BCCB--2011 Award Winners

Seal Image

The Bulletin of the Center for Children's Books:
2011 Children's Book Awards

The Newbery Medal will be awarded to Clare Vanderpool for Moon over Manifest (Delacorte). Four Newbery Honor Books also were named: Turtle in Paradise by Jennifer L. Holm (Random House); Heart of a Samurai by Margi Preus (Amulet/Abrams); Dark Emperor and Other Poems of the Night, written by Joyce Sidman, illustrated by Rick Allen (Houghton); and One Crazy Summer by Rita Williams-Garcia (Amistad/HarperCollins).
The Caldecott Medal will be awarded to illustrator Erin C. Stead for A Sick Day for Amos, written by Philip C. Stead (Porter/Roaring Brook). Two Caldecott Honor Books were also named: Dave the Potter: Artist, Poet, Slave, illustrated by Bryan Collier, written by Laban Carrick Hill (Little, Brown); and Interrupting Chicken, written and illustrated by David Ezra Stein (Candlewick).
The Coretta Scott King Book Award for writing goes to Rita Williams-Garcia for One Crazy Summer (Amistad/HarperCollins). Three King Author Honor Books were selected: Lockdown by Walter Dean Myers (HarperTeen); Ninth Ward by Jewell Parker Rhodes (Little, Brown); and Yummy: The Last Days of a Southside Shorty, written by G. Neri, illustrated by Randy DuBurke (Lee & Low). The Coretta Scott King/John Steptoe New Talent Award for writing went to Zora and Me, written by Victoria Bond and T. R. Simon (Candlewick). The Coretta Scott King Book Award for illustration goes to Bryan Collier for Dave the Potter: Artist, Poet, Slave, written by Laban Carrick Hill (Little, Brown). One King Illustrator Honor Book was selected: Jimi Sounds Like a Rainbow: A Story of the Young Jimi Hendrix, illustrated by Javaka Steptoe, written by Gary Golio (Clarion). The Coretta Scott King/John Steptoe New Talent Award for illustration goes to Seeds of Change, illustrated by Sonia Lynn Sadler, written by Jen Cullerton Johnson (Lee & Low). Dr. Henrietta Mays Smith is the winner of the Coretta Scott King—Virginia Hamilton Practitioner Award for Lifetime Achievement.

The Pura Belpré Award for writing goes to Pam Muñoz Ryan for The Dreamer, illustrated by Peter Sís (Scholastic). Three Belpré Author Honor Books were named: ¡Ole! Flamenco, written and illustrated by George Ancona (Lee & Low); The Firefly Letters: A Suffragette’s Journey to Cuba, written by Margarita Engle (Holt); and 90 Miles to Havana, written by Enrique Flores-Galbis (Roaring Brook). The Pura Belpré Award for illustration goes to Eric Velasquez for Grandma’s Gift (Walker). Three Belpré Illustrator Honor Books were selected: Fiesta Babies, illustrated by Amy Cordova, written by Carmen Tafolla (Tricycle); Me, Frida, illustrated by David Diaz, written by Amy Novesky (Abrams); and Dear Primo: A Letter to My Cousin, illustrated and written by Duncan Tonatiuh (Abrams).

The American publisher receiving the Mildred L. Batchelder Award for the most outstanding translation of a book originally published in a foreign language is Delacorte Press for Anne-Laure Bondoux’s A Time of Miracles, translated from the French by Y. Maudet. Two Batchelder Honor Books also were selected: Departure Time, written by Truus Matti, translated by Nancy Forest-Flier (Namelos); and Nothing, written by Janne Teller, translated by Martin Aitken (Atheneum).
The Michael L. Printz Award for excellence in literature written for young adults goes to Paolo Bacigalupi for Ship Breaker (Little, Brown). Four Printz Honor Books also were named: Stolen by Lucy Christopher (Chicken House/Scholastic); Please Ignore Vera Dietz, by A. S. King (Knopf); Revolver, by Marcus Sedgwick (Roaring Brook); and Nothing by Janne Teller (Atheneum).
The Robert F. Sibert Medal for most distinguished informational book for children goes to Kakapo Rescue: Saving the World’s Strangest Parrot, written by Sy Montgomery, illustrated with photographs by Nic Bishop (Houghton). Two Sibert Honor Books were named: Ballet for Martha: Making Appalachian Spring, written by Jan Greenberg and Sandra Jordan, illustrated by Brian Floca (Flash Point/Roaring Brook); and Lafayette and the American Revolution, written by Russell Freedman (Holiday House).

The Theodor Seuss Geisel Award for most distinguished beginning reader book goes to Bink and Gollie, written by Kate DiCamillo and Alison McGhee, illustrated by Tony Fucile (Candlewick). Two Geisel Honor Books were named: Ling & Ting: Not Exactly the Same! written and illustrated by Grace Lin (Little, Brown); and We Are in a Book! written and illustrated by Mo Willems (Hyperion).
The Schneider Family Book Award for books that embody an artistic expression of the disability experience goes to The Pirate of Kindergarten, written by George Ella Lyon, illustrated by Lynne Avril (Jackson/Atheneum), in the category for young children. After Ever After, by Jordan Sonnenblick (Scholastic), is the winner of the middle school category. The winner of the teen category is Five Flavors of Dumb by Antony John (Dial).
The first-ever Stonewall Children’s and Young Adult Literature Award, for children’s and young adult books of exceptional merit relating to the gay, lesbian, bisexual, and transgendered experience, was given to Almost Perfect by Brian Katcher (Delacorte). Four honor books were selected: Will Grayson, Will Grayson by John Green and David Levithan (Dutton); Love Drugged by James Klise (Flux/Llewellyn); Freaks and Revelations by Davida Willis Hurwin (Little, Brown); and The Boy in the Dress by David Walliams, illustrated by Quentin Blake (Razorbill).
The Andrew Carnegie Medal for excellence in children's video goes to Paul R. Gagne and Melissa Reilly Ellard of Weston Woods, producers of The Curious Garden. The video is based on the book of the same name, written and illustrated by Peter Brown, and is narrated by Katherine Kellgren, with music by David Mansfield.
The Odyssey Award for excellence in audiobook production goes to Listening Library, an imprint of Random House, for the audiobook The True Meaning of Smekday. The book was written by Adam Rex and narrated by Bahni Turpin. Four Odyssey Honor Recordings were also selected: Alchemy and Meggy Swann, produced by Listening Library, Karen Cushman and narrated by Katherine Kellgren; The Knife of Never Letting Go, produced by Brilliance Audio, written by Patrick Ness, and narrated by Nick Podehl; Revolution, produced by Listening Library, written by Jennifer Donnelly, and narrated by Amily Janice Card and Emma Bering; and Will Grayson, Will Grayson, produced by Brilliance Audio, written by John Green and David Levithan, and narrated by MacLeod Andrews and Nick Podehl.
The 2011 May Hill Arbuthnot Honor Lecture will be delivered by Peter Sís, whose 2007 book The Wall: Growing Up Behind the Iron Curtain (Foster/Farrar), an autobiographical account of a childhood spent struggling for artistic freedom in Communist Czechoslovakia, won the Sibert Medal and was also recognized as a Caldecott Honor Book. Sís was named a MacArthur Fellow in 2003.
The Margaret A. Edwards Award for lifetime achievement in writing for young adults goes to Terry Pratchett. His books, all published by HarperCollins Children’s Books, include: Nation; The Wee Free Men, A Hat Full of Sky, Wintersmith, and I Shall Wear Midnight in the Tiffany Aching/Discworld series; the Johnny Maxwell Trilogy (Only You Can Save Mankind; Johnny and the Dead; and Johnny and the Bomb); and The Amazing Maurice and His Educated Rodents.

The 2011 Laura Ingalls Wilder Award, given to an author or illustrator whose books have made, over a period of years, a substantial and lasting contribution to literature for children, was bestowed upon Tomie dePaola, whose more than 200 books include 26 Fairmont Avenue (Putnam, 1999), The Legend of the Poinsettia (Putnam, 1994), Oliver Button Is a Sissy (Harcourt, 1979), and Strega Nona (Prentice-Hall, 1975).

The William C. Morris Award for a book written by a first-time author for young adults goes to The Freak Observer, by Blythe Woolston (Carolrhoda Lab). Four additional books were shortlisted: Hush, by Eishes Chayil (Walker); Guardian of the Dead, by Karen Healey (Little, Brown); Hold Me Closer, Necromancer, written by Lish McBride (Holt); and Crossing the Tracks, by Barbara Struber (McElderry).

The YALSA Excellence in Nonfiction Award goes to Janis Joplin: Rise Up Singing, by Ann Angel (Amulet/Abrams). Four other books were shortlisted for the award: They Called Themselves the K.K.K.: The Birth of an American Terrorist Group, by Susan Campbell Bartoletti (Houghton); Spies of Mississippi: The True Story of the Spy Network that Tried to Destroy the Civil Rights Movement, by Rick Bowers (National Geographic); The Dark Game: True Spy Stories, by Paul Janeczko (Candlewick); and Every Bone Tells a Story: Hominin Discoveries, Deductions, and Debates, by Jill Rubalcaba and Peter Robertshaw (Charlesbridge).

The winners of the Alex Awards for the 10 best adult books that appeal to teen audiences are: The Particular Sadness of Lemon Cake: A Novel by Aimee Bender, published by Doubleday; The Reapers Are the Angels: A Novel by Alden Bell, published by Henry Holt and Company; The House of Tomorrow by Peter Bognanni, published by Amy Einhorn Books, an imprint of Putnam; Room: A Novel by Emma Donoghue, published by Little, Brown; The Radleys by Matt Haig, published by The Free Press, an imprint of Simon & Schuster; The Lock Artist by Steve Hamilton, published by Minotaur Books, an imprint of St. Martin’s Publishing Group; Girl in Translation by Jean Kwok, published by Riverhead; The Vanishing of Katherina Linden: A Novel by Helen Grand, published by Delacorte Press, an imprint of Random House; Breaking Night: A Memoir of Forgiveness, Survival, and My Journey from Homelessness to Harvard by Liz Murray, published by Hyperion; and The Boy Who Couldn’t Sleep and Never Had To by DC Pierson, published by Vintage, an imprint of Random House.
The Scott O'Dell Award for Historical Fiction goes to Rita Williams-Garcia for One Crazy Summer (Amistad/HarperCollins).
The Canadian Library Association's Book of the Year for Children is Watching Jimmy by Nancy Hartry (Tundra). The two Honor Books are Vanishing Girl (Tundra) by Shane Peacock and Faery Rebels: Spell Hunter (HarperCollins) by R. J. Anderson. The Amelia Frances Howard-Gibbon Illustrator's Award goes to Barbara Reid for Perfect Snow (North Winds Press/Scholastic Canada), written and illustrated by Barbara Reid. Honorable mentions go to Nicolas Debon for Timmerman Was Here (Tundra), written by Colleen Sydor, and Kady MacDonald Denton for You’re Mean, Lily Jean (North Winds Press/Scholastic Canada) written by Frieda Wishinsky. The Young Adult Canadian Book Award goes to Lesley Livingston for Wondrous Strange (HarperCollins). Two Honor Books were named: The Gryphon Project, by Carrie Mac (Puffin), and The Hunchback Assignments (HarperCollins), by Arthur Slade.
The Carnegie Medal was awarded to Neil Gaiman for The Graveyard Book (HarperCollins).

The Kate Greenaway Medal was awarded to Freya Blackwood for Harry & Hopper (Feiwel), written by Margaret Wild.

The 2011 NCTE Orbis Pictus Award for outstanding nonfiction for children goes to Ballet for Martha: Making Appalachian Spring, written by Jan Greenberg and Sandra Jordan, illustrated by Brian Floca (Roaring Brook). Honor books are: Birmingham Sunday, by Larry Dane Brimner (Calkins Creek/Boyds Mills); Candy Bomber: The Story of the Berlin Airlift’s “Chocolate Pilot”, by Michael O. Tunnell (Charlesbridge); If Stones Could Speak: Unlocking the Secrets of Stonehenge, by Marc Aronson (National Geographic); Journey into the Deep: Discovering New Ocean Creatures, by Rebecca L. Johnson (Millbrook); and Mammoths and Mastodons: Titans of the Ice Age, by Cheryl Bardoe (Abrams).

The NCTE Award for Excellence in Poetry goes to J. Patrick Lewis.

Blue Ribbons for the best of the year's literature for youth were awarded to thirty books by Bulletin staff.

[Back to the Bulletin Homepage]

This page was last updated on January 10, 2011