Jack Gantos is the author of this year’s Newbery Medal-winning book, Dead End in Norvelt, and he’s also the perfect guy to kick off our Summer Reading for Kids & Teens destination as our first featured author.  Gantos is a fantastic writer and he’s really funny–after watching the special video he created for us below we were laughing out loud with big goofy grins on our faces, because Gantos makes reading fun.  It’s  another of this author’s’ many talents–if you’ve got a reluctant reader, give them a Jack Gantos book.   Check out our author adventures kick-off video, courtesy of Mr. Jack Gantos, who reminds us all to “read a lot, or your brain will rot!”

Summer Reading Recommendations from Jack Gantos:

• Dead End in Norvelt (naturally)
• Breaking Stalin’s Nose
• Inside Out & Back Again
• Joey Pigza Swallowed the Key
• Joey Pigza Loses Control
• The Cricket in Times Square
• Time Cat
• Heads or Tails
• Everything on a Waffle
• Jack’s Black Book

In Mo Hayder's Gone, a carjacking is actually a kidnapping, potential clues lurk inside a tunnel, and almost nothing turns out to be what it seems to be. That's what the keepers of the Edgar Allen Poe spirit must be looking for each year when they (the Mystery Writers of America), in honor of Poe's birthday, dole out the prestigious Edgar Awards. Hayden's sinister and suspenseful Gone won the best novel award, and more than a dozen other winners were announced Thursday in New York, in such categories as best paperback original, best critical biographical, best short story, and best TV episode.

The full list of winners and nominees can be found here. Among them: 

Best Novel

• Gone by Mo Hayder (*winner)
• The Ranger by Ace Atkins
• The Devotion of Suspect X by Keigo Higashino
• 1222 by Anne Holt
• Field Gray by Philip Kerr

Best First Novel

• Bent Road by Lori Roy (*winner)
• Red on Red by Edward Conlon
• Last to Fold by David Duffy
• All Cry Chaos by Leonard Rosen
• Purgatory Chasm by Steve Ulfelder

Best Fact Crime

• Destiny of the Republic by Candice Millard (*winner)
• The Murder of the Century by Paul Collins
• The Savage City by T.J. English
• Girl, Wanted by Steve Miller
• The Man in the Rockefeller Suit by Mark Seal

Young Adult

• The Silence of Murder by Dandi Daley Mackal (*winner)
• Shelter by Harlan Coben
• The Name of the Star by Maureen Johnson
• The Girl is Murder by Kathryn Miller Haines 
• Kill You Last by Todd Strasser

Best Critical Biography

• On Conan Doyle: Or, the Whole Art of Storytelling by Michael Dirda (*winner)
• The Tattooed Girl by Dan Burstein, Arne de Keijzer & John-Henri Holmberg
• Agatha Christie: Murder in the Making by John Curran
• Detecting Women: Gender and the Hollywood Detective Film by Philippa Gates
• Scripting Hitchcock: Psycho, The Birds and Marnie by Walter Raubicheck and Walter Srebnick

To see winners and nominees in all fifteen categories, visit TheEdgars.com.

Only one week left to vote for the Children's Choice Book Awards and over 500,000 votes are in but some of the finalists are neck and neck.   If you haven't voted yet, there is still have time to finish that last nominee on the nightstand and help pick the winnners of 2012–just get your vote in by May 3rd. 

Check back after the awards gala on May 7th, the kick off to Children's Book Week,  to find out who won.  Below is a refresher on the categories and finalists–which book will you vote for?

Kindergarten – Grade 2:

• Three Hens and a Peacock
• Bailey
• Zombie in Love
• Dot
• Pirates Don't Take Baths

Grade 3 – Grade 4:

• Bad Kitty Meets the Baby
• Squish #1: Super Amoeba
• Sidekicks
• The Monstrous Book of Monsters
• A Funeral in the Bathroom: and Other School Bathroom Poems

Grade 5 – Grade 6:

• Racing in the Rain: My Life as a Dog
• Okay for Now
• Bad Island
• Lost and Found: Three by Shaun Tan
• How to Survive Anything: Shark Attack, Lightning, Embarrassing Parents, Pop Quizzes, and Other Perilous Situations

Teen:

• Divergent
• Clockwork Prince
• Daughter of Smoke and Bone
• Passion
• Perfect

And don't forget to vote on the best author of the year and best illustrator of the year from the list of bestselling finalists.

Beer and beef, wine and chocolate, butter and olive oil – all the good stuff is properly represented among the nominees for the annual James Beard Foundation awards, which are given to cookbook authors, food writers, and chefs in numerous categories. The nominees announced today include three of Amazon's Best Books of the Month picks from 2011, including Blood, Bones & Butter, chosen as one of our Best Books of the Year.

American Cooking

• A New Turn in the South: Southern Flavors Reinvented for Your Kitchen, by Hugh Acheson
• American Flavor, by Andrew Carmellini and Gwen Hyman
• Masala Farm: Stories and Recipes from an Uncommon Life in the Country, by Suvir Saran with Raquel Pelzel and Charlie Burd

Cooking from a Professional Point of View

• The Art of Living According to Joe Beef: A Cookbook of Sorts, by Meredith Erickson, David McMillan, and Frédéric Morin
• Eleven Madison Park: The Cookbook, by Daniel Humm and Will Guidara
• Modernist Cuisine, by Nathan Myhrvold with Chris Young and Maxime Bilet

Baking and Dessert

• Baking Style: Art, Craft, Recipes, by Lisa Yockelson
• Cooking with Chocolate: Essential Recipes and Techniques, edited by Frédéric Bau
• Jeni’s Splendid Ice Creams at Home, by Jeni Britton Bauer

Beverage

• An Ideal Wine: One Generation’s Pursuit of Perfection–and Profit–in California, by David Darlington
• Bitters: A Spirited History of a Classic Cure-all, with Cocktails, Recipes, & Formulas, by Brad Thomas Parsons
• The Oxford Companion to Beer, edited by Garrett Oliver

Writing and Literature 

• Blood, Bones & Butter: The Inadvertent Education of a Reluctant Chef, by Gabrielle Hamilton
• Day of Honey: A Memoir of Food, Love, and War, by Annia Ciezadlo
• Extra Virginity, by Tom Mueller

Cookbook winners will be announced May 4, along with the Cookbook of the Year. Winners in other categories, including best restaurants and chefs, will be announced May 7. To see nominees in all categories, click here.

The Golden Kite Awards and Honors are particularly special for those who create children's books because they are the only awards given by their peers in the Society of Children’s Book Writers and Illustrators.

Founded in 1971, the Golden Kite Awards are given in four categories, each with a winning and honored book: fiction, nonfiction, picture book text, and picture book illustration.  A winner is also selected each year to receive the Sid Fleischman Award for Humor. Here are the 2012 winners and honorees:

Fiction:

• Winner – Between Shades of Gray
• Honor – Words In The Dust

Nonfiction:

• Winner - Amelia Lost: The Life and Disappearance of Amelia Earhart
• Honor – Mysterious Bones: The Story of Kennewick Man

Picture Book Text:

• Winner – Over and Under the Snow
• Honor – These Hands

Picture Book Illustration:

• Winner – Balloons over Broadway
• Honor – Follow Me

Sid Fleischman Award for Humor: The Fourth Stall

–Seira

This morning I got up at 5 a.m. to see (via webcast) the 2012 winners of the biggest awards in children’s publishing–the American Library Association (ALA) awards.  The film industry has their Golden Globes^® and their Oscars^®, and we have the Caldecott and Newbery Medals, the Coretta Scott King Award, and the Michael J. Printz Award.  Unlike most other book awards, the major children’s book awards given by the ALA have no lists of finalists or nominees.  It’s a surprise every single year (with plenty of speculation beforehand) and I kind of love the secrecy.  This year’s announcement had both the unexpected and the “ah, of course” books on the lists (including some 2011 Best of the Month titles)–you just never know who is going to win what. Congratulations to this year’s winning and honored authors and illustrators:

2012 Caldecott Medal for the most distinguished American picture book for children:

• Winner!: A Ball for Daisy by Chris Raschka
• Honor: Blackout by John Rocco
• Honor: Grandpa Green by Lane Smith
• Honor: Me…Jane by Patrick McDonnell

2012 Newbery Medal for the most outstanding contribution to children’s literature:

• Winner!: Dead End in Norvelt by Jack Gantos
• Honor:  Inside Out & Back Again by Thanhha Lai
• Honor:  Breaking Stalin’s Nose by Eugene Yelchin

2012 Michael L. Printz Award for excellence in literature written for young adults:  

• Winner!: Where Things Come Back by John Corey Whaley
• Honor:  Why We Broke Up by Daniel Handler and Maira Kalman
• Honor:  The Returning by Christine Hinwood
• Honor:  Jasper Jones by Craig Silvey
• Honor:  The Scorpio Races by Maggie Stiefvater

2012 Coretta Scott King Author Award recognizing an African American author of outstanding books for children and young adults:

• Winner!: Heart and Soul: The Story of America and African Americans by Kadir Nelson
• Honor:  The Great Migration: Journey to the North by Eloise Greenfield
• Honor: Never Forgotten by Patricia McKissack

2012 Coretta Scott King Illustrator Award:

• Winner!: Underground by Shane W. Evans
• Honor: Heart and Soul: The Story of America and African Americans by Kadir Nelson

2012 Theodor Seuss Geisel Award for the most distinguished beginning reader book:

• Winner!:  Tales for Very Picky Eaters  by Josh Schneider
• Honor:  I Broke My Trunk! (An Elephant and Piggie Book) by Mo Willems
• Honor:  I Want My Hat Back by Jon Klaussen
• Honor: See Me Run by Paul Meisel

2012 Pura Belpré Award honoring a Latino writer whose children’s books best portray, affirm and celebrate the Latino cultural experience:

• Author Winner!: Under the Mesquite by Guadalupe Garcia McCall
• Honor: Hurricane Dancers: The First Caribbean Pirate Shipwreck by Margarita Engle
• Honor: Maximilian & the Mystery of the Guardian Angel: A Bilingual Lucha Libre Thriller by Xavier Garza

• Illustrator Winner!: Diego Rivera: His World and Ours by Duncan Tonatiuh
• Honor: The Cazuela That the Farm Maiden Stirred illustrated by Rafael Lopez
• Honor:  Marisol McDonald Doesn’t Match / Marisol McDonald no combina illustrated by Sara Palacios

Quite a list, no?  Did some of your favorites win a medal or honor this year or do you have some that would have made the cut if you were judging?  I’d love to hear your thoughts. –Seira