Children's Book Columns

    The gold medals get all the attention at the Olympics, but winners of the silver and bronze medals are proud, too.  So it goes with children’s book awards as well.  Anyone would be thrilled to win the Newbery or Caldecott Medals, but earning an Honor (as the runners-up are called) is nothing to sneeze at.

    This year’s honor books – and yes, they earn a silver medal – include one of those fascinating true stories that makes readers say, “how come I never knew that?”

    Stonewall Hinkleman is a typical twelve-year-old boy whose parents are ardent Civil War re-enactors.  This means that every weekend he’s dragged (his word) to another Civil War battle site.  His father reveres an ancestor, Cyrus Hinkleman, who fought and died in the war, despite the fact that, as Stonewall puts it, “He was shot in the butt… Which can only mean one thing.  He was running away when he was shot.”  Dressed in a scratchy wool uniform and dragging a bugle that he barely knows how to play, Stonewall sulks around wishing he could play his Game Boy.

    Last Tuesday, our librarians discussed ten books we found worthy of the Coretta Scott King author and illustrator awards.  The actual winners will be announced next Monday, January 18, at the American Library Association conference in Boston.  Click here on Monday morning at 7:45 for a live webcast of the announcements.

    The Coretta Scott King Awards are given to African American authors and illustrators for outstanding inspirational and educational contributions.  Among our nominations for the Illustrator Award is “The Negro Speaks of Rivers,” a poem by Langston Hughes illustrated by E. B. Lewis. 

          Poetry books are well represented on library shelves and eagerly checked out by readers raised on Shel Silverstein and Dr. Seuss. Fans of their humor and wordplay will love Adam Rex’s two monstrous poetry collections, “Frankenstein Makes a Sandwich” and the brand-new ”Frankenstein Takes the Cake.” Each book features poems about famous monsters – Dracula, the Phantom of the Opera, Bigfoot – and their trials and tribulations.