November 2024 PrizeCat Children's Literature

November’s PrizeCat focuses on awards for children’s and YA books. There are many such prizes:

Caldecott Award (most distinguished American picture book for children)
Newbery Award (most distinguished American children’s book)
Coretta Scott King Award (appreciation of African American culture)
American Indian Youth Literature Awards (American indigenous experiences)
Sydney Taylor Book Award (Jewish experiences)
Americas Award (Latin Americas)
Award for Excellence in Poetry and Annual Notable List of Poetry Books and Verse Novels for Children (US)
The Children’s Book Council of Australia
Victoria Children’s Book Prize (Australia)
TD Canadian Children’s Literature Award (Canada)
Hans Christian Andersen Award (International)
The Carnegie’s (UK)



Some of the prizes have been celebrating over 100 years of awards! We’d love to hear what you plan to read, whether it’s fiction or non-fiction. Books that have been shortlisted are also welcome. Most importantly, have fun with it! If you're interested, you can check out the wiki here: https://wiki.librarything.com/index.php/PrizeCAT_2024#June:_Book_Lists_.28Tess_W....

I liked a YA book by Joan Aiken so have gone searching for another of hers. The Whispering Mountain won the 1969 Guardian Children's Fiction Prize and was a commended runner-up for the Carnegie Medal.

Guardian Children's Fiction Prize

I’m planning to read The Fault in Our Stars by John Green, which has won numerous prizes. I can’t believe I’ve gone this long without having read it.

I think I will read Salt to the Sea by Ruta Sepetys which is a YA WWII novel which has won numerous awards

I have set up the 2025 Category Challenge group here: https://www.librarything.com/ngroups/24518/2025-Category-Challenge. Feel free to stop by anytime, start suggesting CATs and KITs, and post your threads for the 2025 challenge!

(I'm posting this notification to a bunch of threads, so sorry if you see it multiple times!)

I just finished The Perilous Gard by Elizabeth Marie Pope, a wonderful Tam Lin retelling set in Tudor England. I read it for some of the October CATs, but it would also work for this one because it won the Newbery in 1975. I highly recommend it!

I read Salt to the Sea a YA novel by Ruta Sepetys. Although written for teens/YA's, in my personal experience of teaching that age, I don't believe they would appreciate and/or be able to follow it. It's quite choppy. That being said, it won dozens of awards. Amongst them being: Amelia Elizabeth Walden Award (Finalist – 2017), Audie Award (Finalist – Young Adult – 2017)
Blue Hen Book Award (Nominee – Teen Readers – 2018)
California Young Reader Medal (Nominee – Young Adult, Grades 9-12 – 2018)
CYBILS Awards (Winner – Young Adult Fiction – 2016).

If you haven't yet visited the 2025 Category Challenge group, come on over! CAT and KIT discussion is in progress, and we're going to start voting on Wednesday, November 6. So if you'd like to suggest a CAT or KIT for next year, check out the discussion and make your proposals here: https://www.librarything.com/topic/365087.

I'm posting this several places in the 2024 group, so my apologies if you see it a bunch of times!

I listened to the audiobook of The Eyes & the Impossible by Dave Eggers, which was the 2024 Newbery Medal Winner, and also an Audie Award finalist for Best Fiction Narrator in 2024.

I still plan to read The Fault in Our Stars later this month.

I have finished Howl’s Moving Castle which won the Boston Globe Horn Book Award in 1986.

>10 MissWatson: One of my favorites!

For this CAT, I just finished The Witch of Blackbird Pond by Elizabeth George Speare, which won the Newbery Medal in 1959. It was one of my favorite books as a tween, and I think it really holds up well!

Also, today (Sunday, November 10) is the last day for voting on the 2025 CATs, so if you haven't voted yet, you can do so here: https://www.librarything.com/topic/365087. See message #73 and following. Again, cross-posting in many places, so sorry if you see this message multiple times.

I guess, technically this award is not specific to children's or YA, but the book is a YA book. It does look like it won other awards (some YA), in addition, but the cover says it got the Stonewall Award

The 57 Bus / Dashka Slater
4 stars

True story. Agender teenager Sasha was on a bus in Oakland California in Fall 2013 and fell asleep. When they woke up, they were on fire. Another teenager on the bus, Richard, saw a “boy” in a skirt and decided to light his lighter to the skirt, thinking it would just peter out, but it didn’t. Sasha had terrible burns to their legs. The author looks at both their lives leading up to the incident, and their lives during the aftermath.

The author set up the background of both Sasha and Richard – that is, their lives up to that point. Richard was a black boy, poor and though, ultimately, a good person, he hung around with a bad crowd. Next came the ride on the bus that resulted in Sasha’s being burned and Richard charged as an adult because it was a violent crime (although Sasha and their parents would have preferred he be tried as a juvenile).

There is a lot for people to learn in this book, particularly about Sasha and how they felt in their skin, initially as a boy, but then coming out as agender with their friends and parents. Sasha had been accepted and supported and didn’t have bad experiences due to their agender-ness, up until the incident on the bus. I had a (much) harder time feeling badly for Richard, despite studies about how teenagers’ brains are wired and although they know right from wrong, they can still be compelled to do things they know are wrong and do feel badly for afterward. I still had (have) a hard time getting past what Richard did, while knowing it was wrong. The book is aimed toward a YA audience, but I think there is so much in this book (particularly about gender) that adults can (and maybe should) learn, too. It’s an eye-opening book, for sure, and well worth reading.

I re-read a perennial favorite of mine, Make Way for Ducklings by Robert McCloskey. (Caldecott Award 1942)

I read The One and Only Ivan by Katherine Applegate which won the Newberry and numerous other awards. This was such a good book.

I finished October, October by Katya Balen, illustrated by Angela Harding. It won the Yoto Carnegie Medal in 2022. I loved it - all about being/staying wild, being displaced, reconciliation, crafting stories, family. A brilliant book.

I read The Graveyard Book by Neil Gaiman, the only book to win both the Newbery (US) and Carnegie (UK) medals.

I have read Bracelet of Bones which was nominated for the Yoto Carnegie Medal.

I reread one of my favorite children's books, Caddie Woodlawn, by Carol Ryrie Brink which won the 1936 Newbery medal.

I read The Secret Countess by Eva Ibbotson a YA historical romance which was a finalist for the Nestlé Smarties Book Prize.

I just finished The Fault in Our Stars by John Green. It’s won tons of prizes, among them the 3 Apples Book Award in 2017, BCCB Blue Ribbon Book in 2012, and Kids' Book Choice Awards in 2013.

COMPLETED Mariam Sharma Hits The Road by Sheba Karim, winner of the 2019 Best Children's Book of the Year.

I read Blood Fever by Charlie Higson.
The young James Bond delivers as much excitement as the grown-up version. A worthy winner of the Blue Peter Book Award: Book I Couldn’t Put Down - 2006.