2012 Children's Choice Awards

This year, we're going NUTS with ideas, stuff-to-do, awards, the big spring event and everything else!  Our hope is that this is an initiative that:

• encourages kids to read for the love of reading

• hear from kids on what they think is the best book of the year

• get schools and public libraries working together to support kids and reading

New for this year:

• Here's a description of the initiative that you can use to share with your director, board or school administrators:  CCA description.docx
• We're currently working on a new website for the CCAs where we're going to have the opportunity to post videos, reviews and allow kids to vote anytime they want to after 1/1/12. 
• The big event in the spring is being moved to Children's Book Week - the week of May 6th.  The final date will be posted soon.  And we have a new location, Soldiers and Sailors in Oakland!
• The survey for all of you librarians and teachers to vote on the short list of 8 books will be coming to you on October 25th so keep your ears open to what books your kids are talking about!  
• We're asking the survey to be completed by November 11th so that the final short list of 8 titles can be shared on November 23rd.
• Kids will then have time to read from Thanksgiving through the first week of April.
• We're going to try to bring in one of the authors from the short list for the event in May.  We're also going to work on getting a set of the 8 books on the short list signed by the author and give that away at the event in May!
• A press release from the county will be coming soon too for you to share with your local news sources.
• We're asking schools and libraries to consider offering a more in-depth book club around these titles.  Something that teach kids how to evaluate books and talk to each other about their opinions.   If you are planning to run this kind of book club either at your library or with your school, please let me know!  
• Guidelines and handouts on offering that kind of book club are here:  CCA Handouts.docx
• We're working on a fun logo (using RC) too!   
• Team up with your local school librarian to promote the event! Find more information about school librarians and districts here:  CCA Participating Schools.xls

Suggestions/Best Practices for Promoting the CCA's:

• Once the final list of candidates is released in late November, dedicate some space in your children's section to display the nominees; alternately, set a schedule and create a rotating display of the nominees in order to conserve space
• sponsor a live discussion of the CCA candidates in your library in the month prior to the event (see here for one such discussion): http://blogs.kcls.org/newbery/2010/12/grass-lake-and-opsted-elementa.html)
• have kids make a video that compresses the story of a Newbery award-winning book into 90 seconds or less (see here for examples: http://jameskennedy.com/90-second-newbery/)

Here is a list of the 2012 Participating Public Libraries, librarians, affiliated school districts and their emails: 2012 CCA libraries.xlsx  

Shortlist of CCA Finalists

Heroes of Olympus, Book Two: The Son of Neptune, Rick Riordan

The Emerald Atlas, John Stephens

Wonderstruck, Brian Selznick

Diary of a Wimpy Kid: Cabin Fever, Jeff Kinney

The Penderwicks at Point Mouette, Jeanne Birdsall

Middle School, the Worst Years of My Life, James Patterson

Darth Paper Strikes Back: An Origami Yoda Book, Tom Angleberger

A Tale Dark and Grimm, Adam Gidwitz