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2006 ALA Awards
And The Winners Are...
• John Newbery Medal
• Randolph Caldecott Medal
• Coretta Scott King Award
• Schneider Family Book Award
• Theodor Seuss Geisel Beginning Reader Award
The American Library Association (otherwise known as the ALA) has announced its 2006 awards, honoring the best books published in 2005. And we've got them all for you right here!
Curious about the ALA and its awards? Here's a little background...
Since 1921, the American Library Association has awarded prizes to the best of the best children's books. Each year, one exceptional book receives the John Newbery Medal --- and runners up may be named Newbery Honor Books. Also, one awesomely illustrated book is awarded the Randolph Caldecott Medal, with other cool picture books named Caldecott Honor titles. And though the names and works of contenders are hotly debated each year, no one really knows who will win. Committee members are sworn to secrecy, until the announcement is made at the ALA Midwinter Meeting in January.
The Coretta Scott King Award is given to an African American author and an African American illustrator for an outstandingly inspirational and educational contribution. The books promote understanding and appreciation of the culture of all peoples and their contribution to the realization of the American dream. The Award is further designed to commemorate the life and works of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. and to honor Mrs. Coretta Scott King for her courage and determination to continue the work for peace and world brotherhood.
The Schneider Family Book Award, donated by Katherine Schneider, Ph.D., honors an author or illustrator for a book that embodies an artistic expression of the disability experience for child and adolescent audiences. The book must portray some aspect of living with a disability or that of a friend or family member, whether the disability is physical, mental or emotional. Recipients are selected in three categories: birth through grade school (ages 0-10), middle school (ages 11-13), and teens (ages 13-18).
The Theodor Seuss Geisel Award, established in 2004, will be given annually starting in 2006 to the author(s) and illustrator(s) of an outstanding book for beginning readers published in the United States during the preceding year. The award is named for the world-renowned children’s author Theodor Geisel, a.k.a. Dr. Seuss.
Winning Books
2006 Newbery Winner
 CRISS CROSS
Lynne Rae Perkins
Greenwillow
ISBN: 0060092734
Ages 10-up
368 pages
August 2005
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Debbie is wishing something would happen. Something good. To her. Soon. In the meantime, Debbie loses a necklace and finds a necklace; she goes jeans shopping with her mother; she learns to drive a stick shift, in a truck (illegally); she saves a life; she takes a bus ride to another town; she meets a boy; but mostly she hangs out with her friends. Their paths cross, and their stories crisscross.
2006 Newbery Honors
 HITLER YOUTH: Growing Up in Hitler's Shadow
Susan Campbell Bartoletti
Scholastic Nonfiction
ISBN: 0439353793
Ages 12-up
176 pages
April 2005
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By the time Hitler became Chancellor of Germany in 1933, 3.5 million children belonged to the Hitler Youth. It would become the largest youth group in history. Susan Campbell Bartoletti explores how Hitler gained the loyalty, trust, and passion of so many of Germany's young people. Her research includes telling interviews with surviving Hitler Youth members.
 PRINCESS ACADEMY
Shannon Hale
Bloomsbury USA
ISBN: 1582349932
Ages 9-up
250 pages
July 2005
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Miri lives on a mountain where, for generations, her ancestors have quarried stone and lived a simple life. Then word comes that the king's priests have divined her small village the home of the future princess. In a year's time, the prince himself will come and choose his bride from among the girls of the village. The king's ministers set up an academy on the mountain, and every teenage girl must attend and learn how to become a princess.
Miri soon finds herself confronted with a harsh academy mistress, bitter competition among the girls, and her own conflicting desires to be chosen and win the heart of her childhood best friend. But when bandits seek out the academy to kidnap the future princess, Miri must rally the girls together and use a power unique to the mountain dwellers to save herself and her classmates.
 SHOW WAY
Jacqueline Woodson
illustrated by Hudson Talbott
G.P. Putnam's Sons
ISBN: 0399237496
Ages 5-up
48 pages
September 2005
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Soonie’s great-grandma was just seven years old when she was sold to a big plantation without her ma and pa, and with only some fabric and needles to call her own. She pieced together bright patches with names like North Star and Crossroads, patches with secret meanings made into quilts called Show Ways --- maps for slaves to follow to freedom. When she grew up and had a little girl, she passed on this knowledge. And generations later, Soonie --- who was born free --- taught her own daughter how to sew beautiful quilts to be sold at market and how to read.
 WHITTINGTON
Alan Armstrong
Random House
ISBN: 0375828648
Ages 8-12
208 pages
July 2005
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Alan Armstrong creates a glorious barnyard fantasy that seamlessly weaves together three tales: Whittington the cat’s arrival on Bernie’s farm, his retelling of the traditional legend of his 14th-century namesake, and one boy’s struggle to learn to read. These three tales unite the disparate citizens of the barn community in a celebration of oral and written language, the support of friends, the healing power of humor and the triumph of life.
2006 Caldecott Winner
 THE HELLO, GOODBYE WINDOW
Norman Juster
illustrated by Chris Raschka
Michael Di Capua Books
ISBN: 0786809140
Ages 4-8
32 pages
 May 2005
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The kitchen window at Nanna and Poppy's house is, for one little girl, a magic gateway. Everything important happens near it, through it, or beyond it. Told in her voice, her story is both a voyage of discovery and a celebration of the commonplace wonders that define childhood. It is also a love song devoted to that special relationship between grandparents and grandchild.
2006 Caldecott Honors
 HOT AIR: The (Mostly) True Story of the First Hot-Air Balloon Ride
written and illustrated by Marjorie Priceman
An Anne Schwartz Book/Atheneum
ISBN: 0689826427
Ages 4-8
40 pages
June 2005
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Energetic lines and rich watercolors animate HOT AIR: The (Mostly) True Story of the First Hot-Air Balloon Ride, an aerial adventure over 18th-century France. Marjorie Priceman, who previously received a 1996 Caldecott Honor for ZIN! ZIN! ZIN! A VIOLIN, combines spare text, dynamic design and masterful perspective to illuminate the humor and high jinks of three animals swept up in the winds of history.
 ROSA
Nikki Giovanni
illustrated by Bryan Collier
Henry Holt & Company
ISBN: 0805071067
Ages 4-8
40 pages
October 2005
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Fifty years after her refusal to give up her seat on a Montgomery, Alabama, city bus, Mrs. Rosa Parks is still one of the most important figures in the American civil rights movement. This picture-book tribute to Mrs. Parks is a celebration of her courageous action and the events that followed.
Award-winning poet, writer, and activist Nikki Giovanni’s evocative text combines with Bryan Collier’s striking cut-paper images to retell the story of this historic event from a wholly unique and original perspective.
 SONG OF THE WATER BOATMAN AND OTHER POND POEMS
written by Joyce Sidman
illustrated by Beckie Prange
Houghton Mifflin
ISBN: 0618135472
Ages 4-8
32 pages
April 2005
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From spring"s first thaw to autumn"s chill, the world of the pond is a dramatic place. Though seemingly quiet, ponds are teeming with life and full of surprises. Their denizens—from peepers to painted turtles, duckweed to diving beetles—lead secret and fascinating lives.
A unique blend of whimsy, science, poetry, and hand-colored woodcuts, this collection invites us to take a closer look at our hidden ponds and wetlands. Here is a celebration of their beauty and their mystery.
 ZEN SHORTS
written and illustrated by Jon J. Muth
Scholastic Press
ISBN: 0439339111
Ages 4-8
40 pages
March 2005
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"Michael," said Karl. "There's a really big bear in the backyard." This is how three children meet Stillwater, a giant panda who moves into the neighborhood and tells amazing tales. To Addie he tells a story about the value of material goods. To Michael he pushes the boundaries of good and bad. And to Karl he demonstrates what it means to hold on to frustration.
With graceful art and simple stories that are filled with love and enlightenment, Jon Muth -- and Stillwater the bear -- present three ancient Zen tales that are sure to strike a chord in everyone they touch.
2006 Coretta Scott King Author Winner
 DAY OF TEARS: A Novel in Dialogue
Julius Lester
Jump at the Sun/Hyperion
ISBN: 0786804904
Ages 9-12
92 pages
April 2005
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DAY OF TEARS: A NOVEL IN DIALOGUE is Julius Lester’s masterful fictionalized account of the largest slave auction in U.S. history, held in 1859 in Savannah, Georgia. In a powerfully dramatic format, the voices of enslaved Africans and their masters move between monologues and conversations.
2006 Coretta Scott King Author Honors
 DARK SONS
Nikki Grimes
Jump at the Sun/Hyperion
ISBN: 0786818883
Ages 10-14
224 pages
September 2005
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Alternating between biblical times and contemporary Brooklyn, New York, Nikki Grimes masterfully tells the stories of two boys separated by time, geography, and culture who struggle with their fractured families. DARK SONS is a story of love and forgiveness, and the comfort brought by faith in difficult times.
 MARITCHA: A Nineteenth-Century American Girl
Tonya Bolden
Harry N. Abrams
ISBN: 0810950456
Ages 9-12
48 pages
February 2005
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Based on an actual memoir written by Maritcha Rémond Lyons, who was born and raised in New York City, this poignant story tells what it was like to be a black child born free during the days of slavery. Everyday experiences are interspersed with high-point moments, such as visiting the U.S.'s first world's fair. Also included are the Draft Riots of 1863, when Maritcha and her siblings fled to Brooklyn while her parents stayed behind to protect their home. The book concludes with her fight to attend a whites-only high school in Providence, Rhode Island.
 A WREATH FOR EMMETT TILL
Marilyn Nelson
illustrated by Philippe Lardy
Houghton Mifflin
ISBN: 0618397523
Ages 12-up
48 pages
April 2005
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In 1955, people all over the United States knew that Emmett Louis Till was a fourteen-year-old African American boy lynched for supposedly whistling at a white woman in Mississippi. The brutality of his murder, the open-casket funeral, and the acquittal of the men tried for the crime drew wide media attention.
Award-winning poet Marilyn Nelson reminds us of the boy whose fate helped spark the civil rights movement.
2006 Coretta Scott King Illustrator Winner
ROSA
Nikki Giovanni
illustrated by Bryan Collier
Henry Holt & Company
ISBN: 0805071067
Ages 4-8
40 pages
October 2005
• Click here to buy from Amazon.com
Fifty years after her refusal to give up her seat on a Montgomery, Alabama, city bus, Mrs. Rosa Parks is still one of the most important figures in the American civil rights movement. This picture-book tribute to Mrs. Parks is a celebration of her courageous action and the events that followed.
Award-winning poet, writer, and activist Nikki Giovanni’s evocative text combines with Bryan Collier’s striking cut-paper images to retell the story of this historic event from a wholly unique and original perspective.
2006 Coretta Scott King Illustrator Honors
 BROTHERS IN HOPE: The Story of the Lost Boys of Sudan
R. Gregory Christie
Lee and Low Books
ISBN: 1584302321
Ages 7-up
40 pages
May 2005
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A young boy unites with thousands of other orphaned boys to walk to safety in a refugee camp in another country, after war destroys their villages in southern Sudan. Based on heartbreaking yet inspirational true events in the lives of the Lost Boys of Sudan, BROTHERS IN HOPE is a story of remarkable and enduring courage, and an amazing testament to the unyielding power of the human spirit.
2006 Coretta Scott King/John Steptoe New Author Talent Award
 JIMI & ME
Jaime Adoff
Jump at the Sun/Hyperion
ISBN: 0786852143
Ages 12-up
336 pages
September 2005
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After his father is murdered, Keith and his mother try desperately to pick up the pieces of their lives. But his father’s death has left them devastated --- both emotionally and financially. Forced to leave Brooklyn and move in with his aunt, Keith urgently clings to every last reminder of his dad, discovering comfort in his own music and that of the late legend --- and his father’s idol --- Jimi Hendrix. But just as he begins to get a handle on his father’s death, he discovers the secrets of his father’s life --- secrets that threaten to tear apart what’s left of his fragile family.
2006 Schneider Family Picture Book Winner
 DAD, JACKIE AND ME
Myron Uhlberg
illustrated by Colin Bootman
Peachtree Press
ISBN: 1561453293
Ages 4-8
32 pages
March 2005
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This exceptional portrayal of a young boy’s affectionate relationship with his deaf father hits home when his dad identifies with baseball player Jackie Robinson and recognizes that discrimination takes many forms. Expressive illustrations evoke the 1940s era and capture mood, warmth and sensitivity.
2006 Schneider Family Middle School Award Winner
 TENDING TO GRACE
Kimberly Newton Fusco
Knopf
ISBN: 0553494236
Ages 12-up
176 pages
May 2004
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Cornelia “Corny” Thornton, a self-described bookworm who stutters, is judged to be a poor student because of her reluctance to speak or read aloud. During the school year that Corny lives with her eccentric great-aunt Agatha, a family secret helps them as they unravel their differences.
2006 Schneider Family Teen Award Winner
 UNDER THE WOLF, UNDER THE DOG
Adam Rapp
Candlewick Press
ISBN: 0763618187
Ages 14-up
320 pages
September 2004
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Steve Nugent is in a facility called Burnstone Grove. It's a place for kids who are addicts --- like Shannon Lynch, who can stick $1.87 in change up his nose, or for kids who have tried to commit suicide, like Silent Starla, whom Steve is getting a crush on. But Steve doesn't really fit in either group. He used to go to a gifted school. So why is he being held at Burnstone Grove? Keeping a journal, in which he recalls his confused and violent past, Steve is left to figure out who he is by examining who he was.
2006 Theodor Seuss Geisel Winner
 HENRY AND MUDGE AND THE GREAT GRANDPAS
Cynthia Rylant
illustrated by Suçie Stevenson
Simon & Schuster
ISBN: 0689811705
Ages 5-7
40 pages
April 2005
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In four simple and joyful chapters, Henry and his sweet-natured dog enjoy a memorable visit with great-grandpa Bill and his buddies at the “grandpa house.” The full and happy day is highlighted by a frolic in the pond, with grandpas in their “skivvies,” topped off by a spaghetti dinner.
2006 Theodor Seuss Geisel Honors
 AMANDA PIG AND THE REALLY HOT DAY
Jean Van Leeuwen
illustrated by Ann Schweninger
Dial Books for Young Readers
ISBN: 0803728875
Ages 5-8
48 pages
May 2005
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It’s too hot. Poor Amanda is all droopy like the plants in her father’s garden, but this plucky little pig is determined to beat the heat somehow. With four funny chapters filled with adorable illustrations, this story will have readers giggling over Amanda’s muggy-day woes and her quest to be cool.
 COWGIRL KATE AND COCOA
Erica Silverman
illustrated by Betsy Lewin
Harcourt Children's Books
ISBN: 0152021248
Ages 4-8
44 pages
April 2005
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Hold on to your hats! Two new pals have arrived on the scene: Cowgirl Kate and her stubborn, but devoted cow horse, Cocoa. Together they count the herd, ride the range, and, of course, argue till the cows come home --- as only best friends can do.
 HI! FLY GUY
Tedd Arnold
Cartwheel Books
ISBN: 0439639034
Ages 4-8
32 pages
September 2005
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"A fly was flying. He was looking for something to eat. Something tasty. Something slimy. A boy was walking. He was looking for something to catch. Something smart. Something for The Amazing Pet Show." The boy and fly meet and so begins a beautiful friendship. Er, and so begins a very funny friendship.
 A SPLENDID FRIEND, INDEED
Suzanne Bloom
Boyds Mills Press
ISBN: 1590782860
Ages 2-5
32 pages
March 2005
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In a picture-book format perfect for emergent readers, a persistent goose wins the affection and friendship of a preoccupied polar bear in A SPLENDID FRIEND, INDEED. The expressive pastel paintings and playful text of the book mirror the exuberance for reading and writing.
-- Written by Tom Donadio and Marisa Emralino
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