ALA Mid-Winter 2008 Recap: The ALA Media Awards

No opening ceremonies or long-winded speeches began the festivities.  When it was time to begin, there was Dr. Loriene Roy, the ALA Prez, doing the honors.  Then the awards began!

The first surprise for me was seeing Hurt Go Happy by Ginny Rorby get the Schneider Family Book Award for best teen novel.  Not that I objected.  It was a remarkable book that I never thought got enough attention.  But since it came out last year I would have assumed it was ineligible.  A nice surprise, that.

Okay.  So that was new.  The Coretta Scott King Award was then given to Elijah of Buxton and…

You know.  I think I’ve figured out the real problem with the cover.  Hear me out here.  It looks like this:

The first real surprises happened when the Printz Award for the best teen novel came out.  I don’t "do" teen, but even I heard the mention of things like The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian and The Arrival.  Instead, neither one got anything.  And Leila Roy tells us that what did win was pretty good too, so no real complaints here.  Would have been nice to see The Arrival get some luvin’, tho.

The very first Odyssey awards were handed out this day in history.  There were five honors and Listening Library at first seemed to do very well.  That is, until it looked as if the Powerpoint had been mislabeled and Live Oak Media got the big award for Jazz.  NOT Listening Library.  Whoopsie-doodle.

I’d like to pause and raise my glass now to the secretive sneaky members of the Sibert committee.  To Judy Freeman in particular.  Just the night before I had disintegrated into a rant about non-fiction picture books and how they never get enough attention from the Sibert.  And there was Judy, knowing full well that The Wall by Peter Sis and Lightship by Brian Floca had gotten some love, and she didn’t so much as crack a grin.  Well played, Judy!  Well played!

Regarding the Pure Belpre Award, could we just make it easy on ourselves and give Yuyi Morales something sparkly every year?  I don’t see why not.  She just happens to be one of the most talented artists living today.  I was pleased as punch to see her book get two awards (though the suspense regarding the medal for narrative was broken when they showed the cover after she won it for illustration and the image displayed TWO medals on the cover). 

I’m sure there were many reactions to Jump In, starring that High School Musical boy, winning, what until this year was known as, the Weston Woods Awards (a.k.a. The Carnegie Medal).  My reaction was perhaps a little different from yours.  You see, I have a gym membership here in New York.  My gym has lots of little television sets that, when I control them, play nothing but music videos.  I can’t work out to anything but music videos.  If I were an adult in the pre-MTV age I would be 400 pounds.  Recently my gym’s two video channels (yes, they have two plus VH1) have been playing a lot of videos starring High School Musical kids.  And at least TWO of those videos are from Jump In.  I know all about that movie by now.  How Corbin Bleu’s friends photograph him jumping rope and plaster the school with Xeroxes.  How there’s a girl that boxes.  The cool jump rope routines.  I from all this I can tell you that there was probably a cooler clip they could have shown.  Maybe they’re saving it for the Newbery/Caldecott Awards Banquet though.  Dunno.  We’ll figure it out.

The Geisel Award went to a Mo Willems Elephant and Piggie book (yay!) but it wasn’t my favorite (boo!).  You see?  A person can complain about anything if they try hard enough. 

And then, suddenly, we were hearing the Caldecott winners.  How did that happen?  So I try to gear up.  Next year I am SO making ballot sheets.  I couldn’t even remember what I wanted to win. 

It’s fortunate that I’m lamentable at predicting Caldecotts anyway, though.  I was delighted to see Selznick grab the Caldecott proper and not a little awed by the guts of the committee that gave it to him.  It opens things up, I think.  And don’t you love how all the articles out there that are saying that Selznick "nabs" the Caldecott?  Like he put on black pajamas and stole it in the dead of night?  Nuh-uh, puppies, he OWNED that award.  That award is his by rights.  Now we just need to figure out how to make it happen again in the future.

Ah.  And then the Newbery.

Readers, I made some predictions about the Newbery and I was fully prepared to be as dead wrong as a person could be.  I was wrong, but in the best possible way.

When Elijah and Wednesday Wars got Honors I was not surprised. But when I saw Feathers get an honor as well, I was well and truly stumped.  I think my mental process ran somewhat along these lines.

"Feathers?  Honor?  What the…. ?  Then. . . . well, if let’s say perhaps maybe that Ms. Schlitz does . . . what could it be?  I’m never right about . . . what if it’s, like, Joey Pigza or something?"

It wasn’t.  It was Good Masters! Sweet Ladies!  I think they could hear my cheers somewhere in the outer limits of residential Boston.

Because, you see, it wasn’t that something I’d predicted to win had won.  It was that something I loved deeply and wanted so badly to be recognized won.  How often in your life do you root for something and then get to see it receive the glory it so desperately deserves?   Let me tell you a little something about this book.  Back in July I had a Kidlit Drink Night at the bar Sweet & Vicious.  About seven children’s librarians from Queens were present and after the drinks we high-tailed it to a pizza slice shop to chow and talk.  I had, in my possession, a rare and beautiful hardcover copy of this book and the librarians instantly recognized how cool it was.  They started passing it back and forth, cooing over the contents.  It was that kind of crowd.  That, for me, was the moment when I decided that I thought it might have a fighting chance. 

Anyway, I pretty much lost it.  Other bloggers will attest to this, I think.  At some point I’ll put my recording from the floor on my podcast.  I just listened to it and it’s pretty funny.  You should hear the gasps when Feathers gets an Honor and not the Gold.

Wow.