2015 ALA Youth Media Awards

On February 2, the American Library Association announced the winners of their Youth Media Awards.  The oldest, most prestigious, and most well-known of these awards are the Caldecott Medal (given to, "the most distinguished American picture book for children") and the Newbery Medal (given to, "the most outstanding contribution to children's literature").  For a complete list of the medal and honor books for all 22 awards, please visit this website.

This year was a fairly landmark year when it comes to these awards.  Here are this year's winners:

Caldecott Medal

The Adventures of Beekle: The Unimaginary Friend by Dan Santat
Beekle is an imaginary friend.  All imaginary friends live together in a magical land until they are imagined by a child and join this child in the real world.  Unfortunately, Beekle's turn never seems to come.  So he takes mattes into his own hands and journeys all alone to the real world to look for a friend.  Eventually he finds a child, Alice, who is the perfect companion.  Dan Santat's signature style really shines in this story.

Honor Books:
Nana in the City by Lauren Castillo
The Noisy Paint Box:  The Colors and Sounds of Kandinsky's Abstract Art by Barb Rosenstock, illisturated by Mary GrandPré
Sam & Dave Dig a Hole by Mark Barnett, illustrated by Jon Klassen
Viva Frida by Yuyi Morales
The Right Word: Roget and His Thesaurus by Jen Bryant, Illustrated by Melissa Sweet
This One Summer by Mariko Tamaki, illustrated by Jillian Tamaki

Newbery Medal

The Crossover by Kwame Alexander
Josh and his twin brother Jordan are the best there is on their middle-school basketball court.  After all, they learned the game from their father, who once won a European championship and would have played pro for the Lakers had an injury not ended his playing career.  Josh narrates this story of his own potential championship season with fantastic poetry that really captures the movement and intensity both on and off the court.

Honor Books:
El Deafo by Cece Bell
Brown Girl Dreaming by Jacqueline Wilson

Thoughts
What a year!  There's so much to say that I don't even think that I can do it properly with prose.  Bullet points it is.

• NONE of the Newbery award winners are written in traditional prose.  Two are written in verse and one is a graphic novel.  Wow.  Speaking of:
• A graphic novel (El Deafo) winning a Newbery Honor!  That's a big deal.  It's never happened before.  This is history in the making, folks.  I'd seen this book in the talks but wasn't sure if or how the committee could consider it because graphic novels rely so heavily on illustration (a factor that I think that the committee is not supposed to consider when awarding this honor).  But now we have our answer, and I think it's fantastic.  Nice to see graphic novels get a little credence.  Speaking of:
• Another graphic novel (This One Summer) winning a Caldecott Honor!  This is somehow less shocking since graphic novels rely on illustration and this award is given specifically for illustration.  But somehow it's never happened before until this year.  In retrospect, this is shocking.  More literary history!  What surprises me a bit more about this particular honor is that the Caldecott is specifically for books for children up to age 14, and I really think that this particular book really pushes that limit.  Fourteen is about the youngest I'd give this graphic novel too, and I kind of feel like that's pushing it a bit.  It's worth noting that this book also was graced with another silver medal, a Printz Honor, given to outstanding books for young adults.  Still, there's no denying that these illustrations are gorgeous.
• So many Caldecotts!  Six honor books, plus the medal.  And I did not see most of these books coming - only Sam & Dave Dig a Hole and Viva Frida were really on my radar.  Not sure if that speaks to my lack of reading this year, or to this year's field of published material.