Mock Me. Repeatedly.
ATTENTION!!! If you are planning on watching the live feed of the Newbery/Caldecott announcements during the ALA Youth Media Awards presentation, come half an hour earlier and check out my pre-game show where I will join cohort Lori Ess in discussing the potential winners. Afterwards we will note which Mock Newberys, Mock Caldecotts, Mock Printzs, etc. got it right nationwide. For more information: https://blogs.slj.com/afuse8production/2014/01/20/introducing-the-first-ever-absolutely-fantastic-slj-pre-game-and-post-game-show/
Folks, I’m working on a secret project that requires your help. Every year Mock Newberys, Mock Caldecotts, and even the occasional Mock Printz meet to cast their votes about what they deem to be the best books of the year. There is no single source collecting these Mocks, however, so the only way a person might hear about it is if the Mock group has a blog or posts their results on listservs like child_lit and ccbc-net.
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I aim to change that. Friends, ‘mericans, countrymen, lend me your Mocks. If you’ve a Mock committee out there that you know of, please send me the results when you hear of them. You can post ’em here or email me (my email is found my clicking my my name at the start of this post). I shall duly collect them and maybe even make a nice collected list for this blog, posting the results. It’s just fun to see what folks around the country feel about the “contenders”, don’t you think?
Mock me!
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About Betsy Bird
Betsy Bird is currently the Collection Development Manager of the Evanston Public Library system and a former Materials Specialist for New York Public Library. She has served on Newbery, written for Horn Book, and has done other lovely little things that she'd love to tell you about but that she's sure you'd find more interesting to hear of in person. Her opinions are her own and do not reflect those of EPL, SLJ, or any of the other acronyms you might be able to name. Follow her on Twitter: @fuseeight.
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You are a true mocking Bird.
And this particular shoe shaped bruise is courtesy of Sergio Ruzzier who came up with what my title SHOULD HAVE BEEN. Well played, sir.
Thank you for doing this! As some one who runs from Mock blog to Mock blog, trying to make sure I have the books for my students when the winner is announced, you have just made my life so much easier! Thank you!
Well, I’ll be the first to post results here. Our Mock Newbery Committee at Saint Ann’s School in Brooklyn had our first vote yesterday. The group consists of 34 students in 4th-6th grades. Out of an initial 40 books, we narrowed it down to 8 finalists. Here they are, in alphabetical order:
BEHOLDING BEE by Kimberly Newton Fusco
BETTER NATE THAN EVER by Tim Federle
COUNTING BY 7s by Holly Goldberg Sloan
JINX by Sage Blackwood
RUMP by Liesl Shurtliff
A SONG FOR BIJOU by Josh Farrar
THE WATER CASTLE by Megan Frazer Blakemore
WHITE FUR FLYING by Patricia MacLachlan
Thank you, Hannah! I’m happy to say I’ve read all but one of these (and I stopped reading the one because of a petty problem I had with a certain machine’s mechanics early on – guess which one THAT was, if you can).
Keep us informed of your end results!
I have compiled Mock Printz lists for a few year on my blog. Planning to do it again this year!
We ran our first-ever mock Caldecott this year. We met weekly with children in kindergarten and up. We read three books each week, discussed them, and then made an art project that was inspired by the artwork in one of that week’s book. And our winner is….Journey, by Aaron Becker. Here is a link to our blog: http://oplkids.wordpress.com/2013/12/12/caldecott-kids-pick-a-winner/
The OPLbery Club is a mock Newbery club at the Ossining Public Library for children ages 9 and up. This is our fourth annual award. The club met yesterday, and here are their results:
OPLbery Medal:
Escape From Mr. Lemoncello’s Library, by Chris Grabenstein
OPLbery Honors
Rump, by Liesl Shurtliff
Magic Marks the Spot, by Caroline Carlson
Here’s a link to our blog post: http://oplkids.wordpress.com/2014/01/11/and-the-oplbery-medal-goes-to/
The Wells County Public Library in northeast Indiana hosted a Mock Caldecott workshop with 39 participants. After a day of book examination and discussion, we selected a winner and two honor books.
Winner: “The Matchbox Diary” illustrated by Bagram Ibatoulline, written by Paul Fleischman
Honors: “The Invisible Boy” illustrated by Patrice Barton, written by Trudy Ludwig and “Mr. Tiger Goes Wild” illustrated and written by Peter Brown
Check! These are in. Thanks!