The Society of Children's Book Writers and Illustrators (SCBWI) announced the winners and honorees of the 2007 Golden Kite Awards last week (I heard the news via cynsations). The Golden Kite Awards are the only children's literary awards that are essentially peer-reviewed: the winner of the Fiction award is chosen by a panel of fiction writers, etc. (kind of like the SAG Awards for children's books). Another interesting thing about the Golden Kites is that, for the purposes of the awards, they separate Picture Book Text from Picture Book Illustration. How do they do that?
Some of my favorite books of 2007 were runners-up for a Golden Kite this year. I loved Lauren Tarshis's portrayal of average girl Colleen Pomerantz (if Colleen had a superpower, she would want it to be Not Caring) in the middle-grade novel Emma-Jean Lazarus Fell Out of a Tree (Penguin, 2007). And I wrote a review of The End by David LaRochelle, who was a runner-up for Picture Book Text.
Oh, and the winners look good, too! You can see them all here.