notable Notables

Thanks goodness for the ALA Notables list--it's a great consolation when favorite titles find a home there.  I do wish the Notables didn't have to include all of the other ALA award winners and honor books; it seems redundant.  Fortunately, they also include books by international authors and illustrators (which are not eligible for the Newbery or Caldecott), so April and Esme, Tooth Fairies by Bob Graham (Candlewick) is on the list, as well as The Quiet Book by Deborah Underwood (illustrated by Renata Liwska; Houghton Mifflin), and, in the Older Readers category, Fever Crumb by Philip Reeve (Scholastic).

Other notable Notables I haven't mentioned elsewhere (there were lots in my Caldecott Hopefuls post!): Rubia and the Three Osos by Susan Middleton Elya, illustrated by Melissa Sweet (Hyperion); and Mirror, Mirror: A Book of Reversible Verse by Marilyn Singer, illustrated by Josee Masse (Dutton).

Which of these should I review first?  (Yes, I'm still reviewing 2010 titles.  It's a copyright date, not an expiration date!)

Interrupting Chicken with happy surprises

There were some favorite books and happy surprises for me among the ALA Award winners on Monday.  The best was David Ezra Stein's Caldecott Honor for Interrupting Chicken (Candlewick).  It was on my list!  It was my six-year-old daughter Milly's most favorite book last year, too.  According to the copyright page, the illustrations were done in a unique combination of watercolor, water-soluble crayon, china marker, pen, opaque white ink, and tea.  They results are gorgeous--the glowing colors and painterly technique used for the little red chicken and her Papa in the main story contrast beautifully with the more old-fashioned looking pen drawings used for the stories-within-the-story (Hansel and Gretel, Little Red Riding Hood, and Chicken Little).  And then there's Bedtime for Papa, illustrated by the little red chicken herself (she seems to use only crayon).  A classic.

I was also happy to see Margarita Engle recognized with a Pura Belpre Author Honor for The Firefly Letters: A Suffragette's Journey to Cuba.  This is my favorite of Engle's verse novels (so far); I wrote about it here, quoting a passage about the Santa Lucia celebration in Sweden and its connection to the fireflies in the title (and on the cover).  Engle's Hurricane Dancers: The First Caribbean Pirate Shipwreck (Henry Holt) will be out in March.

And finally, Tomie dePaola won the Laura Ingalls Wilder Award for his "substantial and lasting contribution to children's literature."  I love Tomie de Paola, especially at Christmastime (it's his favorite holiday, too!), and was already happy that last year's Joy to the World: Tomie's Christmas Stories (Putnam Juvenile) includes The Story of the Three Wise Kings, which has long been out of print.  Now if only Pages of Music (written by Tony Johnston, illustrated by Tomie) and An Early American Christmas were in there, it would be perfect.

What were your happy surprises on the ALA Awards list?  Or (unhappily)...off of it?  I have some of those, too.

Turtle in Paradise

We read, or rather listened to, Jennifer L. Holm's Turtle in Paradise (Random House, 2010) under the best possible circumstances--while driving to the Keys (that would be Paradise) during last year's summer vacation--so I have fond memories of it and was very happy (if also a little surprised) to see it get a Newbery Honor.  Turtle in Paradise is in some ways a typical Newbery pick, at least this year: it's historical fiction; it's about a girl (that would be Turtle); she's sent away to live with relatives in a new and unfamiliar place.  That describes three of the five Newbery books this year (including the winner).  Narrow the historical part down to the Great Depression and you still have two (including this one and the winner).

Which is not to say that Turtle isn't a worthy pick: I happen to know a carful of people who liked it lots!  I checked it out of the library and reread it as soon as we got home even, and my only complaint was that the ending felt a little rushed (I was afraid I might have drifted off and missed something, actually).  But it was always funny, sour and sweet like a Key West cut-up, a great summer read or read-aloud.

Like Penny from Heaven and Our Only May Amelia, Holm's other Newbery Honor books, Turtle in Paradise was inspired by family history; and the Author's Note includes family photographs (I love these) as well as a testimonial to the effectiveness of a certain diaper-rash formula--Holm uses it on her own babies' bungies.

[In other news for fans of Jennifer Holm, a sequel to Our Only May Amelia at last!  The Trouble with May Amelia (Atheneum) will be out in April.]

My ALA Awards reaction post

Surprise! I didn't watch the webcast (being somewhere over the North Atlantic at the time), so I can't confirm whether or not someone actually jumped out from behind a couch to announce the winner of this year's Newbery Medal, debut author Clare Vanderpool for Moon over Manifest (Delacorte), but he or she may as well have. I haven't even read it yet!  The Caldecott Medal likewise went to debut illustrator Erin Stead for A Sick Day for Amos McGee (written by her husband, Philip Christian Stead; Roaring Brook). I haven't read that one either! They're both on my hold list now, though.  Congratulations all around!

 
More reactions and reviews to come!  It's good to be home.