>. . .could get me to post here a prediction for the Newbery or Caldecott (as requested in a comment on the previous post). I'm never right; my more pressing concern is always that we have reviewed the medal-winners or have spelled out in the Guide just why they were passed over by the Magazine.

And I won't tell you what I would like to have win, either. Why tick people off for kicks? Lose what friends I still have? (Alternately, why poise myself for an ignoble fall? I'm still getting teased here for saying that last year's Caldecott committee should take a serious look at Stephen Kellogg's illustrations for Santa Claus Is Comin' to Town. I stand by my words.)

I can and will tell you (again; it was buried in the comments of an earlier post) that the Scott O'Dell Award for Historical Fiction (and an attached $5,000) is going to Louise Erdrich for The Game of Silence, published by Harper. I know this because I am one of the judges, along with Ann D. Carlson and Hazel Rochman, the jury's chair.