this year’s Newbery, Caldecott, and more

The biggest U.S. awards for Children’s Lit were awarded yesterday and I am super-happy with the results! Congratulations to all the talented authors and illustrators whose efforts are such a gift to us.

The Newbery is arguably the grand prize, given for “the most distinguished contribution to American literature for children,” and this year it went to not only my favorite book of the year — I’ve been recommending it over and over — but a picture book!

You have to look back over 30 years to see the only other picture book to win the Newbery, and that was a poetry compilation, quite different from this year’s winner: Last Stop on Market Street by Matt De La Peña, illustrated by Christian Robinson.

On top of that, it won a Caldecott Honor and a Coretta Scott King Honor for Illustration.  And an Orange Marmalade Juicy, mind you! WOW. And thoroughly deserved. Read my original review here.

The Caldecott Medal, which is awarded to the artist of the year’s most distinguished picture book, went to an extraordinarily-lovely book, Finding Winnie, illustrated by Sophie Blackall, whose color and line are like velvet in everything she does. I adore this book. Gave it to my daughter for Christmas, as we are fellow Winnie-the-Pooh aficionados. My review of it is here.

Other books I’ve reviewed this year that won top honors are:

Echo — Newbery Honor. My review is here.

Voice of Freedom: Fannie Lou Hamer, Spirit of the Civil Rights Movement — Caldecott Honor. My review for that is coming up on Monday as part of my MLK Day post. It’s stunning! Ekua Holmes also won the Coretta Scott King/John Steptoe New Talent Illustrator Award for her work on this book.

Emmanuel’s Dream: The True Story of Emmanuel Ofosu Yeboah won the Schneider Family Book Award given to books that “embody an artistic expression of the disability experience.” My review is here.

The Wonderful Fluffy Little Squishy won the Mildred L. Batchelder Award, given to most outstanding book translated from a foreign language and published in the U.S. I love looking through the Batchelder lists to find good reads. This one is a total charmer. My review is here.

The Boys Who Challenged Hitler: Knud Pedersen and the Churchill Club won a Sibert Honor. The Sibert award is for most distinguished informational book for children. I just reviewed this fantastic book, here.

Also winning a Sibert Honor is Turning 15 on the Road to Freedom. This book appeared on my Orange Marmalade Juicy lists as well. Fantastic. My original review is here.

And also winning a Sibert Honor is the aforementioned Voice of Freedom, so be sure to stop back on Monday to read about this book and other fabulous Civil Rights reads.

Supertruck, which I reviewed here, won a Theodor Seuss Geisel Honor. These awards honor distinguished books for the beginning reader.

Finally, Symphony for the City of the Dead was a YALSA for Excellence in Nonfiction finalist. This award is given to Young Adult Lit, which I do not much review. But I couldn’t help myself with this monumental book. Read my review of it here.

There are so many other great titles on the ALA awards lists, many of which I’ll be going back to read in the next weeks and months to be sure. You can find all of the awards listed here.