Saturday, January 30, 2021

YMA 2021 version



Mrs. Warland was featured prominently in my dream last night. I'm sure it was because I was missing her being by my side this week. Monday wasn't the same without her keeping me sane cutting cake, leaping, screaming, crying and just sharing in the pure joy and excitement of Youth Media Awards.

But alas this was, and continues to be, a different year. There was a little applause, some shrieks but nothing like the past and no cake. The only Newbery book Mrs. Warland read was Rita Williams-Garcia's One Crazy Summer and that was this summer when she had to call me to tell me that it is SO good and deserves the Newbery. "Ummm...Doe? Do you see the stickers on the cover?" It did win! IN 2011! But honestly if it wasn’t for her reminding me how great that book was I wouldn’t have reached out to Rita to appear on Author Fan Face-off, so really nothing is lost. (Her filming is in a couple of weeks. I should probably reach out to Doe for some questions...)

I’m exhausted from my week long YMA parties and celebrations. I watched the Caldecott awards 10x; Sibert 14x (we had Honeybee on our Caldecott list), CSK 10x (hooray for Magnificent Homespun Brown).  And unbelievably Newbery only twice: once live in the 5th grade class I had while it was going on and then later that afternoon with the Newbery Navigators. Coincidentally, though, a 5th grader in that class was reading The Total Eclipse of Nestor Lopez and pulled it out of his backpack just after the Pura Belpre announcement. Woohoo!

I also read the Geisel winner (thank you JLG) multiple times to K and 1, when I had time. It is perfect and well deserving of the award says kinder Lilly. 




These kids didn’t miss the cake they never knew existed but I did. Instead they enjoyed a little treat of a gold medal (aka gelt in my world) or a gold kiss (yes, they actually make them gold without almonds). Cupcake love in the form of cupcake holder medals (which surprisingly went over very well!) and a gold photo booth! One group of second graders loved the photo booth so much they came back again and again for silly shots.

 



So happy for all the winners but especially two time Newbery and Sibert honor Christina Soontornvat, (ICYMI we posted a special AFF on Tuesday in her honor), HONEYBEE, Mr. Cc’s We Dream of Space, my second graders Outside In (which we celebrated a book birthday for) and the gorgeous We are Water Protectors (which we also celebrated a book birthday). Oh and Sunday night I downloaded Welcome to the Pity Party after attending a Jewish Libraries midwinter event (I kind of want to join as a librarian who is Jewish but doesn't work in a Jewish library. Is that kosher?) and was literally late for work this week because I had to finish it. Speaking of Sydney Taylor, A Place at the Table got a notable. Woohoo! Check out their AFF, too.


Yay, Christina!



Yay, Saadia!  Yay, Laura!



All in all a good week. The kids seemed genuinely sad when I said it was the last meeting of our Caldecott Committee. Hmmm...maybe it doesn’t have to be? We’re already a month into book releases eligible for 2022...

A slide from our Sibert voting day last week. Both of these won stickers!



Definitely going to be a future blog post if I can get my act together! 💓

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