Kidsreads.com - 2005 Newbery/Caldecott/Sibert/King Awards

Newbery Award Winner

Caldecott Winner

Robert F. Sibert Winner

Coretta Scott King Author Winner

The Schneider Family Book Awards

Past Winners

2004
2003
2002
2001
2000

2005 ALA Awards

And The Winners Are...

• The John Newbery Medal
• The Randolph Caldecott Medal
• The Robert F. Sibert Award
• The Coretta Scott King Award
• The Schneider Family Book Award

The American Library Association (otherwise known as the ALA) has announced its 2005 awards, honoring the best books published in 2004. And we've got them all for you right here!

Curious about the ALA and its awards? Here's a little background...

Since 1921, the American Library Association has awarded prizes to the best of the best children's books. Each year, one exceptional book receives the John Newbery Medal --- and runners up may be named Newbery Honor Books. Also, one awesomely illustrated book is awarded the Randolph Caldecott Medal, with other cool picture books named Caldecott Honor titles. And though the names and works of contenders are hotly debated each year, no one really knows who will win. Committee members are sworn to secrecy, until the announcement is made at the ALA Midwinter Meeting in January.

The Robert F. Sibert Award is presented to the author who has written the most distinguished informational book for children, while the Coretta Scott King Award is given to authors and illustrators of African descent whose books "promote an understanding and appreciation of the 'American Dream.' " These prizes are also announced at the Midwinter Meeting.

The Schneider Family Book Award is a new award donated by Katherine Schneider, Ph.D. that honors an author or illustrator for a book that embodies an artistic expression of the disability experience for child and adolescent audiences. Recipients are selected in three categories: birth through grade school (ages 0-10), middle school (ages 11-13), and teens (ages 13-18). Recipients in each category receive $5,000 and a framed plaque, which will be presented during the ALA Annual Conference in Chicago.

Winning Books

2005 Newbery Winner

KIRA-KIRA
by Cynthia Kadohata
Atheneum
ISBN: 0689856393
Ages 11-up
256 pages
February 2004

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Glittering. That's how Katie Takeshima's sister, Lynn, makes everything seem. When Katie and her family move from a Japanese community in Iowa to Georgia, Lynn explains to her why people stop them on the street to stare, and she teaches Katie --- with her special way of viewing the world --- to look beyond tomorrow.

But it isn't long before their lives appear to be in shambles, as Lynn becomes desperately ill and the entire family begins to fall apart. It is now up to Katie to find a way to remind them that there is always something glittering --- kira-kira --- in the future.

2005 Newbery Honors

AL CAPONE DOES MY SHIRTS
by Gennifer Choldenko
G.P. Putnam's Sons
ISBN: 0399238611
Ages 8-12
240 pages
March 2004

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Moose Flannagan moves with his family to Alcatraz so his dad can work as a prison guard and his sister, Natalie, can attend a special school. But Natalie has autism and unfortunately is denied admittance into the school. When Moose meets Piper, the cute daughter of the Warden, he knows immediately that she's trouble but she is also strangely irresistible. All Moose wants to do is protect Natalie, live up to his parents' expectations and stay out of trouble --- but it's difficult to fulfill these goals while on Alcatraz.

LIZZIE BRIGHT AND THE BUCKMINSTER BOY
by Gary D. Schmidt
Clarion Books
ISBN: 0618439293
Ages 10-up
224 pages
May 2004

It only takes a few hours for Turner Buckminster to start hating Phippsburg, Maine. No one in town will let him forget that he's a minister's son, even if he doesn't act like one. But then he meets Lizzie Bright Griffin, a smart and sassy girl from a poor nearby island community founded by former slaves. Despite his father's --- and the town's --- disapproval of their friendship, Turner spends time with Lizzie, and it opens up a whole new world to him, filled with the mystery and wonder of Maine's rocky coast.

The two soon discover that the town elders, along with Turner's father, want to force the people to leave Lizzie's island so that Phippsburg can start a lucrative tourist trade there. Turner gets caught up in a spiral of disasters that alter his life --- but also lead him to new levels of acceptance and maturity.

2005 Caldecott Winner

KITTEN'S FIRST FULL MOON
by Kevin Henkes
Greenwillow
ISBN: 0060588284
Ages 3-6
40 pages
March 2004

Bestselling author-illustrator Kevin Henkes introduces readers to a brave young kitten who sets out into the world on a quest that leaves her bruised, bewildered, and hungry, but that ultimately leads her back home, where something special is waiting just for her.

2005 Caldecott Honors

COMING ON HOME SOON
by Jacqueline Woodson
illustrated by E. B. Lewis
G.P. Putnam's Sons
ISBN: 0399237488
Ages 5-up
32 pages
October 2004

Ada Ruth's mama must go away to Chicago to work, leaving Ada Ruth and Grandma behind. It's war time, and women are needed to fill the men's jobs. As winter sets in, Ada Ruth and her grandma keep up their daily routine, missing Mama all the time. They find strength in each other, and a stray kitten even arrives one day to keep them company, but nothing can fill the hole Mama left. Every day they wait, watching for the letter that says Mama will be coming home soon.

KNUFFLE BUNNY: A Cautionary Tale
by Mo Willems
Hyperion
ISBN: 0786818700
Ages 4-8
36 pages
September 2004

Trixie, Daddy, and Knuffle Bunny take a trip to the neighborhood Laundromat. But the exciting adventure takes a dramatic turn when Trixie realizes somebunny was left behind. This entertaining book tells a brilliantly true-to-life tale about what happens when Daddy is in charge and things go terribly, hilariously wrong.

THE RED BOOK
by Barbara Lehman
Houghton Mifflin
ISBN: 0618428585
Ages 5-8
32 pages
September 2004

This book is about a book. A magical red book without any words. When you turn the pages you'll experience a new kind of adventure through the power of story. In illustrations of rare detail and surprise, THE RED BOOK crosses oceans and continents to deliver one girl into a new world of possibility, where a friend she has never met is waiting. And as with the best of books, at the conclusion of the story, the journey is not over.

2005 Robert F. Sibert Winner

THE VOICE THAT CHALLENGED A NATION: Marian Anderson and the Struggle for Equal Rights
by Russell Freedman
Clarion Books
ISBN: 0618159762
Ages 9-12
128 pages
May 2004

This insightful account of the great African American vocalist considers her life and musical career in the context of the history of civil rights in this country. Drawing on Anderson's own writings and other contemporary accounts, Russell Freedman shows readers a singer pursuing her art despite the social constraints that limited the careers of black performers in the 1920s and 1930s.

Though not a crusader or a spokesperson by nature, Marian Anderson came to stand for all black artists --- and for all Americans of color --- when, with the help of such prominent figures as Eleanor Roosevelt, she gave her landmark 1939 performance on the steps of the Lincoln Memorial, which signaled the end of segregation in the arts.

2005 Robert F. Sibert Honors

SEQUOYAH: The Cherokee Man Who Gave His People Writing
by James Rumford
translated into Cherokee by Anna Sixkiller Huckaby
Houghton Mifflin
ISBN: 0618369473
Ages 5-8
32 pages
November 2004

The story of Sequoyah is the tale of an ordinary man with an extraordinary idea --- to create a writing system for the Cherokee Indians and turn his people into a nation of readers and writers. The task he set for himself was daunting. Sequoyah knew no English and had no idea how to capture speech on paper. But slowly and carefully, he worked out a system that surprised the Cherokee Nation --- and the world of the 1820s --- with its beauty and simplicity.

THE TARANTULA SCIENTIST
by Sy Montgomery
photographs by Nic Bishop
Houghton Mifflin
ISBN: 0618147993
Ages 9-12
80 pages
March 2004

Yellow blood, silk of steel, and skeletons on the outside! These amazing attributes belong to Earth's biggest and hairiest spiders: tarantulas. Here you're invited to follow Sam Marshall, spider scientist extraordinaire, as he explores the dense rainforest of French Guiana and tries to get a closer look at these incredible creatures. You'll also visit the largest comparative spider laboratory in America --- where close to five hundred live tarantulas sit in towers of stacked shoeboxes and plastic containers, waiting for their turn to dazzle and astound the scientists who study them.

WALT WHITMAN: WORDS FOR AMERICA
by Barbara Kerley
illustrated by Brian Selznick
Scholastic Press
ISBN: 0439357918
Ages 9-12
56 pages
October 2004

Did you know that poet Walt Whitman was also a Civil War nurse? Devastated by his country dividing and compelled to service by his brother's war injury, Walt nursed all soldiers --- Union and Confederate, black and white. By getting to know them through many intense experiences, he began to see a greater life purpose: His writing could give these men a voice, and thus achieve his greatest aspiration --- to capture the true spirit of America.

2005 Coretta Scott King Author Winner

REMEMBER: The Journey to School Integration
by Toni Morrison
Houghton Mifflin
ISBN: 061839740X
Ages 9-12
80 pages
May 2004

Toni Morrison has collected a treasure chest of archival photographs that depict the historical events surrounding school desegregation. These unforgettable images serve as the inspiration for Morrison's text --- a fictional account of the dialogue and emotions of the children who lived during the era of "separate but equal" schooling. REMEMBER was published on the 50th anniversary of the groundbreaking Brown v. Board of Education Supreme Court decision ending legal school segregation, handed down on May 17, 1954.

2005 Coretta Scott King Author Honors

FORTUNE'S BONES: The Manumission Requiem
by Marilyn Nelson
Front Street
ISBN: 1932425128
Ages 12-up
32 pages
October 2004

There is a skeleton on display in the Mattatuck Museum in Waterbury, Connecticut. It has been in the town for over 200 years. Over time, the bones became the subject of stories and speculation in Waterbury. In 1996 a group of community-based volunteers, working in collaboration with the museum staff, discovered that the bones were those of a slave named Fortune who had been owned by a local doctor. After Fortune's death, the doctor dissected the body, rendered the bones, and assembled the skeleton. A great deal is still not known about Fortune, but it is known that he was baptized, was married, and had four children. He died around the age of 60, sometime after 1797.

Marilyn Nelson was commissioned by the Mattatuck Museum and received a grant from the Connecticut Commission on the Arts to write a poem in commemoration of Fortune's life. "The Manumission Requiem" is that poem.

THE LEGEND OF BUDDY BUSH
by Shelia P. Moses
Margaret K. McElderry Books/Simon & Schuster
ISBN: 0689858396
Ages 12-up
224 pages
January 2004

The day Uncle Goodwin "Buddy" Bush came from Harlem all the way back home to Rehobeth Road in Rich Square, North Carolina, is the day Pattie Mae Sheals' life changes forever.

Pattie Mae adores and admires Uncle Buddy --- he's tall and handsome and he doesn't believe in the country stuff most people believe in, like ghosts and stepping off the sidewalk to let white folks pass. He unsettles the dust and brings fresh ideas to Rehobeth Road. But when Buddy's deliberate inattention to the protocol of 1947 North Carolina lands him in jail for a crime against a white woman that he didn't commit, Pattie Mae and her family are suddenly set to journeying on the long, hard road that leads from loss and rage to forgiveness and pride.

WHO AM I WITHOUT HIM? Short Stories About Girls and the Boys in Their Lives
by Sharon G. Flake
Jump at the Sun/Hyperion
ISBN: 0786806931
Ages 8-12
176 pages
May 2004

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There is "The Ugly One," whose only solace comes when she is locked inside her own head. In "Wanted: A Thug," a teenager seeks advice on how to steal her best friend's bad-guy boyfriend. And then there's Erika, who only likes white boys.

Sharon Flake takes readers through the minds of girls trying to define themselves while struggling to remain relevant to the boys in their lives.

2005 Coretta Scott King Illustrator Winner

ELLINGTON WAS NOT A STREET
illustrated by Kadir Nelson
written by Ntozake Shange
Simon & Schuster
ISBN: 0689828845
Ages 4-8
40 pages
January 2004

In a reflective tribute to the African-American community of old, noted poet Ntozake Shange recalls her childhood home and the close-knit group of innovators that often gathered there. These men of vision, brought to life in the majestic paintings of artist Kadir Nelson, lived at a time when the color of their skin dictated where they could live, what schools they could attend, and even where they could sit on a bus or in a movie theater. Yet in the face of this tremendous adversity, these dedicated souls and others like them not only demonstrated the importance of Black culture in America, but also helped usher in a movement that "changed the world."

2005 Coretta Scott King Illustrator Honors

GOD BLESS THE CHILD
illustrated by Jerry Pinkney
written by Billie Holiday
Amistad/HarperCollins
ISBN: 0060287977
Ages 4-8
32 pages
January 2004

The song "God Bless the Child" was first performed by legendary jazz vocalist Billie Holiday in 1939 and remains one of her enduring masterpieces. In this picture book interpretation, renowned illustrator Jerry Pinkney has created images of a family moving from the rural South to the urban North during the Great Migration that reached its peak in the 1930s. The song's message of self-reliance still speaks to us today but resonates even stronger in its historical context. A free CD of Billie Holiday's timeless recording of "God Bless the Child" is included to enjoy along with the book.

JAZZY MIZ MOZETTA
illustrated by Frank Morrison
written by Brenda C. Roberts
Farrar, Straus and Giroux
ISBN: 0374336741
Ages 4-8
32 pages
October 2004

One fine evening, Miz Mozetta puts on her firecracker-red dress and heads outside to enjoy the moonlight. When she hears the neighborhood kids' music, she is inspired to dance, but her old friends have too many aches and pains to join her. The kids doubt that Miz Mozetta would be able to keep up with them. So she retreats to her parlor, where she dreams about the old days at the Blue Pearl Ballroom. Just when her feet are itching to get out there and do the jitterbug --- friends or no friends --- there's a knock on the door, and Miz Mozetta gets some welcome company.

THE PEOPLE COULD FLY: The Picture Book
illustrated by Leo and Diane Dillon
written by Virginia Hamilton
Knopf
ISBN: 0375824057
All ages
32 pages
November 2004

"The People Could Fly," the title story in Virginia Hamilton's prize-winning American Black folktale collection, is a fantasy tale of the slaves who possessed the ancient magic words that enabled them to literally fly away to freedom. And it is a moving tale of those who did not have the opportunity to "fly" away, who remained slaves with only their imaginations to set them free as they told and retold this tale.

Leo and Diane Dillon have created powerful new illustrations in full color for every page of this picture book presentation of Virginia Hamilton's most beloved tale. The author's original historical note as well as her previously unpublished notes are included.

2005 Coretta Scott King/John Steptoe New Author Talent Award

MISSY VIOLET AND ME
by Barbara Hathaway
Houghton Mifflin
ISBN: 061837163X
Ages 7-10
112 pages
May 2004

The summer that Viney is eleven years old is extraordinary. It takes her out of school and puts her under the wing of Missy Violet, a well-loved midwife whose wise and warm ways help teach Viney about the business of catchin' babies. Suddenly, Viney must learn about roots and herbs and their medicinal purpose, understand the contents of Missy Violet's "birthin' bag," and contend with a snooty peer and wild, irrepressible cousin --- Charles Elister Paxton Nehemiah Windbush. And all this before she actually helps to deliver a single baby!

2005 Steptoe New Illustrator Talent Award

2005 Schneider Family Picture Book Winner

MY PAL, VICTOR/MI AMIGO, VICTOR
by Diane Gonzales Bertrand
illustrated by Robert L. Sweetland
Raven Tree Press
ISBN: 0972019294
Ages 4-8
32 pages
June 2004

Victor tells heart-booming ghost stories, claps the loudest at Dominic's baseball games, and performs a fabulous floating frog stroke. Two Latino boys experience a spirited, carefree friendship despite one boy's disability. Full bilingual (English/Spanish) text and a vocabulary page are included.

2005 Schneider Family Middle School Award Winner

BECOMING NAOMI LEON
by Pam Munoz Ryan
Scholastic Press
ISBN: 0439269695
Ages 9-12
246 pages
September 2004

Naomi Soledad Leon Outlaw has had a lot to contend with in her young life: her name, her clothes (sewn in polyester by Gram), her difficulty speaking up, and her status among her classmates as "nobody special." But according to Gram's self-prophecies, most problems can be overcome with positive thinking. Luckily, Naomi also has her soap carving, a talent at which she excels. And life at Avocado Acres Trailer Rancho in Lemon Tree, California, with Gram and her little brother Owen is happy and peaceful. That is, until their mother reappears after seven years of being gone, stirring up all sorts of questions and challenging Naomi to discover who she really is.

2005 Schneider Family Teen Award Winner

MY THIRTEENTH WINTER: A Memoir
by Samantha Abeel
Orchard Books
ISBN: 0439339049
Ages 11-15
208 pages
November 2003

Samantha Abeel tells her own story of living with and overcoming dyscalculia. She describes in painstaking detail how her life was affected by her learning disability before and after she was diagnosed, and the way her peers, family and teachers treated her. In seventh grade, Samantha suffered anxiety attacks as she struggled to keep up in her classes, remember two locker combinations, and deal with new teachers. Samantha was placed in Special Education classes in eighth grade, but she continued to feel anxious about her future.

-- Written by Tom Donadio