Honor: Electric Ben: The Amazing Life and Times of Benjamin Franklin by Robert Byrd; illus. by the author (Dial)
With a jacket showing Benjamin Franklin as a cross between a mad scientist and a superhero standing amid wild lightning bolts and surrounded by all manner of electrical devices, this book shimmers with excitement, begging to be read. Byrd divides Franklin’s life into seventeen often whimsically labeled double-page spreads, beginning with his childhood and ending with his death. Two such spreads (“Coaxing Sparks from the Sky” and “The Wonderful Effects of Points”) deal with his fascination with electricity, with the remainder covering topics ranging from his ideas for social progress (such as a lending library and fire department) to his diplomatic roles before, during, and after the American Revolution. An informative, exploratory, nonpandering text (“Franklin’s expertise lay in making the most of the printed page, delighting those who agreed with him, and disarming those who did not; always keeping all parties anticipating his next move”) is set amid an attractive page layout. Nicely developed and designed spot art and larger illustrations on every page serve as internal end notes, explaining tangential information, giving more detail to certain ideas, and providing a visual record of Ben’s life and times. An author’s note, timeline, bibliography, and recommended readings complete the book. BETTY CARTER

Honor: Moonbird: A Year on the Wind with the Great Survivor B95 written by Phillip M. Hoose (Farrar)
He’s called “Moonbird” because, over a lifespan of twenty years, he’s flown some 325,000 miles, the distance to the moon and almost halfway back. This robin-sized red knot (subspecies rufa), a shorebird, is in southern Argentina from October to February and in the Arctic, breeding, for a few summer weeks; between times, his great migrating flock is like a “constantly shifting organism — now a ball, now a rippling blanket” as the birds fly nearly from pole to pole twice a year. Stops are few but strategic; after thousands of miles it’s essential to bulk up with what’s available at the same few sites each year: mosquito larvae, mussels, horseshoe crab eggs. Thanks to banding and photography by scientists, who call him B95, sightings are documented since 1995 (when adult plumage indicated B95’s age to be at least three years). Even for his species, B95 is extraordinary — “one of the world’s premier athletes” — but Hoose’s fascinating account concerns much more than this one bird. In lucid, graceful prose, Hoose details the red knots’ characteristics and strategies, sampling far-flung challenges to their survival (e.g., fishermen harvesting horseshoe crabs in crucial stopover Delaware Bay). He describes research methods (cannon nets, banding), profiles scientists in international cooperation as well as activist kids, and takes a sobering look at longterm prospects for survival not just of the rufa but of most species on earth. Glorious full-page color photographs alternate with excellent smaller photos (including one of B95 taken on November 25, 2011) and many good, helpful maps in a highly informative progression of images. Exemplary source notes, including many interviews, plus acknowledgments and picture credits; a bibliography; and an index. JOANNA RUDGE LONG

Honor: Titanic: Voices from the Disaster by Deborah Hopkinson (Scholastic)
Hopkinson knows precisely what’s she doing in her coverage of the Titanic disaster: providing young readers with a basic introduction to the event without overdramatizing, drawing unwarranted conclusions, or prolonging the ordeal. She begins her account as the ship embarks on its maiden voyage and, once it sets sail, flashes back to cover its construction and grandeur as well as some of the crew’s responsibilities, which play major roles in the sinking of the ship and the rescue of the passengers. Hopkinson also introduces her “characters,” real survivors whose voices relay many of the subsequent events. She includes crew members as well as those traveling in first, second, and third class, showing both the contrasts between them as the voyage begins and the horror that binds them by night’s end. In this admirably restrained account, Hopkinson covers, but doesn’t dwell upon, the foreshadowing of iceberg reports, the heartbreaking choices in boarding the (too few) lifeboats, and the agony of those dying in the freezing water. For interested readers who want to read in more detail, Hopkinson includes comprehensive chapter notes, a listing of sources, and questions to get young people started on their own Titanic quests. Archival photographs, a timeline, a selected list of facts, short biographies of those mentioned, excerpts from selected survivor letters, a glossary, and an unseen index complete this fine book. BETTY CARTER

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Winner: In Darkness by Nick Lake (Bloomsbury)

Honor: Aristotle and Dante Discover the Secrets of the Universe by Benjamin Alire Sáenz (Simon)
Aristotle — Ari for short — meets Dante at the pool one summer day in 1987, and the two boys quickly strike up a friendship that will change their lives in ways both subtle and profound. Ari admires Dante’s gregarious personality, his intellectual curiosity, and his close bond with his parents, especially his father. In contrast, Ari’s own father, a Vietnam vet, remains aloof, damaged by his experience of war, and both parents refuse to discuss his imprisoned older brother. When Ari saves Dante’s life but breaks his own legs in the process, it not only strengthens their friendship but cements the bond between the two Mexican American families. When Dante’s father leaves El Paso for a one-year position at the University of Chicago, the boys stay in touch through letters. Dante had telegraphed his sexual attraction to Ari, but now comes out to his friend in writing. When Dante returns, the two cautiously resume their friendship, but when Dante gets beat up in an alley for kissing another boy, it’s a catalyst for Ari to examine how he really feels about Dante. Ari’s first-person narrative — poetic, philosophical, honest — skillfully develops the relationship between the two boys from friendship to romance, leading to the inevitable conclusion: “How could I have ever been ashamed of loving Dante Quintana?” JONATHAN HUNT

Honor: Code Name Verity by Elizabeth Wein (Hyperion)
Wein’s exceptional — downright sizzling — abilities as a writer of historical adventure fiction are spectacularly evident in this taut, captivating story of two young women, spy and pilot, during World War II. Wein gives us the story in two consecutive parts—the first an account by Queenie (a.k.a. Lady Julia Beaufort-Stuart), a spy captured by the SS during a mission in Nazi-occupied France. Queenie has bargained with Hauptsturmführer von Linden to write what she knows about the British war effort in order to postpone her inevitable execution. Sounding like a cross between Swallows and Amazons’s Nancy Blackett and Mata Hari, she alternately succumbs to, cheeks, and charms her captors (and readers) as she duly writes her report and, mostly, tells the story of her best friend Maddie, the pilot who dropped her over France, then crashed. Spoiler: unbeknownst to Queenie, Maddie survived the crash; part two is Maddie’s “accident report” and account of her efforts to save Queenie. Wein gives us multiple doubletakes and surprises as she ratchets up the tension in Maddie’s story, revealing Queenie’s joyously clever duplicity and the indefatigable courage of both women. This novel positively soars, in part no doubt because the descriptions of flying derive from Wein’s own experience as a pilot. But it’s outstanding in all its features — its warm, ebullient characterization; its engagement with historical facts; its ingenious plot and dramatic suspense; and its intelligent, vivid writing. DEIRDRE F. BAKER

Honor: Dodger by Terry Pratchett (HarperCollins)
Who would have the skill, the sensibility, and the sass to put Charles Dickens into a novel and then proceed to write that novel in full-octane Dickensian style? Terry Pratchett, of course. A la Oliver Twist, Dodger is a street urchin (“if you wanted to be a successful urchin you needed to study how to urch”) who makes his way in early-Victorian London as a tosher, a sewer gleaner. One rainy night he gallantly rescues a young woman who is being beaten up, and a complicated plot is set in motion. The cast includes Dickens, minor European royalty, Disraeli, Sweeney Todd, Charles Babbage, a philanthropist named Angela Burdett-Coutts who alone is worth the price of admission, and Queen Victoria herself — but none of them upstages Dodger, a boy on the make and on the brink, with his own highly developed moral code. His original take on the world and his deft way with language make him a wonderful guide through sewers, morgues, theaters, drawing rooms, pea-soup fogs, and barbershops and a story of espionage, romance, action, skullduggery, double-dealing, and heroism. It’s a glittering conjuring act, but there’s real heart here, too, as Dodger’s horizons expand to include nature, art, and love. SARAH ELLIS

Honor: The White Bicycle by Beverley Brenna (Red Deer Press)
see post at Out of the Box

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Winner: Aristotle and Dante Discover the Secrets of the Universe by Benjamin Alire Sáenz (Simon)

Honor: The Revolution of Evelyn Serrano by Sonia Manzano (Scholastic Press)
Set in the summer of 1969, Manzano’s solid first novel deals with the political and cultural awakening of fourteen-year-old Rosa María Evelyn del Carmen Serrano, who tells us straight off that she prefers to be called Evelyn because “El Barrio, Spanish Harlem, U.S.A., did not need another Rosa, María, or Carmen.” She’s not particularly happy with her life: her best friend has dropped her, her mother embarrasses her, and she hates the stench of overflowing garbage cans in her neighborhood. To make things worse, she has to give up her bedroom when her grandmother arrives from Puerto Rico, and Evelyn’s charismatic orange-haired Abuela is not an easy person to live with. She’s loud, messy, and opinionated, and she constantly clashes with Evelyn’s more conservative mother. Abuela becomes involved with the Young Lords, a radical Puerto Rican Nationalist group working to empower the residents of Spanish Harlem, and she shares with Evelyn pieces of her own family history relating to the 1937 Ponce Massacre, part of an earlier Nationalist movement. Evelyn becomes increasingly radicalized and joins a protest occupation of her church. Based on true events, the story develops organically through well-realized fictional characters dealing with complex family dynamics. Manzano has a gift for providing just the right amount of historical and political context for today’s young readers without slowing the pace. The story has obvious parallels to Rita Williams-Garcia’s One Crazy Summer (rev. 3/10), and the two would make a great pairing. KATHLEEN T. HORNING

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Winner: Martín de Porres: The Rose in the Desert by Gary D. Schmidt; illus. by David Diaz (Clarion)

No honor books were selected by the committee.

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Winner: My Family for the War by Anne C. Voorhoeve; trans. by Tammi Reichel (Dial)

Honor: A Game for Swallows: To Die, to Leave, to Return by Zeina Abirached; illus. by the author; trans. by Edward Gauvin (Graphic Universe/Lerner)
Comparisons to Marjane Satrapi’s Persepolis are inevitable; like Satrapi’s autobiographical graphic novel, this book (also first published in French) presents a girlhood under fire in the war-torn Middle East. Here the setting is 1984 Beirut, a city segregated by religion with Christian and Muslim residents locked in unrelenting civil war. The story’s focus is a single harrowing night when Zeina’s parents, visiting her grandparents a few blocks away, must make their way home through heavy bombing. Neighbors have gathered in the family’s foyer — the safest place left — to wait out the shelling and hope for Zeina’s parents’ return. Abirached skillfully weaves flashbacks and explanatory asides into the narrative while maintaining the evening’s tension. Despite the oppressive atmosphere of fear and uncertainty, much-needed moments of levity shine through as neighbors try to distract Zeina, her younger brother, and themselves by telling amusing anecdotes, reenacting scenes from Cyrano de Bergerac, baking a cake, and partaking of fine whiskey. Stark, dramatic illustrations (mostly black backgrounds with white-outlined characters and features) include repeated motifs (flowers, dragons) that effectively capture elements of the culture and lend nuance to the high emotions through small changes in expression or detail. A poignant portrayal of a community determined to hold onto optimism and humanity in the face of dire circumstances. KATIE BIRCHER

Honor: Son of a Gun by Anne de Graaf; trans. by the author (Eerdmans)
review to come

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Winner: I, Too, Am America by  Langston Hughes; illus.by Bryan Collier (Simon)

Honor: H. O. R. S. E.: A Game of Basketball and Imagination by Christopher Myers; illus. by the author (Egmont)
When two boys with big imaginations and lots of bravado meet on the basketball court and agree to play a game of horse (where players take turns making the same trick shots), the game quickly gets out of hand—literally, as it becomes all about wordplay. The boys instead take turns describing the wildly impossible shots they’ll take—from the tops of buildings, after circumventing the globe, and from outer space. Each imagined shot builds on the last, upping the ante in what becomes a clever verbal version of horse. Myers’s graceful illustrations use his signature combination of gouache painting and cut-paper collages using photographs as backgrounds, but there is more painting than collage here, and consequently, more space for the imagination to take flight. We see the bragging twosome, face to face, working up to their shots, and then we are treated to dynamic full-page spreads of what each shot would look like. Large bold typography, printed in brown for the dialogue of one boy and dark blue for the other, twists and curls around the page, tracing the movement of the ball—or the movement the ball would make if the two boys ever stopped talking and started playing. This crowd-pleasing picture book will appeal to young children who will enjoy the whimsy, and to older readers who will appreciate the Dozens (in reverse) in the boys’ challenges to each other. KATHLEEN T. HORNING

Honor: Ellen’s Broom by Kelly Starling Lyons; illus. by Daniel Minter (Putnam)
Newly freed slaves, Ellen and her family are thrilled to learn that “all former slaves living as husband and wife” will be allowed to legally register their marriages. Her mother explains the custom of jumping over a broomstick to symbolize a union even though couples were frequently separated and sold away. Vibrant linoleum block prints capture the purposeful story’s moods. HENRIETTA M. SMITH

Honor: I Have a Dream: Martin Luther King, Jr. by Martin Luther King, Jr.; illus. by Kadir Nelson (Schwatrz & Wade/Random)
In superlative oil paintings, Nelson brings to life Dr. King’s most famous speech, and the one children are most likely to know. Nelson has chosen to illustrate the section that specifically addresses the dream, beginning with the words “I say to you today, my friends, that even though we face the difficulty of today and tomorrow, I still have a dream.” The accompanying illustration depicts Dr. King standing in front of the Lincoln Memorial, addressing the crowd at the March on Washington. The pages that follow show scenes from the event as well as more literal illustrations of Dr. King’s words: black children and white children playing together, a black hand clasping a white hand, and his own “four little children.” When we reach the climactic “Let freedom ring…” part of the speech, two stunning double-page spreads show interconnected panels of the “prodigious hilltops of New Hampshire” and the “snowcapped Rockies of Colorado,” ultimately linked with “every hill and molehill of Mississippi,” in a sweeping vista. At the end, we return to a larger-than-life close-up of Dr. King’s impassioned face, the hopeful faces of the audience, and finally white doves flying against a blue sky, representing the words “Free at last! Free at last! Thank God Almighty, we are free at last!” The complete text of the speech is printed at the back of the book, and an accompanying CD is also included [unseen]. Visually, this is a stunning accomplishment that embodies the thrilling inspiration of Dr. King’s words as he first spoke them. KATHLEEN T. HORNING

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Winner: Hand in Hand: Ten Black Men Who Changed America by Andrea Davis Pinkney; illus. by Brian Pinkney (Jump at the Sun Books/Disney)

Honor: Each Kindness by Jacqueline Woodson; illus. by E. B. Lewis (Paulsen/Penguin)
Narrator Chloe turns her back when new student Maya, clothed in what appear to be thrift store oddments, is seated next to her in class. At recess, Chloe pointedly gathers her best friends to share schoolyard secrets, ignoring Maya’s advances of friendship. Maya plays alone, seemingly unbowed by the continuing ostracism, until one day, suddenly, she’s gone. Only then does teacher Ms. Albert prompt the class to share with one another stories about “what kind things we had done” — acts that might have “rippled out” like the pebbles they drop into a bowl of water as they describe their good deeds; meanwhile, a silent, belatedly thoughtful Chloe regrets “each kindness I had never shown.” Woodson’s affecting story, with its open ending, focuses on the withholding of emotion rather than outright bullying, and Lewis reflects the pensive mood in sober watercolors, suggesting Maya’s troubled courage and Chloe’s repentance in subtly detailed portraits. Like Ms. Albert’s little stones, the book is a good conversation starter. JOANNA RUDGE LONG

Honor: No Crystal Stair: A Documentary Novel of the Life and Work of Lewis Michaux, Harlem Bookseller by Vaunda Micheaux Nelson; illus. by R. Gregory Christie (Carolrhoda Lab)
Inspired by Marcus Garvey and the drive to make a difference, Lewis Michaux opened the National Memorial African Bookstore in Harlem at the end of the Great Depression with an inventory of five books and a strong faith that black people were hungry for knowledge. Over the next thirty-five years, his store became a central gathering place for African American writers, artists, intellectuals, and political figures, including Malcolm X, who frequently gave his speeches in front of the bookstore. But Michaux also sought to reach ordinary citizens, believing that pride and self-knowledge would grow naturally from an understanding of global black history and current events. He didn’t just sell books; he surrounded his customers with ideas and provocative discussion. He also drew people in with pithy windows signs that used humor and clever rhymes. When Sugar Ray Robinson stopped by in 1958, for example, Michaux communicated his disapproval of the hair-straightening products the boxer used: “Ray, what you put on your head will rub off in your bed. It’s what you put in your head that will last ‘till you’re dead.” Short chapters — some just a paragraph or two—are written in thirty-six different voices, mostly those of Michaux himself, family members, and close associates. Some of the voices are those of fictitious characters based on composites—customers, a newspaper reporter, a street vendor—but most are real people whose statements have been documented by the author in her meticulous research. The voices are interspersed with documents such as articles from the New York Amsterdam News and Jet magazine and with excerpts from Michaux’s FBI file. As Michaux’s grandniece, the author also had access to family papers and photographs. Given the author’s close relationship with the subject, she manages to remain remarkably objective about him, largely due to her honest portrayal of the lifelong conflict between him and many of his family members, most notably his evangelist brother, who didn’t approve of his radical politics. Sophisticated expressionistic line drawings illustrate key events. An extraordinary, inspiring book to put into the hands of scholars and skeptics alike. KATHLEEN T. HORNING

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Winner: The One and Only Ivan by Katherine Applegate (HarperCollins)

Honor: Splendors and Glooms by Laura Amy Schlitz (Candlewick)
Lizzie Rose and Parsefall, two Victorian waifs living under the guardianship of Grisini, a Fagin-like crook, magician, and puppeteer, cross paths with Clara, the cosseted only child of a London doctor. This meeting results in a kidnapping, the magical imprisonment of Clara in puppet form, and encounters with an aging witch, Cassandra; the whole plot hinging on the curse of a fire opal. In this not-quite-parody novel Schlitz takes the conventions of melodrama and fleshes them out with toothsome scene setting (she’s especially good on smells, gothic architectural touches, and the minutiae of Victorian death conventions) and surprising, original character details. The two heroes are fine foils for each other, the Victorian-good Lizzie Rose versus the street-pragmatic Parsefall. Grisini, with his backstory in Venice, is pure moustache-twirling evil, and Cassandra is an intriguing portrait of bitter, regretful old age and bone-deep malevolence. The language is rich and lively, and Schlitz, exhibiting the delicate control of a puppeteer of words, even pulls off comic cockney: “But with your daughter, sir, there isn’t any homnibus, and when there’s no homnibus, there’s ’ope.” SARAH ELLIS

Honor: Bomb: The Race to Build — and Steal — the World’s Most Dangerous Weapon by Steve Sheinkin (Flash Point/Roaring Brook)
While comprehensive in his synthesis of the political, historical, and scientific aspects of the creation of the first nuclear weapon, Sheinkin focuses his account with an extremely alluring angle: the spies. The book opens in 1950 with the confession of Harry Gold—but to what? And thus we flash back to Robert Oppenheimer in the dark 1930s, as he and readers are handed another question by the author: “But how was a theoretical physicist supposed to save the world?” Oppenheimer’s realization that an atomic bomb could be created to use against Nazi Germany is coupled with the knowledge that the Germans must be working from the same premise, and the Soviets are close behind. We periodically return to Gold’s ever-deepening betrayals as well as other acts of espionage, most excitingly the two stealth attacks on occupied Norway’s Vemork power plant, where the Germans were manufacturing heavy water to use in their own nuclear program. As he did in the Boston Globe–Horn Book Award winner The Notorious Benedict Arnold (rev. 1/11), Sheinkin here maintains the pace of a thriller without betraying history (source notes and an annotated bibliography are exemplary) or skipping over the science; photo galleries introducing each section help readers organize the events and players. Writing with journalistic immediacy, the author eschews editorializing up through the chilling last lines: “It’s a story with no end in sight. And, like it or not, you’re in it.” Index. ROGER SUTTON

Honor: Three Times Lucky by Sheila Turnage (Dial/Penguin)
All too often, books set in the rural South feature quirky characters who grow like kudzu and completely strangle the plot. Here, Turnage comes close to letting that happen but never steps over the literary vine; her strong story emerges through, rather than around, the individuals who reside in Tupelo Landing, North Carolina. The town’s center is a café run by the Colonel, an amnesiac who rescued and informally adopted Moses (a.k.a. Mo) LoBeau, who washed up during a hurricane when just a baby. The Colonel knows three things: he loves Mo, hates lawyers, and can run a café. Completing their unconventional family is Miss Lana, the café’s hostess, who effortlessly changes the menu and theme (from Parisian to Hollywood) at will. And then a stranger comes to town. Mo knows what that means: “Trouble had come to Tupelo Landing for good.” Turnage takes her time with the plot, dropping hints, such as a death and a strange inheritance, that indicate something big is about to happen. The end result is a dandy mystery that reaches back into the Colonel and Miss Lana’s past and involves the entire community, including Mo’s best friend, Dale; his dreamy brother; and the Azalea Women (a.k.a. the Uptown Garden Club). Humor sweetens the mix, making Tupelo Landing a pleasant place to stay for a spell. BETTY CARTER

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Winner: This Is Not My Hat by Jon Klassen; illus. by the author (Candlewick Press)

Honor: Creepy Carrots! by Aaron Reynolds; illus. by Peter Brown (Simon)
review to come

Honor: Extra Yarn by Mac Barnett; illus. by Jon Klassen (Balzer + Bray/HarperCollins)
When young Annabelle finds a small box containing yarn of every color, she does what any self-respecting knitter would do: she knits herself a sweater. Then she knits a sweater for her dog. Improbably, there’s yarn left over, so she knits colorful garments for everyone in her snowy, sooty, colorless town. Even Mr. Crabtree, “who never wore sweaters or even long pants, and who would stand in his shorts with the snow up to his knees,” receives a hand-knit gift: a hat with a pompom. Houses and buildings, too, are soon covered in natty sweaters, and fans of illustrator Klassen will smile to see critters strongly resembling the bear and rabbit from I Want My Hat Back (rev. 11/11) clad in variegated yarn cozies. When Annabelle, ever content to click-click away, refuses an archduke’s offer of millions for the box and its never-ending yarn, he steals it. Turns out the magic lies elsewhere (perhaps the hands and heart of a little girl?), and all is made right. Klassen’s mostly brown ink and digitally created illustrations pair nicely with the translucent, lightly inked knitwear. His pacing, especially the mostly wordless sequence when the box floats back to Annabelle on a triangle of an iceberg, is impeccable, allowing the reader to guess what’s going on. The final spread, all light and knitted tress limbs, brings Barnett’s clever, quiet yarn full circle, to a little girl and a town, now colorful and happy. ROBIN L. SMITH

Honor: Green by Laura Vaccaro Seeger; illus. by the author (Porter/Roaring Brook)
Lemons Are Not Red (rev. 1/05) was a concept book about color, so you might think this offering on various shades of a single color would be simpler. But Seeger once again sets up a challenge for herself, adding a rhyming text, die cuts, and perhaps a story for those willing to look carefully for connections. On each spread, two words describe a scene painted in Seeger’s signature thick impasto on canvas: “forest green / sea green / lime green / pea green,” eventually leading to “all green / never green / no green / forever green.” With a color as politically weighted as this one, what could have been a hit-‘em-over-the-head message is instead left open-ended, allowing the book to work for very young children (for whom the “never green” red stop sign could be taken at face value) or for an older audience willing to speculate on ecological issues and sustainability. The die cuts add another level of complexity and playfulness. Just when we think we’ve worked out that each cut on a right-hand page shows the next shade of green, Seeger tricks us with “jungle green / khaki green” showing the words themselves through rectangular die cuts, each adjective camouflaged within the next or previous scene, just as the animals on those spreads are camouflaged within their habitats. There is one slight error in alignment near the end of the book, but this detail is hard to fault in what is otherwise a triumph of artistic problem-solving. Is this the first in a series? We can only hope. LOLLY ROBINSON

Honor: One Cool Friend by Toni Buzzeo; illus. by David Small (Dial/Penguin)
Dressed in a black suit and bow tie, it’s clear that Elliot isn’t like other kids his age. When his father (himself eccentrically dressed all in green plaid) takes him to the aquarium, Eliot heads for the penguins. “In their tidy black feather tuxedos with their proper posture, they reminded Eliot of himself,” which leads him to ask his father for a penguin. Thinking his son wants to buy a plush version, his father agrees and Eliot proceeds to pick out a real penguin to take home in his backpack. The story continues as the precocious child must figure out how to feed and care for his new pet, Magellan. As the illustrations reveal, the whole scenario works because the father is so focused on his own obsession with turtles that he is humorously oblivious — until the surprise ending — to what Eliot is doing. Inspired by urban legend, Buzzeo has crafted a droll narrative replete with cartoon speech bubbles that add a blitheness to the page design. Expanding on the text, Small’s illustrations capture the unusual personalities of this unique father-son duo by hinting at each one’s propensity for a particular animal. And the sketched ink and loosely colored illustrations also add an appropriate lighthearted contrast to the genteel lives of Eliot and his father. Suitable for both story time and closer observation, the illustrations (including the comical Magellan) complement the child-friendly premise and will certainly attract young readers to this quirky tale. CYNTHIA K. RITTER

Honor: Sleep Like a Tiger by Mary Logue; illus. by Pamela Zagarenski (Houghton Mifflin)
It’s a familiar story: the child doesn’t want to go to bed; the parents insist she does. A little scootering girl “who didn’t want to go to sleep even though the sun had gone away” asks her parents if everything in the world sleeps. Her parents assure her that dogs and cats, bats and whales, snails and bears and even tigers sleep. Eventually, the little girl mimics the animals her parents have described and slowly falls asleep herself. Zagarenski’s dreamy mixed-media illustrations are as calm and comforting as Logue’s understated prose. Stylized characters, extra-pale and often wearing crowns, feet perched on a variety of wheels, live in a surreal world of giant moons and random teapots and coffeepots. Each spread invites the reader to slow down, breathe deeply, and explore the world found in the illustrations. Is there a teapot on every page? Is everything and everyone on wheels? Is the tiger carrying the sun off the page on his back? It’s impossible to see everything the first or tenth time, ensuring that parents (who will surely read this over and over) never lose interest and that wide-awake children will have little choice but to eventually join our little girl, curled in her nest, wings folded like a bat, in a warm spot like the cat, fast asleep, like the strong tiger. Night, night. ROBIN L. SMITH

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• Caring Is Creepy by David Zimmerman (Soho)
• Girlchild by Tupelo Hassman (Picador)
• Juvenile in Justice by Richard Ross (Richard Ross)
• Mr. Penumbra’s 24-Hour Bookstore by Robin Sloan (Farrar)
• My Friend Dahmer by Derf Backderf (Abrams ComicArts)
• One Shot at Forever: A Small Town, an Unlikely Coach, and a Magical Baseball Season by Chris Ballard (Hyperion)
• Pure by Julianna Baggott (Grand Central)
• The Round House by Louise Erdrich (Harper)
• Tell the Wolves I’m Home by Carol Rifka Blunt (Dial)
• Where’d You Go, Bernadette? by Maria Semple (Little)

May Hill Arbuthnot Honor Lecture Award
recognizing an author, critic, librarian, historian, or teacher of children’s literature, who then presents a lecture at a winning host site

Andrea Davis Pinkney will deliver the 2014 lecture

Andrew Carnegie Medal
for excellence in children’s video

Anna, Emma and the Condors produced by Katja Torneman

Margaret A. Edwards Award
for lifetime achievement in writing for young adults

Tamora Pierce for the Song of the Lioness series and the Protector of the Small quartet

Theodor Seuss Geisel Award
for the outstanding book for beginning readers

Winner
Up, Tall, and High! by Ethan Long (Putnam)

Honor Books
• Let’s Go for a Drive by Mo Willems (Hyperion)
• Pete the Cat and His Four Groovy Buttons by Eric Litwin and James Dean (HarperCollins)
• Rabbit & Robot: The Sleepover by Cece Bell (Candlewick)

Virginia Hamilton Award
given by the Coretta Scott King Task Force for lifetime achievement

Demetria Tucker, family and youth services librarian, Pearl Bailey Library

William C. Morris Award
honors a book written by a first-time author for young adults

Winner
Seraphina by Rachel Hartman (Random)

Finalists
• Wonder Show by Hannah Barnaby (Houghton Mifflin)
• Love and Other Perishable Items by Laura Buzo (Knopf)
• After the Snow by S. D. Crockett (Feiwel)
• The Miseducation of Cameron Post by Emily M. Danforth (Balzer + Bray/HarperCollins)

Odyssey Award
for excellence in audiobook production

Winner
The Fault in Our Stars written by John Green and narrated by Kate Rudd (Brilliance Audio)

Honor Books
• Artemis Fowl: The Last Guardian written by Eoin Colfer and narrated by Nathaniel Parker (Listening Library)
• Ghost Knight written by Cornelia Funke and narrated by Eliot Hill (Listening Library)
• Monstrous Beauty written by Elizabeth Fama and narrated by Katherine Kellgren (Macmillan Audio)

Schneider Family Book Award
for books that embody an artistic expression of the disability experience

Children, ages 0–10
Back to Front and Upside Down! by Claire Alexander (Eerdmans)

Middle School, ages 11–13
A Dog Called Homeless by Sarah Lean (Tegan/HarperCollins)

Teen, ages 13–18
Somebody, Please Tell Me Who I Am by Harry Mazer and Peter Lerangis (Simon)

Stonewall Book Award for Children’s and Young Adult Literature
given annually to English-language children’s and young adult books of exceptional merit relating to the gay, lesbian, bisexual, and transgendered experience

Winner
Aristotle and Dante Discover the Secrets of the Universe by Benjamin Alire Sáenz (Simon)

Honor books
• Drama by Raina Telgemeier (Graphix/Scholastic)
• Gone, Gone, Gone by Hannah Moskowitz (Simon Pulse)
• October Mourning: A Song for Matthew Shepard by Lesléa Newman (Candlewick)
• Sparks: The Epic, Completely True Blue, (Almost) Holy Quest of Debbie by S.J. Adams (Flux)

Laura Ingalls Wilder Award
for a substantial and lasting contribution to children’s literature

Katherine Paterson

YALSA Nonfiction Award
for excellence in nonfiction for young adults

Winner
Bomb: The Race to Build — and Steal — the World’s Most Dangerous Weapon by Steve Sheinkin (Flash Point/Roaring Brook)

Finalists
• Steve Jobs: The Man Who Thought Different by Karen Blumenthal (Feiwel)
• Moonbird: A Year on the Wind with the Great Survivor B95 by Phillip Hoose (Farrar)
• Titanic: Voices from the Disaster by Deborah Hopkinson (Scholastic)
• We’ve Got a Job: The 1963 Birmingham Children’s March by Cynthia Levinson (Peachtree)

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