Ala Youth Media Awards
In hindsight, it seems fitting that I would be contacted about the possibility of serving as chair of the 2021 John Newbery Award Selection Committee on the same day I attended a children’s literature conference in March 2019. At the time, I was a professor at Clemson University and had...
First of all, I’d like to address the Newbery-related questions I’m asked most frequently. No, the medal isn’t real gold. No, it’s too heavy to wear around my neck. No, it’s too small to frame and hang on the wall. Yes, winning it is one of the most important things...
Ginny Moore Kruse in 1980, surrounded by some of the year's Newbery contenders. Photo: L. Roger Turner for the Wisconsin State Journal. From 1938 until 1980, the same committee (in various iterations) chose both the Newbery and Caldecott awards. In 1979 the ALSC membership voted to establish separate committees —...
Most of you are probably familiar with the Newbery traditions: the secret choice, the phone call, and the frenzy that follows. I had lived overseas for sixteen years and was not aware of these traditions, nor was I aware of the American Library Association or its vast network. Walk Two...
What did winning the Newbery Award mean to me? I’ve heard of writers who had their bags packed and ready in case the call came. I was simply enjoying my shredded wheat when the telephone rang with the wonderful announcement from Pat Scales, chair of the Newbery committee that year....
Readers. That’s what winning the Newbery Medal meant to me. Readers. Lots of them. I’ve known a few people who say they write just for themselves. Well, and maybe their mothers, too. Whether it’s a short story or an essay or a poem or a book. They say the writing...
(c) 2022 by Lois Lowry. From the May/June 2022 special issue of The Horn Book Magazine: The Newbery Centennial....
Newbery Award titles are among the more visible of books for young readers. As such, they provide the opportunity to explore in microcosm a potential template that can be applied to the entire arena of books for children and teens. My book A Single Shard won the Newbery Medal in...
I began Sarah, Plain and Tall long ago in my 1790 New England house, while missing my Wyoming home. I sat in the music room with my dogs, watching my children take the school bus. I worked on a typewriter, listening to the noisy eraser cartridge slap back and forth....
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