awards

ALA Youth Media Awards

theycallmetater6 Comments

I just watched the presentation of the ALA Youth Media Awards. I had a pen and notebook and jotted down the titles even though I knew I would be able to get the list online as soon as it was over. Sometimes I’m very old. I focused on the books for teens, because back before I was an unemployed slacker I did a lot of work in teen literature. I was hoping I would have more to say about the winners, but I have read few on the list. Here are some highlights:

Asian/Pacific American Award for Literature. – This Light Between Us written by Andrew Fukuda

The Sydney Taylor Book Award – “Dancing at the Pity Party,” written and illustrated by Tyler Feder. The honor book for teens in this category was “They Went Left” by Monica Hesse. That is significant for me as Hesse is a columnist for the Washington Post who I read regularly.

Schneider Family Book Award – “This Is My Brain in Love,” written by I.W. Gregorio

Stonewall Book Award – “We Are Little Feminists: Families,” written by Archaa Shrivastav

Coretta Scott King Author Award – “Before the Ever After,” written by Jacqueline Woodson – I love Woodson and have had the opportunity to hear her speak in person. One of the honor books was “All the Days Past, All the Days to Come,” written by Mildred D. Taylor. This is a continuation of the story of the Logan family. I love her books. I was lucky and got an ARC of it way back last summer at a conference.

Alex Awards – This is usually y favorite award. Is is for the 10 best adult books that appeal to teen audiences. I always find some favorites from this list. I’ve read one of this year’s already.

“Black Sun,” by Rebecca Roanhorse – I read this one. It was a slow start, but I’ve loved Roanhorse’s other books so I gave it some time and ended up enjoying the story. I will read the next in the series. Other people said they were hooked from the start.

“The House in the Cerulean Sea,” by TJ Klune

“The Impossible First: From Fire to Ice – Crossing Antarctica Alone,” by Colin O’Brady

“Kent State: Four Dead in Ohio,” by Derf Backderf

“The Kids Are Gonna Ask,” by Gretchen Anthony

“The Only Good Indians,” by Stephen Graham Jones

“Plain Bad Heroines,” by emily m. danforth

“Riot Baby,” by Tochi Onyebuchi

“Solutions and Other Problems,” by Allie Brosh

“We Ride Upon Sticks: A Novel,” by Quan Barry

William C. Morris Award – “If These Wings Could Fly,” written by Kyrie McCauley. I have read one of the honor books, The Black Kids by Christina Hammonds Reed and enjoyed it.

John Newbery Medal – “When You Trap a Tiger,” written by Tae Keller. This award is hit or miss for me based on the lower age range. I usually at least look at the book, but since I no longer work at a library I will probably skip it this year.

Randolph Caldecott Medal – “We Are Water Protectors,” illustrated by Michaela Goade. This is the award for picture books. Again, if I was working I would look at it. Now, probably not.

Michael L. Printz Award – I am listing the honor books and the winner here since this is the bog award for someone like me who reads a lot of teen literature.

Honor books:

“Apple (Skin to the Core),” by Eric Gansworth – I’ve read two books by Gansworth. One I liked, one I thought was a little slow. This one appears to be a memoir in verse. We will see.

“Dragon Hoops,” created by Gene Luen Yang, color by Lark Pien – Love Yang’s work. I’ve also had a chance to meet him. Looking forward to this one.

“Every Body Looking,” by Candice Iloh – not familiar with the book or the author.

“We Are Not Free,” by Traci Chee – same as above.

Winner: “Everything Sad Is Untrue (a true story),” by Daniel Nayeri – Also not aware of this one before today.

The best thing about not knowing a lot of the books on the list is that I now have a large number of requests in at the library and will not struggle to figure out what to read next.

If you want to see the entire list you can find that here.

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Outstanding Blogger Award

theycallmetater10 Comments

Many thanks for Pepper Valentine for nominating me for the Outstanding Blogger Award here. Its nice to be recognized by other bloggers. You should go read her blog. Its a good one. So, here’s my response post.

The Rules:

1. Provide a link to the creator’s original award post.

2. Answer the questions provided.

3. Create 7 unique questions.

4. Nominate up to 10 bloggers.

5. Ensure that they are aware of their nomination.

6. Now let’s continue to support and cheer each other throughout 2021 for the Outstanding Blogger Award!

Questions by Pepper Valentine

1. Tell us your 2021 goals for your blog. My 2021 goal for my blog is to post at least 4 times a week. I would love to have content Sunday through Friday, but I’m not going to force it. I would like to increase the number of people reading.

2. How do you plan on implementing your goals for your blog in 2021? Plan more. Less writing whatever pops in my head in the morning and more writing planned, well thought out posts. Be more active in commenting on other blogs. Be better at Twitter.

3. What inspires you to write your blogs? I generally write what is in my head in the morning when I open my laptop in the morning. It has trended more toward my personal life recently. My life is pretty boring these days, so I will have to find inspiration elsewhere.

4. Why did you begin your blog? I was working alone at the jail and social media was a way for me to not feel so alone. I had done a boring work blog for a training and decided I should try to do more. At the time I started it long, long time ago I thought I might blog about library stuff but figured out pretty quick that it would probably be a mistake to write about library stuff given where I worked. I saw trouble and didn’t want any of that. I actually wrote about why I started blogging over 10 years ago here.

5. What have you learned about yourself in writing your blogs?  I have to learn patience in my writing and editing the same way I need to learn patience in my real life. People actually want to read what I have to say. I worry too much about stats.

6. What would you change about your blog? Better editing. Add more images to my posts. Be better about writing real reviews of books, TV and movies.

7. How do you feel about collaborating on your blog? I would welcome collaboration. I don’t really know how all of that works. I’m not sure why anyone would want me to write for them. I’m sure anyone could do better on my blog than me.

I am leaving the same 7 questions for my nominees because I’m lazy.

I’m going to list the blogs I read regularly. If you want to take this as a nomination and answer the questions, great. If not, I hope you at least get a couple of new readers from being on the list.

I’m sure there are many more I missed. Apologies.

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Apparently, I’m Real Neat

theycallmetater1 Comment

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I would like to thank Waking up on the Wrong Side of 50 for tagging me for the Real Neat Award. I’m going to cheat though. If you are tagged you are then supposed to tag other blogs and ask them questions. I feel like every blog I follow is so established and more widely read than mine and it would just annoy them for me to tag them for something they’ve probably already done. I may be wrong, but I’m going to err on the side of lazy. If you are a blogger and reading this and want to answer questions, just steal the ones she gave me and answer those. There. I have unofficially nominated everyone. Now to the questions.

 

  • What song motivates you ? – I don’t know that I have any one song that motivates me. I do have certain songs that I heard right at the right time. I can remember driving home one day when I was living in Cincinnati. I was not happy with my job situation and was starting to lose hope. The song Hold On by Wilson Phillips played on the radio and it made me feel better. It is now the song that always reminds me that things can get better if we can just hold on for one more day.
  • Coffee or tea?  And when do you enjoy it most? I like tea, but I am a coffee man. I like it any time I can get it. I enjoy it the most when I am drinking it. I go to Starbucks because I like my coffee like I like my women – bitter and expensive.
  • If you could have any superpower, what would it be? I used to think I would like the power of invisibility, but then I realized that I seemed to have mastered that one already and it’s really not fun being invisible. I would probably go with flying because I hate to drive.
  • Favorite movie adaptation of a book and why? The book is aways better. I’m going to be boring here and go with the Harry Potter franchise. I really enjoyed all of the movies.
  • What would you want to tell your teenage self? Cheer up. Stop worrying so much about stuff. Loosen up. Talk to people. Ask her out. Don’t waste your high school life being scared to break out of your shell.
  • What is your favorite vacation memory? This is a hard one. I’ve been fortunate to go on so many great vacations. Any time I’m able to still travel and have both of my kids with me is a favorite vacation memory. Funniest vacation memory is when my wife fell in the sea on an island off of Helsinki. It was funny once we were off the island and she was dry. Well, for her it probably took longer for it to be funny.
  • Do you have a nighttime ritual and if so, what is it? Does falling asleep while watching TV count as a ritual? If so, there it is. If not, then no.