must reads 2008

The children's book awards were announced last Monday at the ALA's midwinter meeting in Philadelphia.

John Newbery Medal
Good Masters! Sweet Ladies! Voices from a Medieval Village by Laura Amy Schlitz

Newbery Honor Books
Elijah of Buxton by Christopher Paul Curtis
The Wednesday Wars by Gary D. Schmidt
Feathers by Jacqueline Woodson

Randolph Caldecott Medal
The Invention of Hugo Cabret illustrated by Brian Selznick

Caldecott Honor Books
Henry's Freedom Box: A True Story from the Underground Railroad illustrated by Kadir Nelson
First the Egg illustrated by Laura Vaccaro Seeger
The Wall: Growing Up Behind the Iron Curtain illustrated by Peter Sís
Knuffle Bunny Too: A Case of Mistaken Identity illustrated by Mo Willems

Michael L. Printz Award
The White Darkness by Geraldine McCaughrean

Printz Honor Books
Dreamquake: Book Two of the Dreamhunter Duet by Elizabeth Knox,
One Whole and Perfect Day by Judith Clarke
Repossessed by A. M. Jenkins
Your Own, Sylvia: A Verse Portrait of Sylvia Plath by Stephanie Hemphill

Coretta Scott King Book Award
Elijah of Buxton by Christopher Paul Curtis

King Author Honor Books
November Blues by Sharon M. Draper
Twelve Rounds to Glory: The Story of Muhammad Ali by Charles R. Smith Jr.

Coretta Scott King Illustrator Award
Let it Shine by Ashley Bryan

King Illustrator Honor Books
The Secret Olivia Told Me by Nancy Devard
Jazz on a Saturday Night by Leo and Diane Dillon

Coretta Scott King/John Steptoe New Talent Author Award
Brendan Buckley's Universe and Everything in It by Sundee T. Frazier

Schneider Family Book Award (for books that embody the artistic expression of the disability experience for child and adolescent audiences)
Kami and the Yaks by Andrea Stenn Stryer (age 0–10)
Reaching for Sun by Tracie Vaughn Zimmer (age 11–13)
Hurt Go Happy by Ginny Rorby (age 13-18)

Theodor Seuss Geisel Beginning Reader Award
There Is a Bird on Your Head! by Mo Willems

Geisel Honor Books
First the Egg by Laura Vaccaro Seeger
Hello, Bumblebee Bat by Darrin Lunde
Jazz Baby by Lisa Wheeler
Vulture View by April Pulley Sayre

Margaret A. Edwards Award (for lifetime achievement in writing for young adults)
Orson Scott Card

Robert F. Sibert Informational Book Award
The Wall: Growing Up Behind the Iron Curtain by Peter Sís

Sibert Honor Books
Lightship by Brian Floca
Nic Bishop Spiders by Nic Bishop

Mildred L. Batchelder Award (for the most outstanding children’s book translated from a foreign language and subsequently published in the United States)
Brave Story (originally published in Japanese in 2003 as Bureibu Sutori by Miyuki Miyabe and translated by Alexander O. Smith)

Batchelder Honor Books
The Cat: Or, How I Lost Eternity [Die Katze]
Nicholas and the Gang [Le petit Nicolas et les copains]

Alex Awards (for the best adult books that appeal to teen audiences)
American Shaolin: Flying Kicks, Buddhist Monks, and the Legend of Iron Crotch: An Odyssey in the New China by Matthew Polly
Bad Monkeys by Matt Ruff
Essex County Volume 1: Tales from the Farm by Jeff Lemire
Genghis: Birth of an Empire by Conn Iggulden
The God of Animals by Aryn Kyle
A Long Way Gone: Memoirs of a Boy Soldier by Ishmael Beah
Mister Pip by Lloyd Jones
The Name of the Wind by Patrick Rothfuss
The Night Birds by Thomas Maltman
The Spellman Files by Lisa Lutz

May Hill Arbuthnot Honor Lecture (for an individual of distinction in the field of children's literature)
Walter Dean Myers