The plan to create a new Oscar for "outstanding achievement in popular film," meaning, it seems, superhero movies and action films, has me thinking about what that would look like in children's books. Although the Academy doesn't seem to have worked out just how the new award will work, it's designed to reward excellence in the big crowd-pleasers, like Black Panther (loved it) and Mission Impossible--Fallout (fell asleep), which tend not to win awards. (Neither one of those films will be eligible as the new award debuts in 2020.) The best recent parallel I can think of in our field might be the Hunger Games series, super-popular, not that deep, but also very, very smart and effective. And, of course, the Harry Potter books have famously never won any Carnegies and would be perfect candidates for an award based more upon reader-love than literary distinction. (I am NOT having that fight again. It's an example.)

A question I would have both for the actual movie award and my hypothetical book award is whether a book or movie can win both Best Picture/Book and Best Popular Movie/Book. In children's and YA books there is definitely overlap--The Graveyard Book, When You Reach Me--just as there is in film--The Godfather, The Return of the King. But there are also Birdman and Moon Over Manifest. We do have audience awards for both movies and children's books, of course (remember this scandal?) but I don't think the Academy is thinking that way and neither am I. The success of Harry Potter brought a bigger interest in commercial fiction to juvenile publishing (and I've argued that the initial readers of Harry are the same kids who went on to read Hunger Games), and there's something to be said for awarding those books which aim high even as they seek as wide an audience as possible.

Relatedly, I also think it's funny that comic books, viewed negatively, were part of the motive for children's trade publishing and children's libraries in the first place and now, branded up the gazinga, they are welcomed into publishing and libraries with open arms.What would the Foremothers have thought?