Story Parade Magazine

 

 It's always a fun to check the old children's magazines like Jack and Jill or Story Parade for collectible authors and illustrators. Both the covers above are by Caldecott winning artist Feodor Rojankovsky who also illustrated interior stories and the December 1952 magazine has stories illustrated by Flavia Gag, Mordvinoff (another Caldecott winner) and William Wiesner amoung others.

It's that time again...

The 2010 Newbery and Caldecott Awards (among others) will be announced on Monday January 18th at 7:45am EST. The live web cast can be viewed at http://alawebcast.unikron.com and the results will be on twitter at: www.twitter.com/ALAyma


and then the hunt will be on!

Award Announcement

The 2009 award announcement for the Newbery and Caledecott medals will be on January 26th this year. The announcements will be webcast at 7:45am from Denver during the ALA mid-winter meeting.

A whole slew of other literary awards for childrens and young adult books will also be announced. I also follow the Printz award for young adult and the Coretta Scott King for African American titles.

2008 Newbery and Caldecott Awards

From the ALA website:

2008 ALSC Literary and Related Award Winners

In order to post the winning information as expeditiously as possible, we are providing a straight list of 2008 ALSC award winners, including book title, author, and publisher. Additional information, including annotations and book cover images for each award-winning title, will be posted to the individual award pages as soon as possible.

John Newbery Medal

Good Masters! Sweet Ladies! Voices from a Medieval Village by Laura Amy Schlitz (Candlewick)

Newbery Honor Books

Elijah of Buxton by Christopher Paul Curtis (Scholastic/Scholastic Press)
The Wednesday Wars by Gary D. Schmidt (Clarion)
Feathers by Jacqueline Woodson (Putnam/GP Putnam's Sons)

Randolph Caldecott Medal

The Invention of Hugo Cabret by Brian Selznick (Scholastic)

Caldecott Honor Books

Henry's Freedom Box: A True Story from the Underground Railroad, illustrated by Kadir Nelson, written by Ellen Levine (Scholastic/Scholastic Press)
First the Egg by Laura Vaccaro Seeger (Roaring Brook/Neal Porter)
The Wall: Growing Up Behind the Iron Curtin by Peter Sís (Farrar/Frances Foster)
Knuffle Bunny Too: A Case of Mistaken Identity by Mo Willems (Hyperion)

Phooey, with the exception of Hugo Cabret and Knuffle Bunny Too, I was not aware of any of these titles, ususally my award radar is better than that!

Where the Wild Things Are Auction Price Realized

From the July 12th auction at the PBA Galleries, this copy of Maurice Sendak's Where The Wild Things Are had fetched $6900. (This is less than I thought, I know of copies that have reached the $10,000 range.)

The Little House Auction Price Realized

The July 12th auction at the PBA Galleries not only had a first in dust jacket of Curious George but also this beautiful first edition in dust jacket of Virgina Lee Burton's The Little House. The auction price realized was $9775.00. (I specialize in children's books and have been a full time dealer since 1994 and have never seen a first edition of this book.)

Pahhgg! Murphy strikes again...

Yesterday the American Library Association announced the 2006 winners of the major children's books awards in their meeting in Seattle. They did a web cast of the awards ceremony itself insuring that the news was equally disseminated. (The broadcast was at 12:00 eastern.)

For a dealer specializing in modern children's books this is always a busy day. After the awards are announced we check to see which of the titles we have and scramble to pick up the ones we don't have. Then we start fielding calls both from other dealers and our collectors on what they have and what they are looking for. If the winner of the Newbery, Caldecott or Printz is already in later printing in the stores or sold primarily to libraries and is not in the stores at all, the price of the book can climb just like a hot stock does on the stock exchange.

Award day is usually hectic, lucrative and most of all it's fun. You get to deal, horse trade and talk books with people who are extremely passionate about their collections.

So where does Murphy come in you ask? At about 10:25am eastern on Monday a Verizon Fiber Optic Tech working on service in the area misread a port and literally pulled the plug on me. I not only lost my internet access but also both my phone lines. (The analogy of eggs and a basket comes to mind.) It took Verizon 29 hours to get a tech back out and about 5 minutes for him to fix the problem once he got here. Excuse me, I have to go sulk some more....

Newbery, King, Caldecott & Printz

The Newbery, King, Caldecott and Printz Awards are going to be announced at noon Eastern on Monday. ALA is going to do a webcast of the award ceremony at: http://www.unikron.com/ala-webcast .

I've got my favorites and my finger's crossed, but I've given up trying to predict. It's so much more fun to sit on the sidelines and throw peanuts!