Celebrating Children's Book Week

Today is the beginning of Children's Book Week. It's a wonderful prompt to spend some quality reading time with your favorite child. Here are some sites to visit for recommendations.
The Children's Book Council
The Horn Book
Teaching Books.net

Review: Georgia's Bones

Written by Jen Bryant and illustrated by Bethanne Anderson, Georgia's Bones focuses on one aspect of Georgia O'Keefe's development as an artist. The story begins with Georgia's fascination with "common things" as a young girl growing up on her family's farm in Wisconsin. Even as a very young girl, O'Keefe was drawn to simple shapes and forms she found in nature. Leaves, acorns, bones, feathers, rocks - anything that had form and shape. She was also drawn to the open space of outdoors which was appropriate for the daughter of farmers, but her family must have been mystified as to where O'Keefe's determination to become an artist came from.

This story is told in three basic vignettes: Georgia as a young girl on the farm; her move to New York City to become an artist; and an eventful visit to a friend in New Mexico that changed her art and her life forever. Bryant's prose is succinct but purposeful in sharing a moment or perspective in O'Keefe's life and then moving the story forward. But the highlight of the book is Andersen's illustrations that beautifully evoke the world that Georgia O'Keefe made for herself. Andersen captures the vastness of the New Mexico landscape and the simple purity of the stripped-away bones that O'Keefe found there.

Although this book does not address the uniqueness of Georgia O'Keefe's artistic vision, the strength and starkness of what she painted certainly implies it. Because the story focuses on a slice of O'Keefe's artistic development, it would be difficult to get a sense of what a transformative artist she became from this book alone. If this book were shared with children in a larger context of O'Keefe's life or within a unit of study of American artists, it would have greater resonance. Even as a stand-alone, however, it portrays Georgia O'Keefe's artistry in such a way as to invite further investigation.

2007 Cybils Award Winners

Over many months, reading panels and judges read hundreds of books - stacks and stacks of wonderful books in many categories. The winners were announced on February 14th. Review the winning books for yourself. There is a new widget on this page that the Cybils team and JacketFlap put together. This widget showcases the many entrants to the Cybils Awards. In most cases these are not the same books that won big awards this year, although you will recognize a few titles. There are many excellent choices to make, so choose your own reading adventure. Although mentioned in earlier posts, I was excited and honored to be a member of the fiction picture book category and a part of this wonderful effort to expand the number of books that are highlighted and promoted to childish imaginations of all ages.

Cybils' Annual Book Bloggers KidLit Awards

BOOK BLOGGERS KICK OFF KIDLIT AWARDS’ SECOND YEAR

CHICAGO – Will Harry Potter triumph among critical bloggers? Will novels banned in some school districts find favor online?

With 90 volunteers poised to sift through hundreds of new books, the second annual Children’s and Young Adult Bloggers’ Literary Awards launched on Oct. 1. Known as the Cybils, it’s the only literary contest that combines both the spontaneity of the Web with the thoughtful debate of a book club.

The public’s invited to nominate books in eight categories, from picture books up to young adult fiction, so long as the book was first published in 2007 in English (bilingual books are okay too). Once nominations close on Nov. 21, the books go through two rounds of judging, first to select the finalists and then the winners, to be announced on Valentine’s Day 2008.

Judges come from the burgeoning ranks of book bloggers in the cozy corner of the Internet called the kidlitosphere. They represent parents, homeschoolers, authors, illustrators, librarians and even teens.

The contest began last year after blogger Kelly Herold (Big A little a) expressed dismay that while some literary awards were too snooty – rewarding books kids would seldom read – others were too populist and didn’t acknowledge the breadth and depth of what’s being published today.

“It didn’t have to be Brussels sprouts versus gummy bears,” said Anne Boles Levy (Book Buds) who started Cybils with Herold. “There are books that fill both needs, to be fun and profound.”

Last year’s awards prompted more than 480 nominations, and this year’s contest will likely dwarf that. As with last year’s awards, visitors to the Cybils blog can leave their nominations as comments. There is no nomination form, only the blog, to keep in the spirit of the blogosphere that started it all.