Mock Newbery Awards 2009

This week at the Denver Public Library we held a lively Mock Newbery discussion. We had created two lists of excellent titles during the year and encouraged our participants to read as many as possible. Here is the list of the books we read and discussed:

Chains by Laurie Halse Anderson

Hummingbird by Kimberly Green Angle

The Underneath by Kathi Appelt

Waiting for Normal by Leslie Connor

Jeremy Cabbage and the Living Museum of Human Oddballs and

Quadruped Delights by David Elliott

The Trouble Begins at 8 by Sid Fleischman

Diamond Willow by Helen Frost

Eleven by Patricia Reilly Giff

Bird Lake Moon by Kevin Henkes

Brooklyn Bridge by Karen Hesse

Alvin Ho: Allergic to Girls, School, and Other Scary Things by Lenore Look

The Willoughbys by Lois Lowry

We Are the Ship: The Story of the Negro Baseball League by Kadir Nelson

Trouble by Gary Schmidt

The Newbery Medal is given by the American Library Association each year to the author of the most distinguished work of literature for children, which includes fiction, non-fiction and poetry. Here is a link to the criteria considered for the award. Here is a link to past winners.

Our group discussed and debated the pros and cons for each title and determined what we believed to be the most distinguished titles. Our winner was Diamond Willow and the way the votes played out, our only honor vote went to Chains. Yay! Those were definitely the ones I'm hoping to see recognized at tomorrow's awards ceremony. Speaking of...

The American Library Association's Mid-Winter Meeting/Conference is in Denver this week and I was fortunate enough to attend the notable children's picture book discussion yesterday and picked up tons of ARCs for hot new titles coming out this year. I'm sure you'll be seeing my reviews of those books in the coming months. As a part of the group being in town, the announcement of the chidren's book awards will also take place in town, so I'll be up bright and early tomorrow morning at the press conference to hear their winners firsthand. So exciting!