The Best of 2008 : According to ALA

At the American Library Association's midwinter meeting in Denver, Colorado, yesterday, announcements were made of the winners of many of the most important prizes in the world of children's literature. Try as it might to employ new technology to help get the word out, the ALA didn't fully succeed; its Twitter site stopped sending updates for about two hours of the proceedings. Luckily, we in the library got to see the live webcast of the Newber winner announcement.

The drumroll, please......

2009 Newbery Medal: The Graveyard Book, by Neil Gaiman, illustrated by Dave McKean.

2009 Caldecott Medal: The House in the Night, illustrated by Beth Krommes and written by Susan Marie Swanson.

2009 Robert Sibert Medal (for nonfiction): We Are the Ship: the Story of Negro League Baseball, written and illustrated by Kadir Nelson.

2009 Coretta Scott King Award: We Are the Ship: the Story of Negro League Baseball, written and illustrated by Kadir Nelson.

Want to check out more? Here's a link to the major awards announced yesterday, as well as the honor books. How can you go wrong with such great reading?