Youth picture books taking home top honors

The announcement of the American Library Association's Youth Media Awards caps the most anticipated yearly event for librarians who work with children and young adults.

At its mid-winter conference in Denver last week, the American Library Association honored print and nonprint materials produced during the previous year, including the Caldecott Medal, awarded to the illustrator of the most distinguished picture book.

Leading up to the excitement of the official American Library Association awards, many library systems throughout the country have been sponsoring their own Mock Awards programs.

On Jan. 8, the Evansville Vanderburgh Public Library's youth librarians as well as representatives from Willard Library, Spencer County Public Library in Rockport, Ind., the University of Southern Indiana and other honored guests from Evansville met at Central Library to read and discuss more than 50 outstanding picture books published in 2008.

At the end of the three-hour program, votes were tabulated and a "winner" and two honor books were selected. Our pick to win the 2009 Caldecott Medal? "Abe's Honest Words" written by Doreen Rappaport with oil paintings by Kadir Nelson.

This picture book biography highlights some of the most significant events in Lincoln's life, from his Midwest boyhood to his days as president. From the haunting cover art (oh, those eyes) to the stunning representation of Lincoln's second inauguration, showing ominous clouds above the majestic Capitol, this is book is an absolute gem.

First runner-up in the 2009 Mock Caldecott was "Wabi Sabi" with text by Mark Reibstein and collage art by Ed Young.

"Wabi" has been the pick to win the Caldecott Medal by numerous library systems around the country. Visually stunning in artwork as well as layout, "Wabi" tells the story of a Japanese cat who searches for the true meaning of her name. Her journey of discovery, in turn, becomes eye candy for the viewer. Not since the Caldecott Honor book "Tops and Bottoms" has such an unusual layout been used so effectively. (Open the book and give it a quarter-turn!)

Young, a former Caldecott Medalist (for "Lon Po Po") employs a variety of natural materials to compose his pictures: leaves, tree bark, pine needles, grasses and other materials such as color photographs, cloth and cardboard. Highlighting each large two-page spread are haiku composed by Basho and Shiki. Translations of each poem as well as several other explanatory notes are included as supplementary materials.

Another highly favored picture book, "The House in the Night," is a visual mood piece written by Susan Marie Swanson featuring Beth Krommes' scratchboard and watercolor pictures. Adapted from a nursery rhyme that first appeared in Iona and Peter Opie's mid-1950s compilation, "The Oxford Nursery Rhyme Book," "The House in the Night" focuses on a single color (a golden hue) to contrast the nighttime shadows created in the folklike artwork. From the golden key that unlocks the house to the soft glow of the bedside table lamp, "House" is a perfect bedtime tale to be read again and again. The soft cadence of Swanson's spare text promises that gentle slumbers will surely follow.

And the official winner of the 2009 Caldecott Medal as announced on Jan. 26? "The House in the Night," a worthy addition to the other distinguished titles that have been awarded the Caldecott Medal since 1938.

Carol Banks is youth and teen collection specialist for the Evansville-Vanderburgh Public Library. Contact her at 428-8000, ext. 1256 or by e-mail (carolb@evpl.org). The opinions expressed in this column are personal and do not reflect policies or official recommendations of the library.
http://www.courierpress.com/entertainment/books/youth-picture-books-taking-home-top-honors
www.courierpress.com
crawl=CC-MAIN-2015-18
132696
application/http; msgtype=response
sha1:5SZQCFI5YDWGKBL5BVWTK4VMAD7XXNXY
<urn:uuid:efead0ee-4c1d-41f0-8a7b-7f774207d755>
2015-05-05T07:48:57Z
184.28.17.187
sha1:EBRCMELPM7YSZRTBKJNOEML6AX5YYSDI
<urn:uuid:9c0d20b7-413a-4ca5-89f7-12ccd5430a0c>
http://www.courierpress.com/entertainment/books/youth-picture-books-taking-home-top-honors
response
<urn:uuid:3a0e1083-3d1e-4297-9d08-77ea129d1448>
robots: classic
hostname: ip-10-235-10-82.ec2.internal
software: Nutch 1.6 (CC)/CC WarcExport 1.0
isPartOf: CC-MAIN-2015-18
operator: CommonCrawl Admin
description: Wide crawl of the web for April 2015
publisher: CommonCrawl
format: WARC File Format 1.0
conformsTo: http://bibnum.bnf.fr/WARC/WARC_ISO_28500_version1_latestdraft.pdf