Today is Medal Day

As many children's librarians already know, today is the day when the winners of the ALA Children's literature awards are announced. The Association of Library Services to Children has responsibility for choosing the award winners through a complex committee system. Each award has its own committee, elected by AlSC members--these committee appointments are among the most cherished assignments in the organization's mandate. Most of the members are children's librarians with several (sometimes many) years of professional experience with a few other professionals such as instructors in LIS schools sometimes included. All year long members read and think about a long list of books recommended by publishers, librarians, and others. It's a joke at ALA conferences that you can pick out the Newbery committee members because they are constantly reading a book, even on the bus shuttles between hotels. At conferences, the committee members meet for long sessions of discussion and voting. Unlike most ALA committees, these meetings are closed. Finally the whole process culminates in the announcements of the awards on the Monday morning of ALA's Midwinter Conference. Today this event occurred in San Diego.

I was lucky enough to attend the award announcements this morning at the Convention Center. In a large, dimly lit ballroom, hundreds of people gathered at 7:00 AM for the announcements. A variety of awards were announced (you can see the complete list at www.ala.org) but the culminating announcement came with the Caldecott and the Newbery Medal winners.

Caldecott Award for the best in illustration went to A SICK DAY FOR AMOS MCGEE illlustrated by Erin E. Stead and published by Roaring Brook Press. The Newbery Medal went to MOON OVER MANIFEST by Clare Vanderpool, published by Delacorte Press. Shouts and cheers arouse from librarians and from the winning publishers' reps in the auditorium. The large TV screens at the front showed the jackets of each winner, and everyone departed to celebrate with coffee and muffins for a good morning's work.

Later this week I'll talk about some of the other award winners.