NEWBERY: Couldn’t be more thrilled about THE GRAVEYARD BOOK. Gaiman’s profanity-laden Twitter post was hilarious. I am so, so happy that a genre book won; that a bestseller won; that a book kids will want to read won. When you compare this to the last few years of winners, I believe this one was an infinitely better choice than that of the last few years.

I couldn’t be happier that THE UNDERNEATH didn’t win, because again, I think it’s pretty terrifying. I didn’t read SAVVY but I know a lot of people are really happy about that. Actually, the only Honor book I read was THE UNDERNEATH.

I do think that we need a new award, though. The Newbery is consistently skewing toward the upper end of the middle grades, which leaves no room for the younger elementary kids. There needs to be something to bridge Mo Willems and Neil Gaiman.

CALDECOTT:

The winner is a book called THE HOUSE IN THE NIGHT, which I have never heard of.  Somehow my old shop missed it, too. It looks beautiful and sounds beautiful and I can’t wait to read it. The only Honor book I’ve read is HOW I LEARNED GEOGRAPHY, which I loved. I’ll seek out the others soon. I am honestly stunned that IN A BLUE ROOM didn’t win something.

PRINTZ:

I tried and failed to read Marchetta’s JELLICOE ROAD, the winner. I got three chapters in and hated it. I’d like to give it another go to try to figure out what I missed (especially since I loved her other two books) but time constraints tell me that this probably won’t happen.

I’m not surprised by any of the Honor books. I do think THE HUNGER GAMES was superior to at least a couple of them and I still think TENDER MORSELS isn’t a YA novel, but the choices didn’t surprise me.