The Caldecott and Newbery medals given for the best illustration and fiction of the year are probably the most prestigious awards in children's book publishing, but there are other distinguished honors that need to be mentioned such as the four noted below.
For the 25th year, the Boston Globe and Horn Book magazine have collaborated to name outstanding children's books. This year's winners are:Fiction: "The True Confessions of Charlotte Doyle" by Avi (Orchard Publishers).
Non-fiction: "Appalachia: The Voices of Sleeping Birds" by Cynthia Rylant, illustrated by Barry Moser (Harcourt Brace Jovanovich).
Picture Book: "The Tale of the Mandarin Ducks" by Katherine Paterson, illustrated by Leo and Diane Dillon (Lonestar).
- "CHILDREN'S CHOICES," a collaboration of the International Reading Association and Children's Book Council for 17 years, takes books to 10,000 selected schoolchildren across the United States in five sites. This year's list includes 111 titles chosen from more than 500 selected for inclusion in the sample. Following are the titles that are designated as appropriate for all ages:
"Beauty and the Beast" by Marie LePrince de Baumont, translated by Richard Howard. Illustrations are by Hilary Knight. (Simon and Schuster).
"Black and White" by David Macaulay. (Houghton Mifflin Company).
"The Empty Pot" by Demi. (Holt).
"I Know an Old Lady Who Swallowed a Fly" retold by Glen Rounds. (Holiday House).
"If You're Not Here, Please Raise Your Hand; Poems About School" Kalli Dakos, illustrated by G. Brian Karas. (Four Winds).
"Oh, The Places You'll Go!" Dr. Seuss (Random House)
"Seasons" Poems selected by Alberto Manguel, illustrations by Warabe Aska (Doubleday).
"The Tunnel" Anthony Browne. (Knopf).
"Young Merlin" Robert D. San Souci, illustrated by Daniel Horne. (Doubleday).
Other titles are divided by levels: beginning independent reading, younger readers, middle grades, older readers.
- THE "YOUNG ADULT CHOICES" compiled by the International Reading Association for the fifth year selected 28 books as the 1991 choices. This list includes a number of different types of books; problem novels such as "Appointment with a Stranger" by Jean Thesman (Houghton Mifflin) and Leslie D. Guccione's "Tell Me How the Wind Sounds," (Scholastic) a story about a physical handicap. Humor, the element that young readers most often choose for books, is found in "Hong on the Range" by William F. Wu (Walker). There are books on single-parent families, intergenerational friendships, emotional illness and coping with death. Non-fiction books include "Operation Grizzly Bear" by Marian Calabro (Four Winds) and Kenneth Mallory and Andrea Conley's photo essay "Rescue of the Stranded Whales" (Simon and Schuster).
- CURRICULUM CRITERIA - Through a field test throughout the United States, the IRA has compiled a list of recently published books for children and adolescents that teachers find exceptional for curriculum use. The criteria for selection include: books that reflect high literary quality, books that students might not find on their own without the guidance of a knowledgeable educator and books with potential for use across the curriculum.
This year's list is broken into three categories - primary (K-2), intermediate (3-5) and advanced grades (6-8) - and contains 30 titles in a variety of genres - fiction, non-fiction, picture books and poetry. The following is a sampling from each of the three categories:
"Feathers for Lunch" by Lois Ehlert. (Harcourt Brace Jovanovich).
"The Wall" by Eve Bunting, illustrated by Ronald Himler. (Clarion).
"Christopher Columbus: Voyager to the Unknown by Nancy Smiler Levinson. (Lodestar).
"Windows on Wild Life" by Ginny Johnston and Judy Cutchins (Morrow).
"The Place My Words Are Looking For" Paul Janeczko, compiler. (Bradbury).
"Woodsong" by Gary Paulsen, illustrated by Ruth Wright Paulsen. (Bradbury).
Single copies of the complete lists, "Children's Choices," "Young Adult Choices" and "Teachers' Choices" are available free. Send one self-addressed 9-by-12-inch envelope stamped with first-class postage for two ounces for each list to:
Reading Choices (designate the list wanted)
International Reading Association
800 Barksdale Road
P.O. Box 8139
Newark, DE 19714-8139.