The American Library Association top books

The American Library Association (ALA) announced the top books, video and audiobooks for kids and young adults, including the Caldecott, King, Newbery and Printz and many other noted awards this week at its annual midwinter meeting in Denver.  Additionally, this year the ALA celebrated the 40th anniversary of the Coretta Scott King Book Awards and introduced a new award, the William C. Morris Award. It is also the first year that the Pura Belpre Award, which will be given annually.  Medal winners and honorees are selected by judging committees of librarians and other kid's literature experts. A comprehensive list of all of the honors awarded this week can be found at www.ala.org , please go there and check it all out this is just some of celebrated books.  2009 Youth Media Awards include:
John Newbery Medal - distinguished contribution to children's literature: The Graveyard Book; author Neil Gaiman, and illustrated by Dave McKean (HarperCollins Children's Books)
Randolph Caldecott Medal - distinguished illustration/American picture books for kids: The House in the Night; author Susan Marie Swanson (Houghton Mifflin)
Michael L. Printz Award - excellence in young adult literature: Jellicoe Road; author Melina Marchetta (HarperCollins)

Coretta Scott King Award - honoring African-American authors and illustrators of outstanding books for children and young adults: Book author winner - We Are the Ship: The Story of Negro League Baseball; author/illustrator Kadir Nelson (Jump at the Sun/Hyperion Books for Children); illustrator winner - The Blacker the Berry; illustrator Floyd Cooper, author Joyce Carol Thomas (Amistad).

Coretta Scott King/John Steptoe New Talent Author Award - Bird; author, Zetta Elliot, illustrated, Shadra Strickland (Lee & Low Books)
Schneider Family Book Award - books with artistic expression of the disability experience in three age groups: young children: Piano Starts Here: The Young Art Tatum; author/illustrator, Robert Andrew Parker (Schwartz & Wade Books); middle school kids: Waiting for Normal; author, Leslie Connor (HarperCollins Children's Books); teens: Jerk, California; author, Jonathan Friesen (Speak,).

Theodor Seuss Geisel - distinguished book for beginning readers - Are You Read to Play Outside?; author/illustrator, Mo Willems (Hyperion Books for Children)
Margaret A. Edwards Award - for lifetime achievement in writing for young adults: author, Laurie Halse Anderson for her books Catalyst, Fever 1793, and Speak

The Pura Belpre Award honors Latino author and illustrators celebrating Latino culture and experience: Illustrator award - Just in Case; illustrator, Yuyi Morales (a Neal Porter Book, published by Roaring Brook Press); Author award - The Surrender Tree: Poems of Cuba's Struggle for Freedom; author, Margarita Engle (Henry Holt and Company)
Robert F. Sibert Informational Book Award - distinguished informational book for children: We Are the Ship: The Story of Negro League Baseball; author/illustrator Kadir Nelson (Jump at the Sun/Hyperion Books for Children)
Andrew Carnegie Medal for excellence in children's video: March On! The Day My Brother Martin Changed the World, producers Paul R. Gagne and Melissa Reilly (Weston Woods Studios)
Mildred L. Batchelder Award, excellence in book translated from a foreign language and then published in the US: Moribito: Guardian of the Spirit, originally published in Japanese, author, Nahoko Uehashi and translated by Cathy Hirano (Arthur A. Levine)
The Odyssey Award, excellence in audiobook production: The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian, author/narrator Sherman Alexie and produced by Recorded Books.
William C. Morris Award - A Curse Dark as Gold, author Elizabeth C. Bunce (Arthur A. Levine Books)