Okay, so I'm a few weeks late, but we're all busy people, and if you're like me, you may not have yet read this year's award winning children's books.
Probably the book with the most media buzz is The Graveyard Book by Neil Gaiman. It won this year's Newbery Award, which, to refresh our collective memory, is for excellence in literature. The winner needs to be an American or living in America. In his book, Gaiman describes a human baby raised by ghosts with all the concomitant sadness and humor. Gaiman is also well known for twittering in, um, colorful language, upon receiving the news of his award. But, hey, I'm sure it was an exciting moment.
The House in the Night by Susan Marie Swanson won this year's Caldecott book. The Caldecott award is for excellence in illustration, so while the words are important, it is much more about the pictoral elements. It is based on an old rhyme, and it's a cumulative story. I would consider it a quiet, bedtime book. The illustrations are black and white scratchboard with gold embellishment. I can't quite decide on an age range; maybe 3 or 4 on up.
Jellicoe Road by Melina Marchetta is probably my favorite of the three winners. Jellicoe Road won the Printz Award for excellence in teen literature. This winner does not need to be an American, and I believe Ms. Marchetta is Australian. Jellicoe Road is the story of a boarding school and the mysteries several of its students keep. Students from a military school visit the area each year to camp, and while they are there, an unofficial war takes place. Boarding students, townies, and 'army' boys fight over territory and rights. But this year, the students find out how the war first started, proving the point there are no coincidences. Wonderfully rich and winding.
Be sure to check one out today!
I loved the idea of Obama's favorite books so much, I thought I'd show y'all a smattering of the new crop of Abraham Lincoln books that have been emerging in children's literature lately.
Abe Lincoln Crosses a Creek by Deborah Hopkinson.
This tall tale starts out with the true fact that Abe Lincoln was rescued from a raging river by a friend. Then the book speculates with different stories what would have happened if history hadn't turned out quite the way it did.
Honest Abe's Words: The Life of Abraham Lincoln by Doreen Rappaport.
Written in free verse, this epic covers the course of Lincoln's life. Spectacular illustrations make this one worth looking at. It received notable reviews from many sources.
The Lincolns: A Scrapbook Look at Abraham and Mary by Candace Fleming.
A unique couple in American history, Abraham and Mary Todd Lincoln have piqued our interest all along. Now explore portraits, maps, and other primary source materials to decide for yourself what made these great Americans real.
"What’s Barack Obama’s favorite book?" is a common question posed on the Internet search engines every day.
In October, the New York Times asked Obama to provide a list of books and writers that were significant to him. Here goes – Ralph Waldo Emerson, Thomas Jefferson, Mark Twain, Abraham Lincoln, James Baldwin, W. E. B. DuBois’ Souls of Black Folk, Martin Luther King’s Letter From Birmingham Jail, Toni Morrison’s Song of Solomon, Graham Greene’s The Power and the Glory and The Quiet American, Doris Lessing’s The Golden Notebook, Alexander Solzhenitsyn’s Cancer Ward, John Steinbeck’s In Dubious Battle, Robert Caro’s Power Broker, Studs Terkel’s Working, Adam Smith’s Wealth of Nations and Theory of Moral Sentiments, and also Robert Penn Warren’s All the King’s Men – a novel about a corrupt Southern governor. And then there were his theology and philosophy influences - Friedrich Nietzsche, Reinhold Niebuhr and Paul Tillich.
He mentioned Morrison’s Song of Solomon many times during his Democratic and Presidential campaigns in 2008, including in an interview with Rolling Stone magazine where he listed Shakespeare and Ernest Hemingway’s For Whom The Bell Tolls as key influences (incidentally, John McCain also named For Whom The Bell Tolls as his favorite read). Herman Melville’s Moby Dick, E.L. Doctorow and Philip Roth have also cropped up in interviews. Parting the Waters by Taylor Branch – a Pulitzer Prize-winning book about Martin Luther King – is another favorite. And with two young daughters to entertain, he’s read all seven of the Harry Potter books.
After the election, he was spotted leaving his Chicago home carrying a hardcover copy of Lincoln: The Biography of a Writer by Fred Kaplan – clearly getting in some last-minute homework before beginning the process of naming his cabinet. In the same month, he was spotted carrying a copy of Derek Walcott’s Collected Poems 1948-1984. Poet Elizabeth Alexander, a close friend, read at his inauguration.
What next? He won’t have time to write another book until his presidency is over. Popping into a bookstore to pick up a new read is out of the question – his people will do that. Security briefing documents are now his must-read of the day rather than Morrison or another Lincoln biography.
Some of this article was originally published on www.abebooks.com
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