerhoff, and one grand prize winner will receive a Barftastic Backpack of Boredom Busters (great for summer reading programs!) filled with joke items including a whoopee cushion, a rubber chicken, Groucho glasses, and more, plus a copy of the book and a T-shirt.

Kathleen Reif, director of St. Mary’s County Library, Leonardtown, MD, is the 2013 recipient of Peggy Sullivan Award for Public Library Administrators Supporting Services to Children. The Sullivan Award, administered by the American Library Association (ALA), is presented annually to an individual in a library administrator role who has shown exceptional understanding and support of public library service to children. The award will be presented at the ALA President's Program, Sunday, June 30, at the Annual Conference in Chicago.

Minnesota author David LaRochelle signs copies of his It's a Tiger! which has been nominated for the first-ever Star of the North Picture Book Award.

New York’s Bank Street Center for Children’s Literature has named Michelle Knudsen’s Big Mean Mike the winner of its Irma Black Award for the best read-aloud picture book for first and second grade and Andrea Menotti’s How Many Jelly Beans? the winner of its Cook Prize for the best picture book that teaches science, technology, engineering, and math principles.

American College of Education is hosting a free massive online open course (MOOC) on digital tools for the K–12 classroom from May 6 to June 9, 2013 for educators and other professionals who want to integrate web-based tools like Animoto, Glogster, Prezi in the classroom. YALSA announced the 2013 Teens’ Top Ten nominees, and American Booksellers Association has selected the 2013 Indies Choice and E. B. White Read-Aloud Award winners.

Winners and honorees of the Ezra Jack Keats New Writer and New Illustrator Award were celebrated at a ceremony earlier this month; Hervé Tullet signs books at a reception for his newest picture book I Am Blop!

The Hans Christian Andersen Award shortlist has been revealed; the Christopher Awards names six winners in the Books for Young People category; and Shmoop, a publisher of digital curriculum and test prep, is offering a new SAT math practice tool—Math Shack. All of this and more in this week's News Bites column.

This year’s nominees for the Will Eisner Comics Industry Awards have been announced, and it’s quite a varied lineup. Last year’s judges (ahem) increased the number of young reader categories from two to three, and this year’s judges have continued that practice, which opens up the nominations to a wider range of books. Best Publication [...]