Chicken Spaghetti

2012 Best: Amanda Craig, NPR's "Backseat" Reads, Pop-Ups, Etc.

More lists for all you list lovers! You'll find another good list of lists at SCC English, the blog of the English department at Dublin's St. Columba's College. The SCC list o' lists is geared toward books for adults.

100 Scope Notes At this fine blog, new to School Library Journal's roster, two school librarians choose the best of the year. 

Amanda Craig. A best list from the Times' (UK) children's book critic. 

Atlantic Wire. YA/Middle-Grade Book Awards.

Booklist's Editors' Choice selections.

Horn Book Fanfare

Ireland's Gutter Bookshop list includes books for children.

Morris Award finalists. Prize honors YA books by debut authors. Winners announced in January.

MotherReader. She knows her picture books.

NPR: "The year's outstanding 'backseat' reads, for ages 9-14"

San Francisco Chronicle. Holiday gift guide for children's books and Christmas books.

Smithsonian.com's Top Books of 2012. Not a list of children's books, but plenty of good gift ideas for teens and grown-ups.

TimeOut New York Kids: Best pop-up books for pre-K and elementary-school kids

Vogue. Good list of books for adults. (My first job out of college was at Vogue. I learned a lot there!)

You'll find many more at Chicken Spaghetti's page "The Best Children's Books of 2012: A List of Lists and Awards."

2012 Best: NYC and LA Libraries, Science Books, Comics

Every day a new "best of the year" lineup appears, and our wish list grows. Recent addtions to The Best Children's Books of 2012: A List of Lists and Awards include the following:

 New York Public Library: 100 Titles for Reading and Sharing

Los Angeles Public Library:  Children's books and  teen books

New York Times Book Review: Notable Children's Books of 2012

Booklist: Top ten science & health books for youth

Good Comics for Kids' gift guide. New and older titles on this list.

Bulletin of the Center for Children's Books: Gift guide. (2010-2012 titles on list.)

Geek Mom: Gift guide of books for adults and children

The Guardian (UK)

Tablet Magazine: Best Jewish-themed books for children

YALSA [Young Adult Library Services Association] Award for Excellence in Nonfiction for Young Adults: Finalists

The Goodreads Choice Awards were announced.

Another timely arrival is Hanukkah Read Up!, a PDF file listing the best Hanukkah books, from the Association of Jewish Libraries.  

2012 Best: Science, Comics, You Name It

Recent additions to Chicken Spaghetti's Best Children's Books of 2012: A List of Lists and Awards include two favorite annual roundups, National Science Teachers Association (NSTA): Outstanding science trade books for students K-12 and Good Comics for Kids' gift guide. One newsworthy announcement today was the New York Times Book Review: Notable Children's Books of 2012.

School Library Journal begins announcing its best-of-2012 list this evening on Twitter. 

Also newly added to the Chicken Spaghetti list:

Abby the Librarian (blog): Nonfiction

Boing Boing Gift Guide (long list includes several children's books)

Columbus Dispatch

Costa Children's Book Award shortlist (UK)

Cuyahoga County Public Library. Kudos to the snappy-looking design of this guide.

Drawn Blog: "Favourite comics, art books, and more" list includes some titles for kids (Canada)

Irish Book Awards. Scroll down on the page for the children's book categories. See also the shortlists for senior and junior categories of children's books. 

Kirkus Reviews

Slate (one picture book on list; rest of books for adults) 

2012 Best: Nat'l Book Award, Outdoor Books, WaPo, and More

11.15.12

Some recent updates to The Best Children's Books of 2012: A List of Lists and Awards:

Booklist Top ten religion & spirituality books for youth

Library Journal: Young adult literature for adults

National Book Award for Young People's Literature. Scroll down on page.

National Outdoor Book Awards. A children's book category is included.

Rainbow Book List nominations. GLBTQ books for children and teens.

Washington Post

Bonus list: Three architectural books for kids, at A Weekly Dose of Architecture

Best Books Season Begins! Book Lists Galore

Let it snow! For those of us who love a good list, the last two months of the year bring a flurry of online "best of the year" roundups of books. Starting in 2008, I've been collecting the lists for children's books, including links to various newspapers, magazines, journals, and blogs, as well as different literature prizes and awards given out. I update the big list often.

Here is a link to this year's page:

The Best Children's Books of 2012: A List of Lists and Awards

Also, David Gutowski collects all the "best of" lists for books (for grown-ups and kids alike) at his blog, Largehearted Boy.

Meanwhile, speaking of snow, don't miss Kids' Science Books for Stormy Weather, at Scientific American's Budding Scientist blog.

National Book Award Finalists 2012

If you are like me and forgot to watch the announcement on the "Morning Joe" show, Publishers Weekly has the scoop. 

The nominees for the Young People's Literature prize are as follows:

William Alexander, Goblin Secrets

Carrie Arcos, Out of Reach

Patricia McCormick, Never Fall Down

Eliot Schrefer, Endangered 

Steve Sheinkin, Bomb: The Race to Build―and Steal―the World’s Most Dangerous Weapon 

2012 Australian Children's Book Awards

The blog of Boomerang Books, an Australian bookstore, brings news of the Aussie children's books of the year, announced today.

Bob Graham's A Bus Called Heaven is the picture book of the year; it's available here in the US, too. I could live in a Bob Graham book and be perfectly happy—humor and generosity abound.

The website of the Children's Book Council of Australia, sponsor of the prizes, seems to be down at the moment. When it's fixed, I will link it here.

Added later: Children's Book Council of Australia: Book of the Year 2012 Winners

2012 "Growing Good Kids" Book Awards

The Junior Master Gardener Program and the American Horticultural Society announced the winners of the "Growing Good Kids" Book Awards on July 20th. This year's blue-ribbon crop is as follows:

The Mangrove Tree: Planting Trees to Feed Families, by Susan L. Roth & Cindy Trumbore (Lee & Low)

Meadowlands: A Wetlands Survival Story, by Thomas F. Yerzerski (Farrar, Straus and Giroux)

Planting the Wild Garden, written by Kathryn O. Galbraith and illustrated by Wendy Anderson Halperin (Peachtree)

For more information about the prizes, which honor "engaging, inspiring works of plant, garden, and ecology-themed children's literature," go to the Junior Master Gardener website. Don't miss the list of classics, which includes Miss Rumphius, The Lorax, Too Many Pumpkins, among many others.

Recent Additions to the Best Book List

I've been catching up with the last few months' announcements of awards for children's books, and added some to the page "2011 Best Children's Books: A List of Lists and Awards." (The honored books were first published in 2011.)

Carnegie Medal: Shortlist and winner (UK). Similar to our Newbery award.

Children's Book Council of Australia: Short Lists and Notables.

E.B. White Read-Aloud Award

Ezra Jack Keats New Writer and New Illustrator Awards for Children's Books

Greenaway Medal: Shortlist and winner (UK). Similar to our Caldecott award.

Lee Bennett Hopkins Poetry Award

Minnesota Book Awards. These honor mostly titles for adults, but do feature one category for kids' books.

Scottish Children's Book Trust Awards: Shortlist

Storytelling World Resource Awards

Updated to add: Posted today, the Horn Book's "Mind the Gap Awards," for books that should have gotten more honors. Plus, the Amelia Elizabeth Walden Award finalists were announced by the Assembly on Literature for Adolescents (ALAN) of the National Council of Teachers of English (NCTE). 

Lots of good reading ahead!

Children's Lit Blogger Awards, Science Books

The Children's and Young Adult Bloggers' Literary Awards (the Cybils) were announced on February 14th. You'll lots of good reading in a variety of categories, from book apps to young adult fiction.

The American Association for the Advancement of Science recently announced the winners of  the AAAS/Suburu Science Books & Film Prize for Excellence in Science Books. The prize honors books for children. You'll see only the winners on the AAAS site. The list of finalists is accessible only to subscribers of Science magazine.