Today Elizabeth and I leave the ABA’s sixth Winter Institute, known as WI6, in Washington, D.C. Five hundred booksellers will gather for three days of educational sessions, lunches and author receptions. Really, what could be better… oh, lots of great galleys.
I am looking forward to WI6 for many reasons. The main reason is to see my bookselling friends again. WI6 is six months after the annual book trade show, BEA, and because its focus is only on bookseller education, there is no show floor. Therefore, there’s not that mad scramble to see as much as possible. Plus, this show, I’m not hobbled by health issues, so I can actually walk around.
My goal this week is to learn, from my colleagues and the educational session facilitators. The sessions that I’m particularly excited about are the ones that deal with how to survive in these changing times. I will be happily attending the following sessions, some of this might involve cloning myself, but there is much to learn (descriptions taken from WI6 program):
– The New Reality:  Alternative Business Models for Independent Bookstore A business model based on book sales alone is growing more challenging each year, but a few creative ideas can make a difference. This panel will feature booksellers who have embraced new business models that expand the bookstore business beyond the book.
– How To Create New Business Models Through Strategic Thinking
From selling children’s clothes and creating stores within stores to offering local delivery, indie booksellers are using their ingenuity and their roots in the community to create new and interesting ways to sustain their book sales. The process involves recognizing opportunity and using strategic thinking. This session will walk you through the strategic thinking process and leave you with the tools to plan new ventures.
– Buying And Selling Non-Book Roundtable In this roundtable you will discover new tactics, share some of your own, and enjoy a conversation with your colleagues about sidelines.
– What Really Drives Choice In The Children’s Book Market? The 2010 ABC & Bowker PubTrack Survey How do consumers value children’s books, and what makes them choose one over another? In fall 2010, Bowker PubTrack and the Association of Booksellers for Children set out to understand these questions in collaboration with children’s publishers. Focusing on purchasing for three core groups, and covering everything from how much input children have in buying decisions, to trends in digital book content, these key findings present the first-ever real data about what is driving today’s children’s book market.
– Event Planners Roundtable If you are an event planner, this roundtable is where you want to be! Come join your colleagues in a discussion that will cover many aspects of planning events.
And, as great as these look, there are more I’d like to attend, but that would involve altering the space-time continuum, so I’ll be happy with what I can glean from the ones I can actually be a part of. The thing that I just adore about Winter Institute are the chance encounters with other booksellers where we problem-solve. I learn so much from my colleagues, it amazes and makes me happy every time.
Next week, I’ll have a recap of all the educational sessions and highlights of what I learned.

On today, Martin Luther King Day, it seems to me one of the best ways to spend it is to read his powerful words and those of Langston Hughes, and reflect on how far we’ve come and how far we have yet to go before meeting the call for meaningful equality among all people in our nation. On the heels of the tragedy in Arizona, it seems particularly important to “forever conduct our struggle on the high plane of dignity and discipline,” rather than devolving into bitterness, hatred, or violence.
You can read the entire text of the “I have a dream” speech here, in its entirety, or watch it here. Below is a section from the end that resonates so deeply, followed by the poem, “Let America be America Again” by Langston Hughes. Both do such a beautiful job of illuminating where we’ve come from, and where we yet need to go.

“I say to you today, my friends, so even though we face the difficulties of today and tomorrow, I still have a dream. It is a dream deeply rooted in the American dream.

“I have a dream that one day this nation will rise up and live out the true meaning of its creed: ‘We hold these truths to be self-evident: that all men are created equal.’

“I have a dream that one day on the red hills of Georgia the sons of former slaves and the sons of former slave owners will be able to sit down together at the table of brotherhood.

“I have a dream that one day even the state of Mississippi, a state sweltering with the heat of injustice, sweltering with the heat of oppression, will be transformed into an oasis of freedom and justice.

“I have a dream that my four little children will one day live in a nation where they will not be judged by the color of their skin but by the content of their character.

“I have a dream today.

“I have a dream that one day, down in Alabama, with its vicious racists, with its governor having his lips dripping with the words of interposition and nullification; one day right there in Alabama, little black boys and black girls will be able to join hands with little white boys and white girls as sisters and brothers.

“I have a dream today.

“I have a dream that one day every valley shall be exalted, every hill and mountain shall be made low, the rough places will be made plain, and the crooked places will be made straight, and the glory of the Lord shall be revealed, and all flesh shall see it together.

“This is our hope. This is the faith that I go back to the South with. With this faith we will be able to hew out of the mountain of despair a stone of hope. With this faith we will be able to transform the jangling discords of our nation into a beautiful symphony of brotherhood. With this faith we will be able to work together, to pray together, to struggle together, to go to jail together, to stand up for freedom together, knowing that we will be free one day.

“This will be the day when all of God’s children will be able to sing with a new meaning, ‘My country, ’tis of thee, sweet land of liberty, of thee I sing. Land where my fathers died, land of the pilgrim’s pride, from every mountainside, let freedom ring.’

“And if America is to be a great nation this must become true. So let freedom ring from the prodigious hilltops of New Hampshire. Let freedom ring from the mighty mountains of New York. Let freedom ring from the heightening Alleghenies of Pennsylvania!

“Let freedom ring from the snowcapped Rockies of Colorado!

“Let freedom ring from the curvaceous slopes of California!

“But not only that; let freedom ring from Stone Mountain of Georgia!

“Let freedom ring from Lookout Mountain of Tennessee!

“Let freedom ring from every hill and molehill of Mississippi. From every mountainside, let freedom ring.

“And when this happens, when we allow freedom to ring, when we let it ring from every village and every hamlet, from every state and every city, we will be able to speed up that day when all of God’s children, black men and white men, Jews and Gentiles, Protestants and Catholics, will be able to join hands and sing in the words of the old Negro spiritual, “Free at last! free at last! thank God Almighty, we are free at last!”

Isn’t in incredible that almost fifty years later, those words still make you want to stand up and cheer?! We’ve come such a long, long way, but still have a long way to go. Langston Hughes’s poem below strikes notes resonant of the economic disparities that still plague our country, and imagines an inclusive American dream.

Let America be America Again

Let America be America again.
Let it be the dream it used to be.
Let it be the pioneer on the plain
Seeking a home where he himself is free.
(America never was America to me.)
Let America be the dream the dreamers dreamed–
Let it be that great strong land of love
Where never kings connive nor tyrants scheme
That any man be crushed by one above.
(It never was America to me.)
O, let my land be a land where Liberty
Is crowned with no false patriotic wreath,
But opportunity is real, and life is free,
Equality is in the air we breathe.
(There’s never been equality for me,
Nor freedom in this “homeland of the free.”)
Say, who are you that mumbles in the dark?
And who are you that draws your veil across the stars?
I am the poor white, fooled and pushed apart,
I am the Negro bearing slavery’s scars.
I am the red man driven from the land,
I am the immigrant clutching the hope I seek–
And finding only the same old stupid plan
Of dog eat dog, of mighty crush the weak.
I am the young man, full of strength and hope,
Tangled in that ancient endless chain
Of profit, power, gain, of grab the land!
Of grab the gold! Of grab the ways of satisfying need!
Of work the men! Of take the pay!
Of owning everything for one’s own greed!
I am the farmer, bondsman to the soil.
I am the worker sold to the machine.
I am the Negro, servant to you all.
I am the people, humble, hungry, mean–
Hungry yet today despite the dream.
Beaten yet today–O, Pioneers!
I am the man who never got ahead,
The poorest worker bartered through the years.
Yet I’m the one who dreamt our basic dream
In the Old World while still a serf of kings,
Who dreamt a dream so strong, so brave, so true,
That even yet its mighty daring sings
In every brick and stone, in every furrow turned
That’s made America the land it has become.
O, I’m the man who sailed those early seas
In search of what I meant to be my home–
For I’m the one who left dark Ireland’s shore,
And Poland’s plain, and England’s grassy lea,
And torn from Black Africa’s strand I came
To build a “homeland of the free.”
The free?
Who said the free? Not me?
Surely not me? The millions on relief today?
The millions shot down when we strike?
The millions who have nothing for our pay?
For all the dreams we’ve dreamed
And all the songs we’ve sung
And all the hopes we’ve held
And all the flags we’ve hung,
The millions who have nothing for our pay–
Except the dream that’s almost dead today.
O, let America be America again–
The land that never has been yet–
And yet must be–the land where every man is free.
The land that’s mine–the poor man’s, Indian’s, Negro’s, ME–
Who made America,
Whose sweat and blood, whose faith and pain,
Whose hand at the foundry, whose plow in the rain,
Must bring back our mighty dream again.
Sure, call me any ugly name you choose–
The steel of freedom does not stain.
From those who live like leeches on the people’s lives,
We must take back our land again,
America!
O, yes,
I say it plain,
America never was America to me,
And yet I swear this oath–
America will be!
Out of the rack and ruin of our gangster death,
The rape and rot of graft, and stealth, and lies,
We, the people, must redeem
The land, the mines, the plants, the rivers.
The mountains and the endless plain–
All, all the stretch of these great green states–
And make America again!

***

Those of us in the field of children’s book publishing have a unique opportunity to help shape—through the vision of our books and the makeup of our multitude of publishers, editors, writers, artists, agents, and designers. ShelfTalker has addressed some of these aspects here and here, and we need to revisit and revise these ideas frequently, with hope and purpose and forward motion.
Happy Martin Luther King Day, everyone. Aren’t we lucky to have had that courageous, articulate, passionate man in our midst! May we continue to honor his memory—and that of Langston Hughes, and every human being who has dared to take a stand for equality and justice—by paying more than lip service to the dream of an equal, inclusive, and most colorful world.

For most of us in the Northeast, Wednesday brought a snowstorm of varying sizes. Here in northwestern Vermont our predicted one to three inches turned into more like eight to ten. The unexpectedly horrible weather had us closing the store early. It’s a rare treat for booksellers to actually get a snow day. And I learned that they’re just has much fun as an adult as they were when I was a kid. The only difference was, I didn’t play, I planned, and it was just as satisfying.
The rare time off together allowed Elizabeth and me to hunker down with weather and plan the year. This year we’re trying to focus on more author-less events. The most fun of the snow day was brainstorming great event ideas. Of course, we’re also going to the 6th Winter Institute next week, I’m sure we’ll get some other fun ideas. But there were three ideas that we had on Wednesday that we’ve already set up, and this rapid turnaround is a record for us.
One idea we had is a bike-tuning event in May to help kids get their bikes ready for the summer. The part of the event that makes me happy is the organization that will lead the event also takes old bikes and donates them to kids who need them, so we’re asking folks to bring in bikes their kids have outgrown to donate to the organization. This is the kind of community event I want to do more of in the coming year. I think these events have a lasting ripple effect for all involved.
We’ve always danced around the idea of having a store book group: should we, shouldn’t we? Well, we bit the bullet and I get to indulge in my passion for mysteries and dystopian novels: Mysteries and Mayhem will meet on the fourth Tuesday of the month starting in February. I’m excited about this. I’m not sure why after all these years, I finally feel that I can run a really good book group. Honestly, I think all I needed was a theme. Sometimes, it’s the simple things. I just hope other people like the book group, too.
Other author-less events we’re having are two parties. One is a tea party and the other is a fairy/pirate tea party. I’m always astonished at how successful these tea parties are. And, trust me when I say that there is a different kind of kid who will come to each party, because not all tea parties are the same. Tea parties are easy and once you’ve made the investment in tea sets, you’re pretty all set, except for food. Honestly, I like making the food for tea parties, it’s fun and it’s a great way to get the whole staff working as an assembly line making tiny tea sandwiches.
I’m curious what other stores are doing with their author-less events. If you feel like sharing, let us know what events your store is having that you’re excited about.

Every year, I’m interested in how the big children’s book awards sort out by publisher, but I usually don’t do the breakdown. This blog gives me a great excuse to do that, and I’m hoping some of you share my curiosity.
It was terrific—and rare—to see the two oldest awards, Newbery and Caldecott, to be swept by debut books! Reminds me of 2002, when I was at Vermont College for the awards announcements, and Linda Sue Park won the Newbery for A Single Shard and An Na won the Printz for A Step from Heaven. I jumped up and down and hollered, “The Koreans have taken the gold!” It was a pretty exciting, momentous occasion in American children’s book history, for two Korean-American authors to win top honors. I think 2011 marks the first time debut books have won both Newbery and Caldecott.
That was the main pattern that leapt out at me when the winners were announced. For a fun blog post featuring a lot more patterns, see Peter Sieruta’s post, Sleeping with the Newbery, on his addictive blog, Collecting Children’s Books. He gathers all kinds of fun facts toward the end, crunching numbers, highlighting repeat and three-peat winners, first-time award recipients, thoughts about the winning books’ collectible potential, and great little tidbits such as, “This year’s winner is the fourth Newbery title to have the word “moon” in its title, following last year’s Honor Book WHERE THE MOUNTAIN MEETS THE MOON, winner WALK TWO MOONS, and Honor Book SING DOWN THE MOON.” I have no idea how he had enough time to gather all of the tidbits he did, but I loved reading them.
And before I forget, don’t miss Kate Messner’s lovely blog post and poem, “What Happened to Your Book Today: A Poem for After the ALA Awards,” celebrating the children’s book authors and illustrators whose books didn’t win (although, as she notes, her words also apply to those who did). She’s right on the money, and (shh, don’t tell) I even lumped up in the throat when I got to the end.
Now, without further ado, let’s see how the publishers fared on Awards Monday. I’ll start with a summary, and then post the full list below (citations taken, with slight formatting edits, from the ALA press release):

• 12 for Random House
• 11 for the Macmillan Group (4 for Roaring Brook, 3 each for Henry Holt and Bloomsbury, 1 for St. Martin’s)
• 8 for Hachette / Little, Brown
• 5 or 6 for Penguin (see below)
• 5 for Simon & Schuster
• 4 each for Abrams, Candlewick, and Houghton Mifflin Harcourt
• 3 or 4 for HarperCollins (see below)
• 3 each for Scholastic and Lee & Low
• 2 each for Brilliance Audio and Hyperion
• 1 each for Charlesbridge, Holiday House, Lerner, Llewellyn, Namelos, National Geographic, St. Martin’s, and Weston Woods (video publisher)

RANDOM HOUSE (12)
Newbery Medal: “Moon Over Manifest,” written by Clare Vanderpool and published by Delacorte Press, an imprint of Random House Children’s Books, a division of Random House, Inc.
Newbery Honor: “Turtle in Paradise,” by Jennifer L. Holm and published by Random House Children’s Books, a division of Random House, Inc.
Printz Honor: “Please Ignore Vera Dietz,” by A.S. King and published by Alfred A. Knopf, an imprint of Random House Children’s Books, a division of Random House, Inc.;
Mildred L. Batchelder Award: “A Time of Miracles” (originally published in French in 2009 as “Le Temps des Miracles”), written by Anne-Laure Bondoux, translated by Y. Maudet, and published by Delacorte Press, an imprint of Random House Children’s Books, a division of Random House, Inc.
Belpré Illustrator Honor: “Fiesta Babies,” illustrated by Amy Córdova, written by Carmen Tafolla and published by Tricycle Press, an imprint of the Crown Publishing Group, a division of Random House, Inc.
Stonewall Children’s and Young Adult Literature Award: “Almost Perfect,” written by Brian Katcher, published by Delacorte Press, an imprint of Random House Children’s Books, a division of Random House.
Odyssey Award: “The True Meaning of Smekday,” produced by Listening Library, an imprint of Random House Audio Publishing Group. The book is written by Adam Rex and narrated by Bahni Turpin.
Odyssey Honor: “Alchemy and Meggy Swann,” produced by Listening Library, an imprint of the Random House Audio Publishing Group, written by Karen Cushman and narrated by Katherine Kellgren.
Odyssey Honor: “Revolution,” produced by Listening Library, an imprint of the Random House Audio Publishing Group, written by Jennifer Donnelly and narrated by Emily Janice Card and Emma Bering.
Alex Award: “The Boy Who Couldn’t Sleep and Never Had To,” by DC Pierson, published by Vintage Books, a division of Random House, Inc.
Alex Award: “The Particular Sadness of Lemon Cake: A Novel,” by Aimee Bender, published by Doubleday, a division of Random House, Inc.
Alex Award: “The Vanishing of Katharina Linden: A Novel,” by Helen Grant, published by Delacorte, an imprint of The Random House Publishing Group, a division of Random House, Inc.
MACMILLAN GROUP (11)
MACMILLAN / ROARING BROOK (4)
Caldecott Medal: “A Sick Day for Amos McGee,” illustrated by Erin E. Stead. The book was written by Philip C. Stead, and is a Neal Porter Book, published by Roaring Brook Press, a division of the Macmillan Children’s Publishing Group.
Printz Honor: “Revolver,” by Marcus Sedgwick and published by Roaring Brook Press, a division of the Macmillan Children’s Publishing Group.
Belpré Author Honor: “90 Miles to Havana,” written by Enrique Flores-Galbis and published by Roaring Brook Press, a division of the Macmillan Children’s Publishing Group;
Sibert Honor: “Ballet for Martha: Making Appalachian Spring,” written by Jan Greenberg and Sandra Jordan, illustrated by Brian Floca, a Neal Porter Book, published by Flash Point, an imprint of Roaring Brook Press, a division of the Macmillan Children’s Publishing Group,
MACMILLAN / BLOOMSBURY / WALKER PUBLISHING (3)
Pura Belpré (Illustrator) Award: “Grandma’s Gift,” illustrated and written by Eric Velasquez. The book is published by Walker Publishing Company, Inc., a division of Bloomsbury Publishing, Inc.
William C. Morris Finalist: “Hush,” by Eishes Chayil and published by Walker Publishing Company, a division of Bloomsbury Publishing, Inc.;
William C. Morris Finalist: “Hush,” by Eishes Chayil and published by Walker Publishing Company, a division of Bloomsbury Publishing, Inc.;
MACMILLAN / HENRY HOLT (3)
Belpré Author Honor: “The Firefly Letters: A Suffragette’s Journey to Cuba,” written by Margarita Engle and published by Henry Holt and Company, LLC;
William C. Morris Finalist: “Hold Me Closer, Necromancer,” by Lish McBride and published by Henry Holt
Alex Award: “The Reapers Are the Angels: A Novel,” by Alden Bell, published by Holt Paperbacks, a division of Henry Holt and Company, LLC
ST. MARTIN’S (1)
Alex Award: “The Lock Artist,” by Steve Hamilton, published by Thomas Dunne Books for Minotaur Books, an imprint of St. Martin’s Press
HACHETTE / LITTLE, BROWN (8)
Caldecott Honor: “Dave the Potter: Artist, Poet, Slave,” illustrated by Bryan Collier, written by Laban Carrick Hill and published by Little, Brown and Company, a division of Hachette Book Group, Inc.
Michael L. Printz Award: “Ship Breaker,” written by Paolo Bacigalupi, published by Little, Brown and Company, a division of Hachette Book Group, Inc.
Coretta Scott King Author Honor: “Ninth Ward,” by Jewell Parker Rhodes and published by Little, Brown and Company, a division of Hachette Book Group, Inc.
Coretta Scott King (Illustrator) Award: “Dave the Potter: Artist, Poet, Slave,” illustrated by Bryan Collier, is the 2011 King Illustrator Book winner. The book was written by Laban Carrick Hill and published by Little, Brown and Company, a division of Hachette Book Group, Inc.
Stonewall Honor: “Freaks and Revelations,” written by Davida Willis Hurwin and published by Little, Brown and Company, a division of Hachette Book Group, Inc.
Seuss Geisel Honor: “Ling & Ting: Not Exactly the Same!” written and illustrated by Grace Lin and published by Little, Brown and Company, a division of Hachette Book Group, Inc.
William C. Morris Finalist: “Guardian of the Dead,” by Karen Healey and published by Little, Brown and Company/Hachette Book Group.
Alex Award: “Room: A Novel,” by Emma Donoghue, published by Little, Brown and Company, a division of Hachette Book Group, Inc.
PENGUIN (5 or 6, depending*)
Schneider Family Book Award: The teen (ages 13-18) award winner is “Five Flavors of Dumb,” written by Antony John and published by Dial Books, an imprint of Penguin Group (USA) Inc.
Stonewall Honor: “will grayson, will grayson,” written by John Green and David Levithan and published by Dutton Books, a member of Penguin Group (USA) Inc.
Stonewall Honor: “The Boy in the Dress,” written by David Walliams, illustrated by Quentin Blake and published by Penguin Young Readers Group.
Alex Award: “Girl in Translation,” by Jean Kwok, published by Riverhead Books, an imprint of the Penguin Group
Alex Award: “The House of Tomorrow,” by Peter Bognanni, published by Amy Einhorn Books, an imprint of G.P. Putnam’s Sons, a division of the Penguin Group
*The Laura Ingalls Wilder Award winner is Tomie dePaola, author and illustrator of over 200 books, including: “26 Fairmont Avenue” (Putnam, 1999). This is not strictly a Penguin book award, but since so many of Mr. dePaola’s books are published with Putnam, I counted this award among theirs.
SIMON & SCHUSTER (5)
Printz Honor: “Nothing,” by Janne Teller and published by Atheneum Books for Young Readers, an imprint of Simon & Schuster Children’s Publishing Division.
Schneider Family Book Award: “The Pirate of Kindergarten,” written by George Ella Lyon, illustrated by Lynne Avril and published by Atheneum Books for Young Readers, an imprint of Simon & Schuster Children’s Publishing Division, wins the award for children ages 0 to 10.
Batchelder Honor: “Nothing,” published by Atheneum Books for Young Readers, an imprint of Simon & Schuster Children’s Publishing Division, written by Janne Teller and translated by Martin Aitken.
Morris Finalist: “Crossing the Tracks,” by Barbara Stuber and published by Margaret K. McElderry Books, an imprint of Simon & Schuster Children’s Publishing Division.
Alex Award: “The Radleys,” by Matt Haig, published by Free Press, a division of Simon & Schuster, Inc.
ABRAMS (4)
Newbery Honor: “Heart of a Samurai,” written by Margi Preus and published by Amulet Books, an imprint of ABRAMS;
Belpré Illustrator Honor: “Me, Frida,” illustrated by David Diaz, written by Amy Novesky and published by Abrams Books for Young Readers, an imprint of ABRAMS
Belpré Illustrator Honor: “Dear Primo: A Letter to My Cousin,” illustrated and written by Duncan Tonatiuh and published by Abrams Books for Young Readers, an imprint of ABRAMS.
YALSA Award Winner for Excellence in Nonfiction for Young Adults: “Janis Joplin: Rise Up Singing,” written by Ann Angel. The book is published by Amulet/Abrams.
CANDLEWICK (4)
Caldecott Honor: “Interrupting Chicken,” written and illustrated by David Ezra Stein and published by Candlewick Press.
Coretta Scott King/John Steptoe New Talent (Author) Award: “Zora and Me,” written by Victoria Bond and T.R. Simon, is the 2011 Steptoe author winner. The book is published by Candlewick Press.
Theodor Seuss Geisel Award: “Bink and Gollie,” written by Kate DiCamillo and Alison McGhee and illustrated by Tony Fucile. The book is published by Candlewick Press.
YALSA Award for Excellence in Nonfiction for Young Adults Finalist: “The Dark Game: True Spy Stories,” by Paul Janeczko and published by Candlewick Press.
HOUGHTON MIFFLIN HARCOURT (4)
Newbery Honor: “Dark Emperor and Other Poems of the Night,” written by Joyce Sidman, illustrated by Rick Allen and published by Houghton Mifflin Books for Children, Houghton Mifflin Harcourt;
Coretta Scott King Illustrator Honor: “Jimi Sounds Like a Rainbow: A Story of the Young Jimi Hendrix,” illustrated by Javaka Steptoe, written by Gary Golio and published by Clarion Books, an imprint of Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company.
Robert F. Sibert Medal: “Kakapo Rescue: Saving the World’s Strangest Parrot,” written by Sy Montgomery. The book features photographs by Nic Bishop and is published by Houghton Mifflin Books for Children, an imprint of Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company.
YALSA Award for Excellence in Nonfiction for Young Adults Finalist: “They Called Themselves the K.K.K.: The Birth of an American Terrorist Group,” by Susan Campbell Bartoletti and published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt.
HARPERCOLLINS (3 or 4, depending*)
Newbery Honor: “One Crazy Summer,” by Rita Williams-Garcia and published by Amistad, an imprint of HarperCollins Publishers.
Coretta Scott King (Author) Book Award: “One Crazy Summer,” written by Rita Williams-Garcia. The book is published by Amistad, an imprint of HarperCollins Publishers.
Coretta Scott King Author Honor: “Lockdown,” by Walter Dean Myers and published by Amistad, an imprint of HarperCollins Publishers.
* This next is not an award for a book, but for an author whose books are all published with HarperCollins. Margaret A. Edwards Award Winner: Sir Terry Pratchett.
LEE & LOW (3)
Coretta Scott King Author Honor: “Yummy: The Last Days of a Southside Shorty,” written by G. Neri, illustrated by Randy DuBurke and published by Lee & Low Books Inc.
Coretta Scott King/John Steptoe New Talent (Illustrator) Award: “Seeds of Change,” illustrated by Sonia Lynn Sadler. The book is written by Jen Cullerton Johnson and published by Lee & Low Books Inc.
Belpré Author Honor: “¡Olé! Flamenco,” written and illustrated by George Ancona and published by Lee & Low Books Inc.
SCHOLASTIC (3)
Printz Honor: “Stolen,” by Lucy Christopher and published by Chicken House, an imprint of Scholastic Inc.;
Schneider Family Book Award (ages 11-13): “After Ever After,” written by Jordan Sonnenblick and published by Scholastic Press, an imprint of Scholastic Inc.
Pura Belpré (Author) Award: “The Dreamer,” written by Pam Muñoz Ryan. The book is illustrated by Peter Sís and published by Scholastic Press, an imprint of Scholastic Inc.
BRILLIANCE AUDIO (2)
Odyssey Honor: “will grayson, will grayson,” produced by Brilliance Audio, written by John Green and David Levithan, and narrated by MacLeod Andrews and Nick Podehl.
Odyssey Honor: “The Knife of Never Letting Go,” produced by Candlewick on Brilliance Audio, an imprint of Brilliance Audio, written by Patrick Ness and narrated by Nick Podehl.
HYPERION (2)
Alex Award: “Breaking Night: A Memoir of Forgiveness, Survival, and My Journey from Homeless to Harvard,” by Liz Murray, published by Hyperion
Seuss Geisel Honor: “We Are in a Book!” written and illustrated by Mo Willems and published by Hyperion Books for Children, an imprint of Disney Book Group.
CHARLESBRIDGE (1)
YALSA Award for Excellence in Nonfiction for Young Adults Finalist: “Every Bone Tells a Story: Hominin Discoveries, Deductions, and Debates” by Jill Rubalcaba and Peter Robertshaw and published by Charlesbridge.
HOLIDAY HOUSE (1)
Sibert Honor: “Lafayette and the American Revolution,” written by Russell Freedman and published by Holiday House.
LERNER (1)
William C. Morris Award: “The Freak Observer,” written by Blythe Woolston. The book is published by Carolrhoda Lab, an imprint of Carolrhoda Books, a division of Lerner Publishing Group.
LLEWELLYN (1)
Stonewall Honor: “Love Drugged,” written by James Klise and published by Flux, an imprint of Llewellyn Worldwide Ltd.
NAMELOS (1)
Batchelder Honor: “Departure Time,” published by Namelos, written by Truus Matti and translated by Nancy Forest-Flier.
NATIONAL GEOGRAPHIC (1)
YALSA Award for Excellence in Nonfiction for Young Adults Finalist: “Spies of Mississippi: The True Story of the Spy Network that Tried to Destroy the Civil Rights Movement,” by Rick Bowers and published by National Geographic Society;
WESTON WOODS (1)
Andrew Carnegie Medal for excellence in children’s video: 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.
************************************
Congratulations to all of you! It’s nice to see smaller houses well represented along with the giants.
Even among so many award, there are gaps. I continue to hope for an award for picture book text, a designated award for poetry, and an award like the Batchelder, only for international books written in English.

I love the Monday in January when the ALA announces the winners of the Youth Media Awards. From about 11 a.m. on yesterday, our phone rang off the hook with collectors searching for first editions of the winners. I was at work and sadly, unable to keep up with the announcements as I got boxed out of the ALA’s live web stream. I resorted to Twitter and then finally, Elizabeth texted me the winners.
As fast as I could write the winning books down, people started calling me demanding answers: Do you have a first of The Freak Observer, winner of the Morris Award for debut young adult fiction? And I happily said, “Why yes, in fact we do.” I love it when we score a coup — not only did we have it, we’d featured it in our newsletter. (As an aside, the Association of Booksellers for Children picked this as one of our favorite debut novels of the year.) Two callers asked for the book, only if it was a first, and ours were, and then wanted to know what it was about.
When the Caldecott awards were announced the phone continued to ring. It’s funny to me that a lot of folks just couldn’t wait until all the awards were announced. They wanted to secure their firsts as soon as possible.  While we only had one first of the winner, A Sick Day for Amos McGee, we hit a home run with Dave the Potter. The author, Laban Carrick Hill, is a friend of ours and he lives two towns away, so we had a case of firsts. This made me happy all day as I continued to fill orders.  Not only did the book get a Caldecott Honor, it won a Coretta Scott King Award.
The Newbery award was a challenge, not just for us, but for all booksellers, if my collectors were any indication. I had three people calling in despair about Moon Over Manifest. One woman said she’d called bookstores in New York City, Connecticut and Los Angeles and not one store had it in stock. Judging by the conversations I’d had all day, this win was a bit of an upset. We scored again with One Crazy Summer for one collector, and I was heartened that we had Heart of a Samurai in, but only the second edition, which says to me we’ve been selling the book well; to collectors it means we’ve disappointed them. Dark Emperor was another one that came out of nowhere. I would have thought that one would have gotten a Caldecott. We only had one and that was thrilling for one customer, but had other collectors bummed.
I’ve sent off four packages today to our various collectors and have more going out tomorrow. It was really funny because one woman was so happy that we had four first editions that she was looking for and at the end of our transaction she said, “I have a question. What bookstore is this?” I told her she had called the Flying Pig and tried not to laugh.  She sheepishly told me that she’d been calling through a list and had forgotten who she had dialed in her frenzy to get her firsts.
Collectors fascinate me. I’ve never understood collecting for collecting’s sake. I like to have books that have meaning to me. Plus, let’s face it, I’m never going to sell a book from my personal collection, and until I get a house with a massive library there’s just no way I can collect every award winner, but I’m sure glad other people can.

Happy New Year, everyone! By the time you read this, the ALA awards will most likely have been announced, and we can’t wait to discuss them here on Tuesday. In the meantime, it’s great to be back in the blogging seat again, especially with such a fantastic book to talk about. We start the ShelfTalker year with a dark beauty called Chime.
When I was trying to decide which ARC to take with me on vacation, it wasn’t too difficult to choose. Ever since Franny Billingsley’s Chime arrived in the mail, it’s been crooking tentacles of intent at me. I had the pleasure of hearing Billingsley read a brief passage from Chime at a writing conference a year or two ago, and its freshness and strangeness took my breath away. I was also (still am) a huge fan of her extraordinary 1999 novel, The Folk Keeper, one of the most original, atmospheric, beautifully written fantasies I’ve read.
I don’t know that there’s a better creator of setting, mood, and atmosphere than Franny Billingsley. Both The Folk Keeper and Chime exist in alternate realms with their feet in two worlds: a realistic, rustic, everyday world and a darker world full of Old Ones and Folk and brownies and tricksters and powerful natural forces in complicated relationship to girls with secret, even sinister, powers. The stories are mysterious and powerful, with all the ingredients of a perfect potion: danger, romance, betrayal, revenge, surprise, humor, forces both light and dark.
The truth is, I have a crush on Billingsley’s writing. It’s restive and descriptive and wonderful. Her similes and metaphors are beautiful without being precious, the rhythm and flow of her words are unerring, and her characters’ individual quirks and manners of expression make me remember what writing really is, and make me want to articulate the way human minds weave their weird trains of thought, instead of … I guess instead of constructing a more ordinary and less true, less astonishing narrative.
I can’t resist sharing a couple of passages, a sampler for those of you who have not yet had the pleasure of reading these books.
From The Folk Keeper:

February 5

It’s not a feast day, and the Folk have made no mischief, but yet I write. My astonishment spills into this Record as I wait for the Great Lady to call me. It will soon be time to go.

I shall miss this Cellar, my very own Cellar. I press my hand to the stone, loving the way he moisture oozes to the surface. The Folk devoured the eggs and dried fish I left for them last night, and my last act for the Folk of the Rhysbridge Foundling Home will be to steal Matron’s breakfast sausage.

It feels odd to write of myself, not of the Folk. Odd to take the pages of this Record above ground, to yesterday, when I slipped out of the Cellar door and Matron grasped my collar. “You’ve kept us waiting!” She would have shaken me, but she was too afraid. I make sure of that.

And a passage from the ARC of Chime:

How could I have forgotten that the swamp simply seeps into existence? That it bleeds and weeps into existence?

The itch was gone—the itch of my scar, the itch of the swamp craving. How lovely to seep and bleed and weep into the swamp. It would take more than three years for me to forget. If I could love anything, I’d love the swamp.

Is this what a nun feels when she runs wild? Perhaps running wild needn’t mean dressing in satin and taking to cigarettes. It might mean running into the wild, into the real, into the ooze and muck and the clean, muddy smell of life.

A tidbit about Franny Billingsley I hadn’t known before writing this post: she was a children’s bookseller in Chicago for 12 years. One of the tribe! And she, like so many other children’s book writers, left the legal profession to pursue her real passion. Lucky us!
And now, dear readers, it is time for me to get back into the ooze and muck and the clean, muddy smell of bookselling again. What 2011 books are YOU loving?

While Elizabeth and I take a week off from blogging during our usual store vacation post-New Year’s, we wanted to point readers in the direction of four of our favorite blog posts that still merit comment. So, read and enjoy.
In looking back over the past year of blogging, some stand out to me. Elizabeth’s post, What You Wish They Knew, was among one of my favorites for its view of the bookselling world from many angles.
Another was my post about Young Adult Authors Against Bullying, not so much for this one post, but for all the great things Carrie Jones and Megan Kelley Hall have done since I posted this. These two women have generated a lively and necessary discussion about bullying, and an anthology about bullies and bullying called Dear Bully: 70 Authors Authors Tell Their Stories. Pretty powerful stuff, indeed.
The third blog that still resonates is How We Can Save the Picture Book. This post was a wee bit ahead of the New York Times article decrying the end of the picture book, and it still makes me mad that folks think this gorgeous, vitally important genre is at an end.
Another post I loved was Elizabeth’s The Season of Windblown Hair- Or the Zeitgeist of Book Covers, which shows how some of the book jackets this past year were shockingly similar.
I’d like to thank all of our readers over the past year for being so wonderful. Your comments have been insightful, thought-provoking, and humorous. Have a great week and we’ll be back to live blogging next week.

If there’s one thing writing this blog has shown me, it’s that I seem to enjoy collecting and aggregating and looking at lists of interesting and useful data. (I think it’s that whole illusion-of-order-in-a-chaotic-world impulse.)
Two big projects I’ve done for ShelfTalker have been inordinately satisfying: the Starred Review round-up I collect throughout each year (an updated, end-of-year, full 2010 list will be posted soon), and the continually updated World Full of Color library, highlighting more than 630 books that are not race-focused but feature main characters of color.
My most recent project has been the creation of an Excel spreadsheet of the Newbery, Caldecott, and Printz award and honor books and authors, including data on the gender of the authors. (I plan to do the same for the Coretta Scott King award and the Sibert award soon.) I would also have collected data on the ratios of Caucasian award winners to award winners of color, but that disproportion is not only depressingly obvious to even casual followers of these awards, but has been discussed in many other places.)
This effort started when I noticed that, while women have historically outnumbered men in the children’s literature field, the Caldecott medals show a reverse ratio: 47 gold medals have gone to 43 men, while 20 medals have gone to 16 women. The medals are deserved and the books distinguished. But can it really be the case that male artists are more than three times as talented as female artists? Do male artists take more risks than female artists and are rewarded accordingly? Or are men’s creative efforts taken more seriously than women’s? Does our society unconsciously/ subconsciously still value men’s work more than women’s? At conferences in even female-dominated fields, I notice that men are much more likely to be featured as keynote speakers and male panelists often outnumber female panelists 3:1 in the premiere sessions. The numbers made me curious.
So then I ran the Newbery numbers, and the results are tipped in the opposite direction. The majority of gold medals have gone to women—59 have gone to 55 women, while 28 have gone to 27 men. Of the honors: 65 men have won 87 Newbery honors, whereas 147 women have won 197 Newbery honors.
I’m not a statistician, and the only way numbers like this can really mean anything is to have more data: for instance, to know the actual numbers of male and female children’s book authors and illustrators published during each year of these awards, and then look at the ratios again. Still, in a world whose population is roughly 50/50 male and female, the discrepancies in these ratios says something about our field and its history, and I’m interesting in thinking about exactly what those somethings are.
Anyone have thoughts on the subject?
I’m going to do a summary by genre soon, too. Just need to track down a few more of the out-of-print books.
As for this year’s January 10 awards: good luck to all of the authors and artists hardly even daring to secretly cross their fingers hoping for an early-morning phone call a week from Monday! I can’t wait to see your names in lights. And for those of you with secret hopes who don’t get that phone call, try to remember that your fine work will find its grateful audience even without the shiny sticker.
Note about the numbers below: I have tried to be as accurate as possible in my tallies, making my lists directly from the ALA website and sorting the results and counting the winners and honors several times. (It also took quite a while to track down the genders of several of the earlier authors. Thank goodness for the internet, is all I have to say.) So I think the numbers are pretty spot-on, but I am a mere human, with limited spreadsheet capabilities, so I’m happy to hear about any discrepancies from other listmakers out there.
CALDECOTT
Out of 72 Caldecott Gold Medals:
47 have gone to 43 men
20 have gone to 16 women
5 have gone to 5 male/female pairs (all unique illustrator pairs)
Out of 226 Caldecott Honors:
138 have gone to 88 men
83 have gone to 53 women
5 have gone to 4 male/female pairs
Caldecott combined summary, out of 298 medals total:
191 have gone to 100 men (*note: some winners are also honor recipients)
102 have gone to 61 women (*ditto)
10 have gone to 6 male/female pairs
NEWBERY
Out of 87 Newbery Gold Medals:
59 have gone to 55 women
28 have gone to 27 men
Out of 292 Newbery Honors:
197 have gone to 147 women
87 have gone to 65 men
5 have gone to 3 male-female co-author teams
1 has gone to a two-woman co-author team
1 has gone to a female author writing under a male pseudonym
1 has gone to a two-man co-author team
Newbery combined summary, out of 379 awards total:
256 have gone to 174 women (*note: some winners are also honor recipients)
115 have gone to 80 men (*ditto)
5 have gone to 3 male-female co-author teams
1 has gone to a two-woman co-author team
1 has gone to a female author writing under a male pseudonym
1 has gone to a two-man co-author team
Printz Award
Out of 11 Printz Gold Medals:
6 have gone to six women
5 have gone to five men
Out of 41 Printz honors:
23 honor medals have gone to 22 women
17 honor medals have gone to 15 men
1 honor medal has gone to an anthology with poems by authors of both sexes (female editor)
Printz combined summary, out of 52 awards total:
29 medals have gone to 28 women
22 medals have gone to 20 men
1 medal has gone to an anthology with poems by authors of both sexes (female editor)

Well, we may have missed the brunt of the Northeast blizzard in my neck of northern Vermont, but that hasn’t stopped the wind from howling and making the outside seem somewhat inhospitable. One of my favorite winter activities is hunkering down with a hot beverage, a fleece blanket, a dog warming my feet and a glorious book about other people surviving winter.
I just happened to have a wonderful new galley in my stack that fit the bill perfectly. Trapped by Michael Northrup is a rousing, suspenseful tale of seven high school students stuck at school during a freakish, week-long blizzard. At first the kids think it’s all going to be okay and are certain rescue will happen in the morning. But when it becomes painfully apparent that rescue is a long way off the kids must make it on their own, so this odd group of students — two girls, three boys who are already friends and two outsiders — must figure out how to weather the storm. As the snow piled high above the first-floor windows of the Tattawa High School and the students lost power, the wind here whistled and snuggled my dog a little closer. One of the things I liked the best about this book was there was no sugarcoating of the dire situation, or that suddenly all the kids got along great. It all felt real.
There is real pleasure in a reading a book about survival against the elements when there’s a real storm raging. I’m not sure what causes that, but it sure is fun. My next book is Waves by Susan Casey because I’m having a hard time warming up.
What do you like to read when the winter weather keeps you home?

Now that the absolute crush of the holidays is behind me, I can reflect on the season. After 14 years of retail, I can honestly say, I have never seen a holiday season like 2010. I’m not sure what happened, but it was gangbusters. We did no advertising, aside from our street-side sign board (very effective at getting the “stocking stuffer” folks in) and our in-store newsletter, which we normally mail, but this year didn’t. We did have a coupon in the Socially Responsible Business directory/coupon book, but other than that, nothing. And the customers streamed in, from the moment we opened, an hour earlier than normal, until well past closing.
I think our holiday season can best described by one of our staffers who used to be a nurse. “Christmas at the bookstore is a lot like when I worked at a mental hospital: you’re always trying to stay two steps ahead of the patients.” In our case we don’t have patients, but customers who don’t have a lot of time and need recommendations for lots of people. And while you’re helping one person you’re scanning the store to see who else might be needing your help. It’s exhausting, but it’s fun.
I am grateful to all the holiday shoppers who continually said that they wanted to shop local. We even had folks who only wanted to Christmas shop in Shelburne! Now, that’s keeping local. We had a spate of store and restaurants close this fall and I think people understood the importance of their local store and just how much each establishment means to the town.
This year we had our Snowflake giving program as usual. Each snowflake (we had about 40) strewn about the store represented a child who would otherwise not get a book for Christmas. On Christmas Eve one of the women who distributed the books came in to shop and told me, through happy tears, how much the books meant to the families. She said every mom told her the books meant so more much than the toys. Now, that just makes  a bookseller’s year.