Children's Book Council Launches New Diversity Award

From the CBC's press release:

The Children’s Book Council, the nonprofit trade association for children’s publishers in North America, has announced the launch of the CBC Diversity Outstanding Achievement Awards program. Beginning this fall, the awards will be given annually in recognition of children’s publishing professionals who have helped bring greater diversity to the creation of books for young readers and to the industry’s employment methods.

Qualifications for the award include the publishing and marketing of inclusive books; fostering diversity in hiring and mentoring practices; and contributing to initiatives that promote public awareness of the importance of diverse stories.

Read more about it here.

Thanks to Appleton Public Library's Tasha Saecker @tashrow for tweeting the link!

Submissions for Book List for Advanced Readers Wanted

The ALA-Children’s Book Council (CBC) Joint Committee is launching a new pilot bibliography to provide guidance to caregivers interested in finding titles for children who read at an advanced level. The committee is looking to library professionals, publishers, and anyone with a passion for child literacy to provide suggestions for this list, especially titles offering diverse characters and settings as well as by diverse authors and illustrators, and notable recent publications.

The list will have three sections:

•             Titles for Kindergartners/1st graders reading at a 3rd grade level

•             Titles for 2nd/3rd graders reading at a 5th grade level

•             Titles for 4th/5th graders reading at a 7th grade level

To submit title suggestions for this new book list, visit:  https://docs.google.com/forms/d/1hnHf5kS8zdxB6igkbrP1Lb3JgurQOPOJaKhvpEuHK8E/viewform

The CBC Joint Committee would greatly appreciate your thoughtful suggestions! The submission period will be open from May 16 to September 5, 2016. The committee, comprised of librarians and CBC member publisher employees, will review submissions to create a final list of titles for each category. The final list will be released in early 2017.

Please contact the CBC Director of Programming, Shaina Birkhead (shaina.birkhead@cbcbooks.org), directly with any questions.

Voting is Open - Children's Choice Book Awards

In honor of Children's Book Week coming up in May, the Children's Book Council has now opened voting for kids in their annual Children's Choice Awards. This is a great link to share with the kids at your library!

Sneak Peek at the Children's Choice Book Award Winners

One of the delights of our May Children's Book Week is a gala affair in New York awarding the "Children's Choice" Award. Kids from all over the country voted on line for their favorite books and authors.  Thanks to Jen Robinson and her Book Page we get a sneak peek at the results.  Official results and a video of the awards can be found Tuesday at the Children's Book Council website.  Thanks Jen for your intrepid girl-reporter chops!

Happy Children's Book Week

 May 7-13th is Children's Book Week, sponsored by the Children's Book Council.  Although the new spring rather than fall time frame suits publishers and bookstores more, it still is an opportunity for all folks who love kids books to raise a glass and cries of "Huzzah!"

Whether we have programs or not during this traditionally quieter time in the public library, we who are surrounded by children's books know how lucky we are to be in this field. For those of us who work with youth, I would suggest that every week is book week for us!