It is awards season! As Hollywood celebrates its biggest starts, the American Library Association is highlighting the best books of the year. If your children are looking for the next "great book" to read check out the winners below!
The Newbery Medal Winner (children's literature)
It begins, as the best superhero stories
do, with a tragic accident that has unexpected consequences. The
squirrel never saw the vacuum cleaner coming, but self-described cynic
Flora Belle Buckman, who has read every issue of the comic book Terrible Things Can Happen to You!,
is the just the right person to step in and save him. What neither can
predict is that Ulysses (the squirrel) has been born anew, with powers
of strength, flight, and misspelled poetry — and that Flora will be
changed too, as she discovers the possibility of hope and the promise of
a capacious heart. From #1 New York Times best-selling author
Kate DiCamillo comes a laugh-out-loud story filled with eccentric,
endearing characters and featuring an exciting new format — a novel
interspersed with comic-style graphic sequences and full-page
illustrations, all rendered in black-and-white by up-and-coming artist
K. G. Campbell. (from the publisher)
The Caldecott Winner (illustrations)
It is the summer of 1869, and trains,
crews, and family are traveling together, riding America's brand-new
transcontinental railroad. These pages come alive with the details of
the trip and the sounds, speed, and strength of the mighty locomotives;
the work that keeps them moving; and the thrill of travel from plains to
mountain to ocean.
Come hear the hiss of the steam, feel the
heat of the engine, watch the landscape race by. Come ride the rails,
come cross the young country! (from the publisher)
The Printz Award (Young adult)
Seven stories of passion and love separated by centuries but
mysteriously intertwined—this is a tale of horror and beauty, tenderness
and sacrifice.
An archaeologist who unearths a mysterious
artifact, an airman who finds himself far from home, a painter, a ghost,
a vampire, and a Viking: the seven stories in this compelling novel all
take place on the remote Scandinavian island of Blessed where a
curiously powerful plant that resembles a dragon grows. What binds these
stories together? What secrets lurk beneath the surface of this idyllic
countryside? And what might be powerful enough to break the cycle of
midwinterblood? From award-winning author Marcus Sedgwick comes a book
about passion and preservation and ultimately an exploration of the
bounds of love.
