Do you care about awards? When you’re looking for a book to read for yourself or your child, do you consult awards’ lists? Does hearing press about a book winning an award make you want to read it?
A couple of years ago, I did happen upon some press about the National Book Award being awarded to Tim Egan for The Worst Hard Time. I had also seen it around at Costco, I think, but that tipped me over the edge, and so I decided to read it (you can read my full review HERE).
At Amanda’s school, they are encouraged to read the Nutmeg nominees. Kids who read the nominees can then give their vote for which book should receive our state’s children’s book award. Amanda’s librarians have also always announced the Newbery medal and honor books and made sure that they were available to read them.
I’m not sure if they truly are always the best books, but what I am sure of is that both for myself and for Amanda, it stretches us to read something that we might not normally have considered reading. It draws Amanda away from her series- or author-of-the-month and into a genre which she might find that she likes very much.
Here at the site, I’ve given a nod to the Newbery Medal and Caldecott Medal winners in our Children’s Classics carnival. On October 14 and November 11 respectively, we’ll be linking up about our favorites in that category. I hope that will encourage some of us to explore and maybe read a book that they hadn’t considered before. Then we can hear real people’s take on these books as we read around through the links.
That brings me to my next point:
I think that instead of an award, I am much more likely to appreciate a great word-of-mouth referral. It could be from the librarian who recommends a book similar to the one I just checked out for my daughter; it could be from a friend who knows my tastes (or wants to stretch them), but many times these days, it’s from a blogger.
I would love to tell you about something that I’ve found to be the best of both worlds — The Cybils . I find them to straddle the line nicely of a great word-of-mouth referral, and a big-time professional award. From October 1 – 15, the nominations are open. The word gets spread pretty well in the kidlit blogger community, but they actively seek “real people’s” nominations as well. From these nominations, a group of finalists are chosen in February by a genre-specific committee, and then another committee selects the winner from the finalists.
I encourage you to nominate a book that you or your child has enjoyed. Each person can submit one nominee per category (which span from easy reader, to poetry, to science fiction, to young adult and everywhere in between). Also, it doesn’t matter if one person or four nominates a book, so before you nominate, read through the list and make sure yours isn’t already on there.
Here are the guidelines:
- Each person may nominate one book in each category.
- The book must be published between January 1 and October 15 of 2008
- English or bilingual books only
So, if you’d like to nominate a book, or even browse through past winners, click on over to the Cybils site. The past winners and finalists are linked in the upper right-most column. In the middle column on down the page, you will find links to each of the categories. This is where you would nominate any books. If you have any questions, feel free to ask me, or leave a question HERE for the Cybils organizers.
So before you click over and get busy browsing around that site, I’ll pose my opening questions again:
Do you care about awards? When you’re looking for a book to read for yourself or your child, do you consult awards’ lists? Does hearing press about a book winning an award make you want to read it?
and leave you with another:
If not, what does make you decide to read a book or select it for your child?
Managing Editor Jennifer Donovan is a contributing editor at 5 Minutes for Mom. She has been blogging at Snapshot for over two years. You’ll almost always find her holding either a book, a fork, a child’s hand, her laptop, or some combination therein.
I do seek out Caldecott winners for my daughters, and we’ve read several Newbery finalists and winners together as read-alouds. I rely more on word-of-mouth referrals than awards lists, though, and I participate in an online forum that has provided me with excellent recommendations for children’s literature, both old and new. I’ve found other recommendations on the reading lists from Five in a Row, Sonlight and Ambleside Online, which might be helpful for finding excellent children’s literature even if you don’t homeschool. Jim Trelease’s The Read-Aloud Handbook is another great resource, as is Gladys Hunt’s Honey for a Child’s Heart.
This is great, Jennifer. Thanks for sharing the Cybils with your readers. I hope that lots of people will choose to come and nominate books!
I never consult awards list when I’m looking for books to read. I’ve found that many books on award lists aren’t really all that great. But if I see a book mentioned alot I may search it out to see if I’m interested in reading it or not.
Normally I will read a book based on someone’s suggestion of a title or author.