This weekend is one of the most exciting and well-awaited weekends in children's books--midwinter ALA (American Library Association). It's a weekend that, in fact, makes me giddy. Why? Well, this weekend in kidlit is akin to the Oscars. All last year, wonderful books were published and the kidlit community of authors, editors, agents, publishers, librarians, teachers and, of course, kids(!) read these wonderful books and speculated which ones would get recognized as standing out for particular merit and distinction. This is the weekend we find out if our horse has won. A sundry of awards will be given this weekend. The most noted being the Newbery, an award typically given to a middle grade title of distinction, the Printz, an award given to a teen title of distinction, the Caldecott, an award given to an illustrator who has illustrated a picture book of distinction and the Pura Belpre and Coretta Scott King awards, which honor authors and illustrators of Latino and African American heritage respectively. These awards are important for a couple of reasons: first, they can often move the dial on sales for a book that may not have received due attention during its first year of publication; second, it's a major recognition by one's peers that you (author, agent and yes editor, and everyone who works so hard, whether in Sales, Marketing, Publicity or Subrights, to bring quality children's books to children) have done good. It's a public and coveted pat on the back and can potentially change lives. You can become a children's books rock star overnight. Recent overnight rock stars include Clare Vanderpool, author of Moon Over Manifest and Rebecca Stead, author of When You Reach Me, both winners of the Newbery. And before John Green's The Fault in Our Stars was a Time magazine Book of the Year, John Green was a Printz Award winner for Looking for Alaska. These awards highlight who are the authors to watch and who are among the leaders in their field.
So every year around this time, kidlit people who have a horse cross their fingers and wish upon a star and hope that when the awards are announced, maybe, just maybe a book we bled, sweat and cried over it might have made enough of an impression for an award committee who reads hundreds of books every year looking for the one, to be the anointed one this year. But even if your horse isn't the anointed, we legitimately are happy for the winners and if we haven't already look forward to reading those recognized and learning from them and utilizing those lessons as we all go forward. It's a time in children's books when you realize just how amazingly generous kidlit people are and how incredibly happy we are doing what we do and how incredibly lucky we feel to be doing it.
If you're already all about children's literature, I don't have to tell you to tune in to watch the hoopla live, so if you're curious about the hoopla and want to find out what makes kidlit peeps so great, tune in 5 days, Jan. 27th at 8amEST, right here: http://live.webcastinc.com/ala/2014/live/ and watch us do our thing live.
And if you want to check out who might be in the running for these prestigious awards, check out the Heavy Medal Blog: http://blogs.slj.com/heavymedal/ and for two really poignant views on what happens when you book doesn't win from two talented kidlit vets, check out Don Tate's recent blog on not winning last year: http://dontate.com/2014/01/medal-worship-how-i-stuck-my-head-in-the-clouds-and-got-crushed/ and Kate Messner's poignant poem, "What Happened to Your Book Today": http://www.katemessner.com/what-happened-to-your-book-today/. And then be sure to join us all on Monday morning as we wait with breath that is bated.
Stacey
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