From the 2007 winner! Scaredy Squirrel
Tonight, I’m whittling down my top ten pics for the Amelia France Howard-Gibbon Illustrator’s Award for children’s literature. This list will be added to all the other shortlists made-up by my co-committee people and distilled down to yet another shortlist.
This is a pretty exciting committee. I’ve received a steady stream of free books over the last few months. I had a pile many feet hight and read them all. Phew.
There’s no way to summarize the kinds of books people are making. Cute. Creepy. Weird. Occasionally serious. Sometimes heartrendingly beautiful. Often didactic (more often than not). It doesn’t matter. The caliber and creativity of the Canadian artists I’ve read is just astounding
I’ve also fallen smack into a literary world that I haven’t dabbled in for years and years. Relearning how to encounter these books has been both a trip down memory lane and a quest to figure out what the 21st century reading experience is for young readers.
Not an easy question to answer. It’s easy to let your personal nostalgia for books like when you were little overpower what young people today might be looking for.
This is a challenge, and it’s one that children and youth services librarians grapple with all the time. Lucky them, right? I’m a little envious.
I look forward to the announcement of the winner, so I can review some of the books I’ve discovered!
Also, looking forward to starting over next year.