Bookish Thoughts
Posted April 6, 2018 by Josie Snow
In mid-February my program hosted a live streaming of the ALA (American Library Association) Youth Media Award ceremony, we gathered together and had breakfast and cheered when books we recognized or loved were awarded. It was enjoyable and eye opening.
What was interesting to me was that while I recognized some of the awards, like the Newberry and the Caldecott. I was amazed to discover that all told twenty awards are given out at this time, many of which I had never heard of. A few of the new-to-me awards are listed below:
- Pura Belpré Award, celebrating Latino/a writers or illustrators and Latino culture.
- The Odyssey Award, recognizing the best audiobook for children or young adults produced in English and available in the United States.
- The Schneider Family Book Award, honoring an author or illustrator for excellence in portraying disability experiences.
- The Stonewall Book Award, given to LGBTQA books in English with exceptional merit.
To find out about some of the other awards, visit the ALA website
The award event, and some of the discussions that followed also prompted some questions, and musings that have stayed in the back of my mind ever since. These questions include:
- What does it mean that there are so many awards given?
- Why haven’t I heard of so many of the awards?
- What is the purpose of giving a book an award?
- Is a book with an award more important than one without an award? Why or why not?
- What is being recognized by these awards? What is not?
- What sort of awards might we see in the future?
- Who determines what awards are given?
- How are awards beneficial?
- How might awards be potentially harmful?
- What sort of things does our society value in literature?
- How or why do those values change?