From: Ginny Moore Kruse <gmkruse>
Date: Tue, 09 Jan 2001 12:35:03 -0600

Thanks to Brenda & Roger for bringing us facts about the organizational and working dimensions of regarding nominating and meeting to discuss contenders for the National Book Award. And thanks, Katy, for clarifying my question about these aspects of the award whose winner and shortlisted finalists will have seals or stickers on their jackets after being selected. Roger, is it true that the final decision is made over lunch on the very day when the NBA awards are announced that same evening? Is most of the committee give-and-take accomplished by e-mail or conference phone calls, rather than during meetings in real times and places? Julius, or Hazel Rochman, or other former NBA judges: do you have anything to add to what Roger wrote? I imagine each of you has quite a bit to add in general to the discussion of writing within or outside of one's personal history/culture/race/experience, as well. We will all appreciate hearing from you.

Thank you, Dean, for thinking with us about several options for incorporating the novel Many Stones within a middle school literature and/or social studies curriculum. We could hope for all middle school students to have thoughtful teacher-guided opportunities for such comprehensive explorations of complex aspects of human history and social behavior, such as those you described.

Dean, you assume that most teachers are attentive to books brought to attention through the NBA process. I disagree with you about this, but I have no documentation, only speculation. We all know that seals/stickers make a huge difference to kids who gravitate in libraries and during bookfairs to books decorated with one or more seals or pictures of seals. Often kids are encouraged by their parents or teachers to search in libraries and bookstores for books with seals. We know that seals in general are important to booksellers everywhere. Extremely important.

But I'm not at all sure that the NBA seal carries more weight than most others. The Caldecott and Newbery seals suggest an overall fine reputation & history, the Coretta Scott King seals provide specific recommendations, as do the Jane Addams Award seals. I think that what does carry an enormous weight is vested in the general announcement of all NBA winners and shortlisted finalists. This announcement printed in the New York Times and in promotional ads, etc., means a lot to the adult readers and literature devotees who pay attention to the adult NBA Awards. Most of these adults are probably not knowledgable about young people's literature in the way the CCBC-Net community is. They no doubt expect that the shortlisted finalists and the ultimate winner for the NBA Young People's Literature Award always and automatically represent superb writing and superior books for young people. They expect that these books are the very best. Period. They probably do notice the NBA seals as such in bookstores and libraries. It does matter which books are chosen. It matters a lot. It can mean everything to a writer's career, and possibly to an editor's career, as well.

Which brings me back to the glare of the proverbial spotlight. Everything about an award winning book must be considered, ultimately, when deciding on whether or not a book is worthy of a particular award. This is fair to the book and its author and publisher. And most of all, it's fair to the young readers. Even though the jacket art, for example, is usually completely beyond the control or authority of the author or sometimes even of those who champion the book within the publishing house, the jacket art matters. So do organizational details and details within information, explicit or implicit. This is what a discussion often comes down to. The details. Everything matters. Sometimes - not always, fortunately - an award committee must choose which flaw to overlook, because perhaps - not always, to be sure - all of the eligible books in a particular pool of contenders are flawed in one way or another. And we haven't even mentioned where personal taste enters into the equation.

Your thoughts?

And how about the other three shortlisted finalists for the 2000 National Book Award for Young People's Literature? They are Forgotten Fire (A Melanie Kroupa Book, DK Ink) by Adam Bagdasarian; The Book of the Lion (Viking) by Michael Cadnum; and Hurry Freedom! (Crown) by Jerry Stanley. Are there others who have read any of these books? Want to comment? Please do...

Ginny Moore Kruse gmkruse at facstaff.wisc.edu Cooperative Children's Book Center www.education.wisc.edu/ccbc/ A Library of the School of Education, University of Wisconsin Madison
Received on Tue 09 Jan 2001 12:35:03 PM CST