This morning the American Library Association announced the winners of this year’s Youth Media Awards. Included in the ALA Awards are the 2014 recipients of the Caldecott Medal and the Newbery Medal. Congratulations to all of the winners and honorees! Flora and Ulysses was one of our favorite books of 2013 and we’re thrilled (and not at all surprised) to see it honored with the Newbery.
JOHN NEWBERY MEDAL
Flora and Ulysses by Kate DiCamillo
Bookseller Love: “Comic book fan Flora + vacuumed-squirrel-turned-superhero Ulysses = a match made in oddball heaven! With effervescent eccentricity, trademark wit and incomparable heart, Kate DiCamillo gives us the unexpected and unlikely adventures of a super squirrel and the carefully cynical girl who lets him into her heart” –Meghan G.
Bookseller Love: “This is an adorable story that is worth it just for the poems by Ulysses the squirrel alone.” –Consuelo
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RANDOLPH CALDECOTT MEDAL
Local Austin Author Love: “With Brian’s witty text, detailed paintings, and lively use of eye-catching fonts reminiscent of the 19th century, Locomotive (Atheneum/Richard Jackson) takes on the construction of the railroad from Omaha to Sacramento, the mechanics of the train itself, and the experience of riding the rails from one end to the other in 1869. Like I said: gigantic…In my experience, kids who love trains love knowing lots about them, and Brian’s book will deliver during reading after reading after reading.” – Chris Barton, bestselling author of Shark v. Train; Can I See Your ID; and The Day-Glo Brothers
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MICHAEL L. PRINTZ AWARD
Midwinterblood by Marcus Sedwick
Bookseller Love: “Midwinterblood is cryptic and creepy, but Sedwick’s prose is elegantly simple in a way that compliments his provocatively complex story line. It’s a book that celebrates the history of a land and its people, and the love that binds them together across impossible distances. It is a book that makes the reader shiver, and it has a dramatic lure that cannot be resisted. It is dark and beautiful to its revelatory conclusion, and readers will be irresistibly drawn in by the isle of Blessed from the first page to the last.” –Courtney
BookPeople 