Book Awards and Other Booky Love

Just as I was about to cartwheel in and tell you some happy booky news, I saw that Follower #2 has climbed on board!  I am so in love with this day.  (Hello, Aunt Carol!)  You know you have an awesome family when they are willing to spend their spare time reading about the ideas you are super excited about but can't reveal yet.  (Is that interesting to anyone else besides me?)

Ok, so here is my fabulous booky news:  While the rest of the world was watching very glamorous thespians accepting their Golden Globes, I was here salivating for the American Library Association awards (oh my, that sounds so geeky.  Let's keep that between us, 'kay?).  And here they are!

The Newbery Award went to Rebecca Stead's When You Reach Me, a time traveling adventure inspired by former most fabulous Newbery winner A Wrinkle In Time.  Book reviewers are raving like lunatics over this book but apparently can't say much because it gives away the mystery.  Will be my next B&N purchase!

The Printz Award (middle school +) went to Libby Bray's Going Bovine, about a teenager suffering from Mad Cow Disease who experiences wild hallucinations (or are they?).  This one is labeled a "dark comedy".  Interesting, mmm? 

The Morris Award (debut Young Adult novel) went to L K Madigan for Flash Burnout about a boy who takes a random photo for a photography contest that turns out to be of his friend's meth-addicted mom, and the chaos that ensues when he gets involved (romantically and otherwise) in a very difficult situation.  Apparently there is a lot of the s-e-x in it, so put this one up on the high shelf. :)  It's getting a lot of praise for Madigan's ability (as an adult woman) to get inside the head of a teenage boy. 

And for those keeping score for the elementary set, the Caldecott (awarded for illustrations) went to Jerry Pinkney for The Lion and the Mouse.  Cause... seriously... it's about time he won.  I mean... look at that cover alone!

Woohoooo!  Love me some book awards.  In completely different booky cuteness, each morning Tootsie Roll and I put something that we are happy about in writing.  This morning, I had a whole lot of happy:

"Soooo many happiness...es! We had a great long weekend. Curly Jones' pink eye got better (and did not spread to the other eye or to anyone else), Tootsie Roll started practicing her jazz recital and got 5 stamps on her hand at dance class for doing steps correctly, I got to watch Tootsie Roll this weekend at field hockey practice (so much fun! She learned a lot!), we broke open the Easy Bake oven and had a tea party with Tootsie's delicious (100% made by herself) sugar cookies, we got lots of new books at Barnes & Noble (and they finally started making teacher discount cards in plastic rather than paper... and they can finally be used online.. and are now good for 2 years instead of just one... plus we happened to hit an Educator Day purely by chance, so the discount was 25% instead of just 20%! Woohoo!), got Girl Scout cookies, and I had SOOO MANY writing ideas!"

... which Tootsie Roll read, and then responded, "Mommy, you want to write a book?"  I realized that I had never really mentioned it to her as a real possibility so I said, "Yes, I would like to try."  Her reply:  "Can I illustrate it?  I love to color."  :) 

Here was her own booky happiness this morning:  I got 6 books from Barns and Nobels (sic)!!! And 2 were free!!!   (Can I tell you how much I love having a book loving babe?)

And of course, not to be left out, one of the best moments of the day was reading to Curly Jones at bedtime and having her put her finger in each hole in The Very Hungry Caterpillar and shout out "CHWOMP!" through the entire book.  :)