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2007 ALA Awards
And The Winners Are...
• Michael L. Printz Award
• Robert F. Sibert Book Award
• Coretta Scott King Award
• Alex Awards
• Margaret A. Edwards
Award
• Schneider Family Book
Award
The American Library Association (ALA), the oldest and largest library association in the world, has announced its 2007 awards, honoring the best books published in 2006. And we have them all for you right here!
Curious
about the ALA and its awards? Here's a little background...
2000 marked the debut of the Michael L. Printz Award, which
was established to recognize a book that "exemplifies literary excellence in young
adult literature," according to the Young Adult Library Services Association division
of the American Library Association. The Award is named for Michael L. Printz,
a former school librarian at Topeka West High School in Kansas. Throughout his
career he was a respected colleague and teacher, and an active and dedicated member
of YALSA. He passed away in 1996. The Printz winner and up to four honor books
(or runners up) are chosen annually by a committee of nine YALSA members.
The Robert F. Sibert Award, established by the Association
for Library Service to Children in 2001, is awarded annually to the author of
the most distinguished informational book published in English during the preceding
year. The award is named in honor of Robert F. Sibert, the long-time President
of Bound to Stay Bound Books, Inc. of Jacksonville, Illinois, and is sponsored
by the company.
The Coretta Scott King Award is given to an African American
author and an African American illustrator for an outstandingly inspirational
and educational contribution. The books promote understanding and appreciation
of the culture of all peoples and their contribution to the realization of the
American dream. The Award is further designed to commemorate the life and works
of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. and to honor Mrs. Coretta Scott King for her courage
and determination to continue the work for peace and world brotherhood.
The Alex Awards were created to recognize that many teens
enjoy and often prefer books written for adults, and to assist librarians in recommending
adult books that appeal to teens. The award is named in honor of the late Margaret
Alexander Edwards. Nicknamed "Alex," this young adult specialist at the Enoch
Pratt Free Library in Baltimore, Maryland firmly believed that adult books are
as beneficial toward enhancing and enriching the minds of young adults as designated
"teen books" are.
The Margaret A. Edwards Award, established in 1988, honors
an author's lifetime achievement for writing books that have been popular over
a period of time. It recognizes an author's work in helping adolescents become
aware of themselves and addressing questions about their role and importance in
relationships, society, and in the world.
The Schneider Family Book Award, donated by Katherine Schneider,
Ph.D., honors an author or illustrator for a book that embodies an artistic expression
of the disability experience for child and adolescent audiences. The book must
portray some aspect of living with a disability or that of a friend or family
member, whether the disability is physical, mental or emotional. Recipients are
selected in three categories: birth through grade school (ages 0-10), middle school
(ages 11-13), and teens (ages 13-18).
Congratulations to HATTIE BIG SKY by Kirby Larson, which was selected as a 2007 Newbery Honor book. Click here for details about this year's Newbery Medal recipient and additional Honor Books.
2007 Michael L. Printz Winner
 AMERICAN BORN CHINESE
Gene Luen Yang
First Second/Roaring Brook Press
ISBN-10: 1596431520
ISBN-13: 9781596431522
Ages 12-up
240 pages
September 2006
• Click here to buy from Amazon.com
When Jin Wang's family moves to a new neighborhood, he suddenly finds that he's the only Chinese-American student at his school. Jocks and bullies pick on him constantly, and he has hardly any friends. Then, to make matters worse, he falls in love with an all-American girl...
Born to rule over all the monkeys in the world, the story of the Monkey King is one of the oldest and greatest Chinese fables. Adored by his subjects, master of the arts of kung-fu, he is the most powerful monkey on earth. But the Monkey King doesn't want to be a monkey. He wants to be hailed as a god...
Chin-Kee is the ultimate negative Chinese stereotype, and he's ruining his cousin Danny's life. Danny is a basketball player, a popular kid at school, but every year Chin-Kee comes to visit, and every year Danny has to transfer to a new school to escape the shame. This year, though, things quickly go from bad to worse...
These apparently unrelated tales come together with an unexpected twist, in a modern fable that is hilarious, poignant and action-packed. AMERICAN BORN CHINESE is the first graphic novel to be recognized by the Printz committee.
2007 Michael L. Printz Honors
 AN ABUNDANCE OF KATHERINES
John Green
Dutton
ISBN-10: 0525476881
ISBN-13: 9780525476887
Ages 14-up
256 pages
September 2006
• Read a Review
• Read an Excerpt
• Author Interview
• Click here to buy from Amazon.com
When it comes to relationships, Colin Singleton's type happens to be girls named Katherine. And when it comes to girls named Katherine, Colin is always getting dumped. Nineteen times, to be exact. He's also a washed-up child prodigy with $10,000 dollars in his pocket, a passion for anagrams, and an overweight, Judge Judy-obsessed best friend. Colin is on a mission to prove The Theorem of Underlying Katherine Predictability, which will predict the future of all relationships, transform him from a fading prodigy into a true genius, and finally win him the girl.
 THE ASTONISHING LIFE OF OCTAVIAN NOTHING, TRAITOR TO THE NATION - Volume 1: The Pox Party
M.T. Anderson
Candlewick Press
ISBN-10: 0763624020
ISBN-13: 9780763624026
Ages 14-up
368 pages
September 2006
• Read a Review
• Click here to buy from Amazon.com
It sounds like a fairy tale. He is a boy dressed in silks and white wigs and given the finest of classical educations. Raised by a group of rational philosophers known only by numbers, the boy and his mother --- a princess in exile from a faraway land --- are the only ones in their household who are assigned names. As the boy's regal mother, Cassiopeia, entertains the house scholars with her beauty and wit, young Octavian begins to question the purpose behind his guardians' fanatical studies. Only after he dares to open a forbidden door does he learn the hideous nature of their experiments --- and his own chilling role in them.
 THE BOOK THIEF
Markus Zusak
Knopf
ISBN-10: 0375831002
ISBN-13: 9780375831003
Ages 12-up
512 pages
March 2006
• Read a Review
• Click here to buy from Amazon.com
Set during World War II in Germany, young Liesel Meminger, who lives outside of Munich, scratches out a meager existence for herself by stealing when she encounters something she can't resist --- books. With the help of her accordion-playing foster father, she learns to read and shares her stolen books with her neighbors during bombing raids as well as with the Jewish man hidden in her basement before he is marched to Dachau.
 SURRENDER
Sonya Hartnett
Candlewick Press
ISBN-10: 0763627682
ISBN-13: 9780763627683
Ages 14-up
256 pages
February 2006
• Read a Review
• Click here to buy from Amazon.com
As life slips away, Gabriel looks back over his brief 20 years, which have been clouded by frustration and humiliation. A small, unforgiving town and distant, punitive parents ensure that he is never allowed to forget the horrific mistake he made as a child. He has only two friends --- his dog, Surrender, and the unruly wild boy, Finnigan, a shadowy doppelganger with whom the meek Gabriel once made a boyhood pact. But when a series of arson attacks grips the town, Gabriel realizes how unpredictable and dangerous Finnigan is. As events begin to spiral violently out of control, it becomes devastatingly clear that only the most extreme measures will rid Gabriel of Finnigan for good.
• Past Winners: 2006, 2005, 2004, 2003, 2001
2007 Robert F. Sibert Winner
 TEAM MOON: How 400,000 People Landed Apollo 11 on the Moon
Catherine Thimmesh
Houghton Mifflin
ISBN-10: 0618507574
ISBN-13: 9780618507573
Ages 10-up
80 pages
June 2006
• Click here to buy from Amazon.com
Here is a rare perspective on a story we only thought we knew. For Apollo 11, the first moon landing, is a story that belongs to many, not just the few and famous. It belongs to the seamstress who put together 22 layers of fabric for each space suit. To the engineers who created a special heat shield to protect the capsule during its fiery reentry. It belongs to the flight directors, camera designers, software experts, suit testers, telescope crew, aerospace technicians, photo developers, engineers and navigators. Gathering direct quotes from some of these folks who worked behind the scenes, Catherine Thimmesh reveals their very human worries and concerns.
2007 Robert F. Sibert Honors
 FREEDOM RIDERS: John Lewis and Jim Zwerg on the Front Lines of the Civil Rights Movement
Ann Bausum
National Geographic
ISBN-10: 0792241738
ISBN-13: 9780792241737
Ages 10-14
80 pages
December 2005
• Click here to buy from Amazon.com
FREEDOM RIDERS compares and contrasts the childhoods of John Lewis and James Zwerg in a way that helps young readers understand the segregated experience of our nation's past. It shows how a common interest in justice created the convergent path that enabled these young men to meet as Freedom Riders on a bus journey south.
 QUEST FOR THE TREE KANGAROO: An Expedition to the Cloud Forest of New Guinea
written by Sy Montgomery
photographs by Nic Bishop
Houghton Mifflin
ISBN-10: 0618496416
ISBN-13: 9780618496419
Ages 10-14
80 pages
October 2006
• Click here to buy from Amazon.com
It looks like a bear, but isn't one. It climbs trees as easily as a monkey, but isn't a monkey, either. It has a belly pocket like a kangaroo, but what's a kangaroo doing up a tree? Meet the amazing Matschie's tree kangaroo, who makes its home in the ancient trees of Papua New Guinea's cloud forest. And meet the amazing scientists who track these elusive animals.
 TO DANCE: A Ballerina's Graphic Novel
written by Siena Cherson Siegel
illustrated by Mark Siegel
Atheneum/Richard Jackson Books
ISBN-10: 0689867476
ISBN-13: 9780689867477
Ages 8-14
64 pages
September 2006
• Click here to buy from Amazon.com
Dancers are young when they first dream of dance. Siena was six --- and her dreams kept skipping and leaping, circling and spinning, from airy runs along a beach near her home in Puerto Rico, to dance class in Boston, to her debut performance on stage with the New York City Ballet. TO DANCE tells and shows the fullness of her dreams and her rhapsodic life they led to.
• Past Winners: 2006, 2005, 2004, 2003
2007 Coretta Scott King Author Winner
 COPPER SUN
Sharon M. Draper
Atheneum
ISBN-10: 0689821816
ISBN-13: 9780689821813
Ages 14-up
320 pages
January 2006
• Read a Review
• Click here to buy from Amazon.com
When slave traders invade Amari's village, her whole world is destroyed in minutes. Her family is massacred, her village is burned to the ground, and Amari is dragged to a slave ship and sent to the Carolinas. She is sold to Mr. Derby, who gives her to his son Clay as his "birthday present." Now, survival and escape are all she dreams about. So when an opportunity presents itself, Amari and her friend Polly decide to work together to obtain their freedom.
2007 Coretta Scott King Author Honors
 THE ROAD TO PARIS
Nikki Grimes
G. P. Putnam's Sons
ISBN-10: 0399245375
ISBN-13: 9780399245374
Ages 8-12
160 pages
October 2006
• Read a Review
• Click here to buy from Amazon.com
Nine-year-old Paris (who's half black) has just moved in with the Lincoln family, and isn't thrilled to be in yet another foster home. She has a tough time trusting people and misses her brother, who's been sent to a boys' home. No matter how hard she tries to fit in, she can't ignore the feeling that she never will, especially in a town that's mostly white. It isn't long before Paris has a big decision to make about where she truly belongs.
2007 Coretta Scott King Illustrator Winner
 MOSES: When Harriet Tubman Led Her People to Freedom
written by Carole Boston Weatherford
illustrated by Kadir Nelson
Jump at the Sun/Hyperion
ISBN-10: 0786851759
ISBN-13: 9780786851751
Ages 5-8
48 pages
September 2006
• Click here to buy from Amazon.com
In lyrical text, Carole Boston Weatherford describes Harriet Tubman's spiritual journey as she hears the voice of God guiding her North to freedom on that very first trip to escape the brutal practice of forced servitude. Tubman, courageous and compassionate, and deeply religious, would take 19 subsequent trips back South, never being caught, but none as profound as this first. Harriet Tubman's bravery and relentless pursuit of freedom are a testament to the resilience of the human spirit.
2007 Coretta Scott King Illustrator Honors
 JAZZ
written by Walter Dean Myers
illustrated by Christopher Myers
Holiday House
ISBN-10: 0823415457
ISBN-13: 9780823415458
All ages
48 pages
September 2006
• Click here to buy from Amazon.com
From bebop to New Orleans, from ragtime to boogie, and every style in between, this collection of Walter Dean Myers's energetic and engaging poems, accompanied by Christopher Myers's bright and exhilarating paintings, celebrates different styles of the American art form, jazz. JAZZ takes readers on a musical journey from jazz's beginnings to the present day, complete with a timeline and glossary.
 POETRY FOR YOUNG PEOPLE: LANGSTON HUGHES
edited by David Roessel and Arnold Rampersad
illustrated by Benny Andrews
Sterling
ISBN-10: 1402718454
ISBN-13: 9781402718458
Ages 8-up
48 pages
April 2006
• Click here to buy from Amazon.com
One of the central figures in the Harlem Renaissance --- the flowering of black culture that took place in the 1920s and 30s --- Langston Hughes captured the soul of his people, and gave voice to their concerns about race and social justice. His magnificent and powerful words still resonate today: that's why it's so important for young people to have access to his poems. Now they do, in a splendid volume edited by David Roessel and Arnold Rampersad (leading experts on Hughes's work) and illustrated by the brilliant Benny Andrews.
2007 Coretta Scott King/John Steptoe New Author Talent Award
 STANDING AGAINST THE WIND
Traci L. Jones
Farrar, Straus & Giroux
ISBN-10: 0374371741
ISBN-13: 9780374371746
Ages 12-up
192 pages
September 2006
• Click here to buy from Amazon.com
Patrice Williams was happy living in Georgia with her grandmother, who called her "cocoa grandbaby." Then her mother lured her to Chicago and ended up in jail. Now Patrice lives with her Auntie Mae, and her new nickname is "Puffy" --- thanks to her giant poof of hair. But Patrice's hair isn't the only reason she sticks out: she cares about her grades and strives for the best. That's why Monty Freeman, another eighth grader who lives in the building, asks Patrice to tutor his little brother. Even though Monty's friends make Patrice uneasy, Monty himself is friendly, confident and surprisingly smart. When he becomes her guardian angel, Patrice begins to think something stronger than friendship might be growing between them.
• Past Winners: 2006, 2005, 2004, 2003, 2002, 2001
The 2007 Alex Awards
 BLACK SWAN GREEN
David Mitchell
Random House
ISBN-10: 1400063795
ISBN-13: 9781400063796
April 2006
• Read a Review
• Click here to buy from Amazon.com
A true gem that must be read and cherished for its wit and insight, BLACK SWAN GREEN chronicles thirteen months in the life of 13-year-old Jason Taylor --- each chapter mirrors each of the thirteen months during the time in which the novel takes place --- told from his perspective and at his own meandering pace.
 THE BLIND SIDE: Evolution of a Game
Michael Lewis
W. W. Norton
ISBN-10: 039306123X
ISBN-13: 9780393061239
September 2006
• Click here to buy from Amazon.com
The young man at the center of this extraordinary and moving story will one day be among the most highly paid athletes in the National Football League. When we first meet him, he is one of 13 children by a mother addicted to crack; he does not know his real name, his father, his birthday, or any of the things a child might learn in school --- such as, say, how to read or write. Nor has he ever touched a football.
 THE BOOK OF LOST THINGS
John Connolly
Atria
ISBN-10: 0743298853
ISBN-13: 9780743298858
November 2006
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• Click here to buy from Amazon.com
New York Times bestselling author John Connolly takes his writing in an entirely new and imaginative direction with THE BOOK OF LOST THINGS, a rich, reflective exploration of children's fantasy worlds that is no less thrilling than Connolly's previous works.
 COLOR OF THE SEA
John Hamamura
Thomas Dunne Books
ISBN-10: 0312340737
ISBN-13: 9780312340735
April 2006
• Click here to buy from Amazon.com
Growing up on a Hawaiian plantation with other Japanese-Americans in the 1930s, young Sam Hamada trains in the martial arts of his native Japan. In California, he meets his extended family, and the beautiful Keiko. But as Sam and Keiko's love blooms, she is forced to return to Japan and Sam's family and friends have been interred in camps throughout the U.S. Sam's knowledge of Japanese sparks the U.S. Army's interest, and he is sent on a secret military mission to Japan where he is truly caught between cultures.
 EAGLE BLUE: A Team, A Tribe, and A High School Basketball Season in Arctic Alaska
Michael D'Orso
Bloomsbury USA
ISBN-10: 1582346232
ISBN-13: 9781582346236
March 2006
• Click here to buy from Amazon.com
EAGLE BLUE follows the Fort Yukon Eagles, winners of six regional championships in a row, through the course of an entire 28-game season, from their first day of practice in late November to the Alaska State Championship Tournament in March. With insight, frankness and compassion, Michael D'Orso climbs into the lives of these 14 high school boys, their families and their coach..
 THE FLOOR OF THE SKY
Pamela Carter Joern
Bison Books/University of Nebraska Press
ISBN-10: 0803276311
ISBN-13: 9780803276314
September 2006
• Click here to buy from Amazon.com
Toby Jenkins, an aging widow, is on the verge of losing her family's ranch when her granddaughter Lila --- a city girl, 16 and pregnant --- shows up for the summer. While facing painful decisions about her future, Lila uncovers festering secrets about her grandmother's past --- discoveries that spur Toby to reconsider the ambiguous ties she holds to her embittered sister Gertie, her loyal ranch hand George, her not-so-sympathetic daughter Nola Jean, and ultimately, herself.
 THE THIRTEENTH TALE
Diane Setterfield
Atria Books
ISBN-10: 0743298020
ISBN-13: 9780743298025
September 2006
• Read a Review
• Author Talk
• Click here to buy from Amazon.com
In a plot lush with rich characters and myriad twists, Diane Setterfield weaves together a tale of twins and ghosts when an aging bestselling author invites an obscure biographer to her creepy old home to write the true story of her life. Is it the house that's keeping secrets, or is the old woman still holding something back?
 WATER FOR ELEPHANTS
Sara Gruen
Algonquin Books
ISBN-10: 1565124995
ISBN-13: 9781565124998
May 2006
• Read a Review
• Author Talk
• Reading Group Guide
• Click here to buy from Amazon.com
Sara Gruen weaves an evocative and compelling tale of the frenzied, lawless and cruelly beautiful world of the Depression-era traveling circus. From the striking first scene to the unexpected ending, WATER FOR ELEPHANTS will have readers mesmerized.
 THE WHISTLING SEASON
Ivan Doig
Harcourt
ISBN-10: 0151012377
ISBN-13: 9780151012374
June 2006
• Read a Review
• Click here to buy from Amazon.com
In the fall of 1909, the widower Oliver Milliron places an ad in the newspaper offering the services of an "A-1 housekeeper, sound morals, exceptional disposition." The widow Rose Llewellyn applies with the statement "Can't cook but doesn't bite," and shockingly is hired anyway.
 THE WORLD MADE STRAIGHT
Ron Rash
Henry Holt & Company
ISBN-10: 0805078665
ISBN-13: 9780805078664
April 2006
• Click here to buy from Amazon.com
Travis Shelton moves out of his parents' home to live with Leonard Shuler, a one-time schoolteacher who lost his job and custody of his daughter years ago, when he was framed by a vindictive student. Now Leonard lives with his dogs and his sometime girlfriend in a run-down trailer outside town, deals a few drugs and studies journals from the Civil War. Travis becomes his student, of sorts, and the fate of these two outsiders becomes increasingly entwined as the community's terrible past and corrupt present bear down on each of them from every direction.
• Past Winners: 2006, 2005
The 2007 Margaret A. Edwards Award
 On January 22nd, at the 2007 Midwinter Meeting of the American Library Association (ALA) held in Seattle, Lois Lowry received this year's Margaret A. Edwards Award for her outstanding lifetime contribution to writing for teens. Lowry is the author of THE GIVER, which explores a future where differences have been erased and strict rules govern society. Published more than 20 years ago, this complex novel continues to provide a mechanism for teens to understand themselves, the world in which they live and their relationships with others and with society.
Lowry will be honored at the YALSA Awards Luncheon and presented with a citation and cash prize of $2,000 on June 23, 2007, as part of the 2007 ALA Annual Conference in Washington, D.C.
2007 Schneider Family Picture Book Winner
 THE DEAF MUSICIANS
written by Pete Seeger and Paul Dubois Jacobs
illustrated by R. Gregory Christie
G.P. Putnam's Sons
ISBN-10: 039924316X
ISBN-13: 9780399243165
Ages 3-5
32 pages
October 2006
• Click here to buy from Amazon.com
Poor Lee! He used to be a jazzman who could make the piano go yimbatimba- TANG-zang-zang. But now he's lost his hearing, and the bandleader had to let him go. So Lee goes to a school for the deaf to learn sign language. There, he meets Max, who used to play the sax. Riding the subway to class, they start signing about all the songs they love. A bass player named Rose joins in and soon they have a little sign language band. And in no time they're performing for audiences in the subway, night after night.
2007 Schneider Family Middle School Award Winner
 RULES
Cynthia Lord
Scholastic Press
ISBN-10: 0439443822
ISBN-13: 978-0439443821
Ages 9-12
208 pages
April 2006
• Click here to buy from Amazon.com
Twelve-year-old Catherine just wants a normal life --- which is nearly impossible when you have a brother with autism and a family that revolves around his disability. She has spent years trying to teach David the rules --- from "a peach is not a funny-looking apple" to "keep your pants on in public" --- in order to stop his embarrassing behaviors. But the summer Catherine meets Jason, a paraplegic boy, and Kristi, the next-door friend she's always wished for, it's her own shocking behavior that turns everything upside down and forces her to ask: What is normal?
2007 Schneider Family Teen Award Winner
 SMALL STEPS
Louis Sachar
Delacorte Press
ISBN-10: 0385733143
ISBN-13: 9780385733144
Ages 10-up
272 pages
January 2006
• Read a Review
• Click here to buy from Amazon.com
In Louis Sachar's highly anticipated follow-up to HOLES, we find Theodore "Armpit" Johnson at home in Austin, Texas. He is trying to turn his life around, two years after being released from Camp Green Lake. The only person who believes in him is Ginny, his 10-year-old disabled neighbor; together, they are learning to take small steps. And he seems to be on the right path, until X-Ray, an acquaintance from Camp Green Lake, comes up with a get-rich-quick scheme. This leads to a chance encounter with teen pop sensation Kaira DeLeon, and suddenly his life spins out of control. Only one thing is for certain --- Armpit will never be the same again.
• Past Winners: 2006, 2005
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