Brian Selznick Wins Caldecott; Laura Amy Schlitz Wins Newbery

Congratulations to Brian Selznick for winning the 2008 Caldecott Medal.

It’s the first time that a novel has won the country’s top prize for illustration, and it’s also Scholastic’s first Caldecott Award.

The Caldecott Medal was named in honor of nineteenth-century English illustrator Randolph Caldecott. It is awarded annually by the Association for Library Service to Children, a division of the American Library Association, to the artist of the most distinguished American picture book for children.

The 2008 Honor books included:

Henry's Freedom Box: A True Story from the Underground Railrod by illustrated by Kadir Nelson, written by Ellen Levine (Scholastic)

First the Egg, written and illustrated by Laura Vaccaro Seeger (Roaring Brook/Neal Porter)

The Wall: Growing Up Behind the Iron Curtain, written and illustrated by Peter Sís (Farrar/Frances Foster)

Knuffle Bunny Too: A Case of Mistaken Identity, written and illustrated Mo Willems (Hyperion)

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And congratulations to Laura Amy Schlitz for winning the 2008 Newbery Medal!

The Newbery Medal was named for eighteenth-century British bookseller John Newbery. It is awarded annually by the Association for Library Service to Children, a division of the American Library Association, to the author of the most distinguished contribution to American literature for children.

The 2008 Honor books included:

Elijah of Buxton by Christopher Paul Curtis (Scholastic)

The Wednesday Wars by Gary D. Schmidt (Clarion)

Feathers by Jacqueline Woodson (Putnam)

Flotsam

You have to read David Wiesner's Flotsam! It is pure storytelling genius! It's small wonder that he won his third Caldecott Award with this book. Just awesome.

This is another wordless picture book from Wiesner. His previous winners were Tuesday and The Three Pigs.