In a recent phone conversation, my sister commented that she'd never read a Pultizer-prize winning book. Once establishing that this is untrue, we began discussing books we read as children. Being avid readers, we thought we'd read many Caldecott and Newberry medal winning books.
Well, it turns out that Caldecott is an illustration award (and I certainly didn't read "picture books" past age 7). And as for the Newberry list, boy were we surprised! Sure, some of our books were there, but the list that really resonated for us was the Pacific Northwest Library Association's Young Reader's Choice Award.
According to Powells.com, this award was established "in 1940 to promote reading for enjoyment."
Good, good. We liked (ok, loved) to read.
Wanna know how these books were chosen?
"Children and young adults of Alberta, Alaska, British Columbia, Idaho, Montana, Oregon, and Washington select the winners from nominees submitted by librarians, teachers, students and others."
Alaska? Idaho? Montana?
Are you kidding? Me, nice little black (ok, I started out Negro, according to my birth certificate, and since 1989 I've been African-American) girl is reading a bunch of books selected by the loads of loads of readers out in Montana?
Yeah, yeah- you can talk about the universality of children and reading and all that, but really, what MUST my mother have thought? Yeah, I read Mildred Taylor and even Alice Childress, but I also read nearly every book published by Scott O'Dell, and let me tell you, there are a ton of 'em! I loved Island of the Blue Dolphins!
Montana? No disrespect, but really, how many children were even in Montana in the 1970s?
Aside: I also read "wilderness/adventure" books written by a man whose name I cannot remember. It starts with a K and is likely German or Scandinavian. My mouth keeps saying "Kierkegaard" but I know that's not right. Actually, I think the second letter in his name is a j. Anyone? Bibliodiva? Lisa K? Mellanye?
I really did look, and even went to the children's section of my local libe, but the librarians weren't very nice and seemed perturbed that I was interrupting their construction paper craft project (I'm serious). My library isn't staffed by friendly folk, but I go anyway...
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In 1970 there were 1,382,573 people under the age of 18 in Montana. Feel free to check my math... http://www.census.gov/popest/archives/pre-1980/#state
And there were almost 900 black folks under the age of 19.
You *know* I checked your math!
I agree that in 1970, there were almost 900 black folks 19 and under in Montana (899, to be exact).
However, when I do the math, I get only 279,084. And if we only include folks 10-19 (since kids under 5 and 5-9 are probably not reading most of the books in question), we're down to 149,658.
FYI: according to Montana's official web site (www.mt.gov)- as of July 1, 2006, Montana's population was 944,632.
Wanna new calculator? 8)
Will you link to the list? I'm curious how many of them I've read, what with the southern born-meant to be a northwesterner in me :) I tried to look around on the PNLA site, but only found very recent lists.
Nah...I don't want a new calculator. Well, actually I do, because I freely admit that I'm simply dreadful at even adding and substracting.
Oh, and sadly, a lot of public librarians don't like the public.
Perhaps your mother was simply happy that you were reading books.
Now a days there's the Scott King Award: http://tinyurl.com/344h3r and the American Library Association sponsors a heap of book awards: http://www.ala.org/Template.cfm?Section=bookmediaawards
The next time I'm at the APL, I'll check on that other book for you.
Thanks! I've read a few of the PNLA books, but not a lot...
As a YA librarian, I am all about the Printz Award. I also use our bookmark lists and online ones like this to help teens select books.
As a regular person I am not much of an award-winning-titles reader.
You could get some help locating your book by going to www.abebooks.com They specialize in old and hard to find stuff. In addition to that they are linked to a site where people (like yourself) don't know the name of the book and recall some details. Other people help you name your book and you can help others.
The author is Jim Kjelgaard and here's a listing of his books on Amazon. com : http://tinyurl.com/2ldzrt
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