And The Medals Go To...

Yesterday marked the American Library Association’s 2011 Youth Media Awards. Many awards were announced, including the prestigious John Newbery Medal (outstanding contribution to children’s literature), Randolph Caldecott Medal (for picture books), the Printz Award (young adult literature) and the Coretta Scott King Book Award (for African-American authors who contribute to children’s/YA literature). The four big winners are as follows (Click images for details)
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Newbery Medal- Moon Over Manifest, Clare Vanderpool
One of the coolest things about this book is that it was written by a DEBUT author!! How awesome would that be--to win the Newbery Medal with your first novel...crazy awesome (though she might feel an eensy-weensy bit of pressure to write an incredible second novel). I'll admit that I'd never heard of this book, but you can be sure it's on my TBR list now!

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Caldecott Medal- A Sick Day for Amos McGee, written by Philip C. Stead and illustrated by Erin E. Stead

Printz Award- Ship Breaker, Paolo Bacigalupi

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Coretta Scott King Award-One Crazy Summer, Rita Williams-Garcia

On the upper right part of my side bar you'll see a link that will allow you to read excerpts of these fantastic books!

(FYI-The 2010 Newbery Medal winner was When You Reach Me by Rebecca Stead)

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OTHER NEWS:

-Middle grade and young adult (among other genres) agent Natalie Fischer is leaving Sandra Dijkstra Literary for Bradford Literary Agency. See an announcement on her blog HERE .
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-The Secret Agent Contest on Miss Snark's First Victim this month will be for middle grade and young adult novels!!! See HERE for early-info details. Entry submission is on Monday, January 17.