Showing posts with label 2008. Show all posts
Showing posts with label 2008. Show all posts

Tuesday, June 23, 2009

STBA Convention Podcasts


Each year at the Association of Jewish Libraries convention, the Sydney Taylor Book Award Committee gets together to do a panel review of recent Jewish books for kids and teens. It takes the whole morning, and there are usually at least 100 people in attendance. It's a lively event in which committee members praise books, deconstruct books, disagree with each other, and share lots of honest opinions. The session usually includes guest appearance by recent award winners as well.

At the 2008 Association of Jewish Libraries convention in Cleveland, Ohio, we recorded the committee's presentation, as well as the talks given by Sarah Gershman & Kristina Swarner (author & illustrator of The Bedtime Sh'ma, which won a gold in the Younger Readers category) and Sonia Levitin (author of Strange Relations, which won gold for Teen Readers). These recordings (and many others) are available via the AJL Podcast at jewishlibraries.org/podcast.

Click here for the Sydney Taylor Book Award Committee's panel "Adventures in Book Reviewing"

Click here for Sarah Gershman and Kristina Swarner (The Bedtime Sh'ma)

Click here for Sonia Levitin (Strange Relations)

The 2009 AJL Convention will be held July 5-8 in Chicago, IL, and once again we will be recording sessions for podcasting.

Tuesday, August 26, 2008

We're in the Chabad News



The Chabad Lubavitch Global Network website has a great article in their news section about the 2008 Sydney Taylor Book Award winner Strange Relations by Sonia Levitin.

The piece is entitled "Award Winning Novel for Teens Based on Chabad Representatives." They've delved into Levitin's experiences as she created the novel, revealing that her own relationships with Chabad representatives in Bel Air, CA and Honolulu, HI greatly influenced her writing. Levitin herself became more Jewishly observant over time, and is in a good position to write about the Chabad lifestyle from both the insider and outsider points of view, bringing new understanding to readers. As the lubavitch.com article says:

Written for a wide-ranging audience, some passages that describe Marne’s relationship with teenage boys may be deemed be too risqué for reading in homes where value is placed on reserving intimacy for marriage. Levitin said she wrote the book for teens unfamiliar or wary of people dressed in Chasidic
garb.

“The next time they see someone in a hat and coat, and girls bundled up in the heat, instead of being disdainful they should look beyond the external, and feel that they can connect,” Levitin said.


Levitin also describes the main character, Marne, as "me in a different incarnation. I know what it is like to be confused and look for my identity and search for G-d."

Thursday, July 3, 2008

Kristina Swarner and Sarah Gershman


Here we see the lovely Kristina Swarner and Sarah Gershman, illustrator and author of The Bedtime Sh'ma, the 2008 Sydney Taylor Book Award winner in the Younger Readers Category. These charming ladies were at the Association of Jewish Libraries convention in Cleveland recently to receive their awards. They gave a wonderful presentation to a packed room, talking about the genesis of the book - Kristina even showed original artwork to the awed crowd!

The 2008 winners in the Older Readers and Teen categories were at the convention too. During the special celebration for the award's 40th anniversary, Sid Fleischman, whose Entertainer and the Dybbuk won for Older Readers, gave the luncheon keynote address and Sonia Levitin, whose Strange Relations won for teens, participated in a panel on teen fiction.

Thursday, May 15, 2008

40th Anniversary of the Sydney Taylor Book Award

A press release from the Association of Jewish Libraries:

Association of Jewish Libraries Post-Conference Brings Speakers, Authors

A Jewish Literary Milestone

Cleveland, OH - May 2008 - The Sydney Taylor Book Award, established in 1968 by the Association of Jewish Libraries (AJL), commemorates its fortieth anniversary this year. Authors, publishers, and librarians will gather to celebrate Taylor's legacy during the Association's annual convention in Cleveland, Ohio.

Named in memory of Sydney Taylor, author of the classic All-of-a-Kind Family series, the Sydney Taylor Book Award recognizes the best in Judaic literature for children and teens. Medals are awarded annually for outstanding books that authentically portray the Jewish experience.

Celebration Planned

The celebration will kick off on the evening of Tuesday, June 24 with the presentation of the 2008 Sydney Taylor Book Awards during the convention's annual banquet. Winners Sonia Levitin (Strange Relations), Sid Fleischman (The Entertainer and the Dybbuk), and Sarah Gershman and Kristina Swarner (The Bedtime Sh'ma) will be honored at the banquet. Honor Award winners will also be recognized. A full-day program on Wednesday, June 25 includes panels on the history of Jewish children's literature, teen fiction, picture books, illustrated non-fiction, trends in publishing, and a keynote address by Sid Fleischman. A book signing and dessert reception will conclude the festivities.

More Info Available

Organizer Rachel Kamin says "Sydney Taylor's All-of-a-Kind Family books changed the way American readers viewed Jewish literature. Readers of all backgrounds embraced these characters, and continue to connect with the Jewish characters in our award-winning books. It's so exciting to have reached the forty year milestone, and we look forward to another forty years of top quality Jewish literature!"

Click here for a full-color PDF listing of the 2008 Sydney Taylor Book Award winners. Additional information about the award and the celebration may be found at www.jewishlibraries.org, or contact Rachel Kamin at rachel@sydneytaylorbookaward.org.

Authors who will be at the celebration include:

Deborah DaCosta
Sid Fleischman
Evelyn Freeman
Sarah Gershman
Deborah Heiligman
Sarah Lamstein
Sonia Levitin
Carol Matas
Christos Nicola
Hara Person
Margo Rabb
Dina Rosenfeld
William Rubin
Linda Silver
Rita Soltan
Kristina Swarner
Jane Breskin Zalben

Thursday, May 8, 2008

Those Shiny Gold and Silver Stickers

At the synagogue preschool where I serve as librarian, we have a special springtime tradition. Each year, we give all graduating Pre-K children the gift of a hardcover Jewish book. The idea is to jump-start or add to their own personal Jewish home libraries with high-quality titles. We also hope the gift will encourage them to continue their Jewish involvement beyond preschool.

This year we'll be giving the children their own copies of The Bedtime Sh'ma by Sarah Gershman, the 2008 Sydney Taylor Book Award winner. We don't always choose the Sydney Taylor winner as our gift book - some years the winner isn't the right reading level for Pre-K kids. For instance, last year's Sydney Taylor winner in the Younger Readers Category was Hanukkah at Valley Forge by Stephen Krensky, too long and complex for Pre-K. Instead, we gave our kids Much, Much Better by Chaim Kosofsky, which had been a 2007 AJL Notable Book.

I ordered plenty of copies of The Bedtime Sh'ma, and when I opened the boxes I was so very, very pleased to see that the Sydney Taylor Book Award gold seals were already on the covers! Thanks, EKS Publishing! This may not sound like a big deal, but you would be surprised at how few publishers add book award seals to their books. It's a task that must be done by hand, and publishers sometimes have to pay a service to add the seals for them. I've even heard of publishers creating policies that restrict their use of seals to the best-known ALA awards (Caldecott, Newbery, etc.), just to simplify their lives and keep expenses down!


Of course, the publishing house is not the only place where books can receive the seals that are their due. The Association of Jewish Libraries sells Sydney Taylor Book Award seals so that librarians, booksellers, or other individuals can add them to the books at any time.


AJL also offers digital images of the gold and silver Sydney Taylor medals, so that publishers can simply add an image of the seal to the cover of a winner that is being reprinted. For example, here's the paperback edition of Real Time by Pnina Moed Kass, the 2005 winner in the Older Readers Category, with the seal imprinted right on it. This is an easy and cheap way to give winning books the credit they deserve!

If you need images of the gold or silver seals, here they are! Publishers, please use them on your books or your publicity materials. Anyone is welcome to use them on websites or blogs, booklists, posters, flyers... anything that helps spread the word about these terrific books! These are JPG's, but there are TIFF's available too at the AJL website.


Thanks again to EKS for taking the initiative to put medals onto their books! I can't wait to give them to the kids!

Thursday, March 13, 2008

Two Gold Medalists Speak!

Barbara Bietz, a member of the Sydney Taylor Book Award Committee, has interviewed2007 STBA medalist Brenda Ferber (Julia's Kitchen) and 2008 STBA medalist Sid Fleischman (The Entertainer and the Dybbuk) for her blog! Both authors took the gold in the Older Readers Category. A highlight from each interview:

BRENDA FERBER

Barbara: Tell me a little bit about your latest book. Why you were drawn to write about a Jewish theme or character?

Brenda: JULIA’S KITCHEN is about an 11-year-old Jewish girl finding hope and resiliency after her mom and sister die in a house fire. My initial inspiration was to write about grief, about coping in life when the worst possible thing happens. I was interested in the relationship people have with God when tragedy strikes. So often, people thank God for all their blessings in life, but does that then mean God is to blame when something awful happens? That was the question I explored in JULIA’S KITCHEN. Because I’m Jewish, it was natural for me to write about a Jewish character and to have a Jewish perspective on God’s role in our lives.

Click here to read the entire interview with Brenda!

SID FLEISCHMAN

Barbara: The concept of a dybbuk might be unfamiliar to kids. How have readers responded to this aspect of the story?

Sid: Yes, even among Jews, I have found only spotty familiarity. But they respond immediately and with fascination when the dybbuk is explained. Kids, especially, to discover there is a well-defined Jewish ghost lurking about. From mail I have received so far, kids especially are enchanted with Avrom, the dybbuk in the novel, and particularly the ending when he tricks the villain into confessing.

Click here to read the entire interview with Sid!

Wednesday, February 6, 2008

The View from Down Under


Bookawardsonline.com is project born out of Kevin Parker's passion for fine literature. It is his personal goal to publicize books that receive recognition from literary peers and that deserve to be widely read. Kevin lives in Australia, and his web site is international in scope, covering news, longlists, shortlists, winners, and reviews from around the English-speaking world.

Kevin wrote a beautiful article about the Sydney Taylor Book Awards in general and about the 2008 winners at www.bookawardsonline.com/sydneytaylor.html. He also included an extremely cool Amazon widget that displays all the books and allows you to click-and-buy.

The Sydney Taylor Book Award is included amidst such wonderful awards as the Kate Greenaway, the Golden Kite, the Cybils, the Americas, and of course those familiar ALA awards. Thanks so much to Kevin for including us!



Friday, February 1, 2008

Multimedia and the Dybbuk

The Entertainer and the Dybbuk, this year's Sydney Taylor gold medalist in the Older Readers' Category, is getting a lot of techno-attention. Have you noticed the widget at the bottom of our right-hand menu bar? HarperCollins offers a "browse inside" widget for this title!

I also found a very funky audio review of this title at Revish, the book review site. Along with the text of a very nice review by RJ McGill (blogger at 3Rs Reading Den), there's a flash player that reads the review aloud. The thing is, I think it's a robot doing the reading. The words have that unconnected, pre-recorded sound to them, and "dybbuk" is incorrectly pronounced as "DIE-bock." (For the correct pronunciation, click here and then click "Hear it.") Even funkier, the robot has an accent that sounds sort of Scottish to me. And when I clicked on the player, which is provided by ReadSpeaker, it took me to a foreign-language page of the service that, in my ignorance, I'm guessing is a Scandinavian language.

I took a look at ReadSpeaker, and found that it is an online service for speech-enabling website content. What an interesting idea!
The Mission of ReadSpeaker is to make the "miracle of the Internet" accessible for dyslexics, people with learning disabilities, low literacy level, people with English as a second language, elderly with impaired vision and others that like to listen as well as read.
I thought that was pretty cool. Almost as cool as possession by a spirit of the dead!

Friday, January 18, 2008

Chocolate Babies


Remember the chapter in All-of-a-Kind Family when Charlotte and Gertie buy penny candy and sneak it into bed to nibble at night?
When they reached the candy store, the two little girls stood before the glass cases so full of chewy and sucking delights and could not make up their minds. It was most important that they get something exactly right for tonight's fun in bed. It was hard to choose when everything looked so tempting.
That's how I felt when I joined the Sydney Taylor Book Award Committee of the Association of Jewish Libraries, which just happens to be named in memory of the author of All-of-a-Kind Family. I was like a kid in a candy store, faced with overloaded shelves of literary delights.

Like Charlotte and Gertie, who finally settle upon chocolate babies as their top choice, I enjoyed the process of discussion and selection. For most of the year, we read and review 100+ Judaic kids' and YA books on our own. Around December, the real fun begins! That's when we begin a vigorous e-mail discussion about the merits and flaws of our contenders, about kid-appeal, about age appropriateness, and about the very definition of Jewish literature. A certain title may be both loved and hated by committee members, while others inspire complete accord. We play a balancing game between championing our favorite books, being sensitive to each other's opinions, and trying to choose titles that we will all feel proud to promote to readers as authentically representing the Jewish experience.

Some of the roadblocks that we've faced time and again on this committee are:
  • the preponderance of Holocaust-related middle-grade literature and the dearth of contemporary Judaic themes for young readers
  • a tendency among writers to project backwards, giving their modern child characters grandparents like those we remember, instead of like the grandparents of today (i.e. too many immigrant or Yiddish-speaking grandparents)
  • too few Judaic books for really young children, and especially too few non-holiday picture books
Despite these patterns, we do find that Jewish publishing has been growing and expanding in exciting ways! With multiculturalism an established value, mainstream publishers are now happy to put their considerable editorial and design skills behind Judaic titles, creating top quality books in this genre. Jewish presses are emboldened to be adventurous in theme and format.

In fact, this year's Sydney Taylor Book Award winners represent a mix of these trends. The winner in the Younger Readers' Category, The Bedtime Sh'ma, was published by EKS Publishing Co., a small press that specializes in books and materials for mastering Classical Hebrew, and this lovely, meditative title is accompanied by a companion CD. The winner in the Older Readers' Category, The Entertainer and the Dybbuk published by HarperCollins, is more traditional for our award: a Holocaust-related novel by a large publisher. Yet author Sid Fleischman's creativity raises the story above the ordinary by using ghosts, possession, and revenge and mixing these themes with humor! The winner in the Teen Readers' Category, Strange Relations published by Knopf, bucks the historical fiction trend by presenting us with a contemporary story that dares to address the relations between observant and non-observant Jews. The uniqueness of each of these books shows us that, despite some stumbling blocks, Judaic youth literature is continuing to push the boundaries.

So, here's to our chocolate babies, the winners of the Sydney Taylor Book Awards! May you get more delicious every year!

Monday, January 14, 2008

Saturday, January 12, 2008

Honoree Sarah Lamstein Interviewed

Sarah Lamstein, author of the 2008 Sydney Taylor Honor Book Letter on the Wind, has been interviewed on the blog of Barbara Bietz, author, blogger, and incoming member of the Sydney Taylor Book Award Committee. Barbara asked Sarah what it was like to receive the award:

Congratulations on the Sydney Taylor Book Award! How did you hear the news?

I received a very tantalizing email from Rachel Kamin, the chair of the Sydney Taylor Award committee asking me to call her. I did and was thrilled to hear that Letter on the Wind was selected as an Honor book. I was glad I could directly hear her enthusiasm for the work of her committee and that I could convey my excitement to her. It was great!!


For the full interview, click here!

Tuesday, January 8, 2008

Blog Coverage

We've been getting some good coverage on the blogs for the news about the 2008 Sydney Taylor Book Award winners. Here's a sampling:

Little Willow

Book Buds

Becky's Book Reviews

Blog from the Windowsill

Barbara Bietz's Book Blog

Jen Robinson's Book Page

The Fortress of Solitude

BookThink

Bookshelves of Doom

Jewish Literary Review

The Jewish Literature Challenge (well, ok, that was me)

The Book of Life (that was me too)

School Library Journal's Extra Helping - not a blog, but an e-newsletter... still, how cool is that, getting an immediate write-up from SLJ?

Monday, January 7, 2008

Full List of 2008 Sydney Taylor Book Award Winners

THE 2008 SYDNEY TAYLOR BOOK AWARDS:
Winners, Honors & Notable Books


The Sydney Taylor Book Award Winner for Younger Readers:
The Bedtime Sh'ma: A Good Night Book by Sarah Gershman with illustrations by Kristina Swarner (EKS Publishing)

The Sydney Taylor Book Award Winner for Older Readers:
The Entertainer and the Dybbuk by Sid Fleischman (HarperCollins Children’s Books)

The Sydney Taylor Book Award Winner for Teen Readers:
Strange Relations by Sonia Levitin (Knopf, an imprint of Random House Children’s Books)

Sydney Taylor Honor Award Winners for Younger Readers:

  • The Castle on Hester Street by Linda Heller with illustrations by Boris Kulikov (Simon & Schuster)
  • Letter on the Wind: A Chanukah Tale by Sarah Marwil Lamstein with illustrations by Neil Waldman (Boyds Mills Press)
  • Light by Jane Breskin Zalben (Dutton Children’s Books, an imprint of Penguin Young Readers Group)

    Sydney Taylor Honor Award Winners for Older Readers:
  • The Secret of Priest’s Grotto: A Holocaust Survival Story by Peter Lane Taylor and Christos Nicola (Kar-Ben)
  • Holocaust: The Events and Their Impact on Real People by Angela Gluck Wood
    with consulting by Dan Stone (DK Publishing in association with USC Shoah Foundation Institute for Visual History and Education)

    Sydney Taylor Honor Award Winner for Teen Readers:
    Let Sleeping Dogs Lie by Mirjam Pressler, translated by Erik J. Macki (Front Street/ Boyds Mills Press)

    Notable Books for Younger Readers:
  • My Cousin Tamar Lives in Israel by Michelle Shapiro Abraham with illustrations by Ann Koffsky (URJ Press)
  • A Nickel, a Trolley, a Treasure House by Sharon Reiss Baker with illustrations by Beth Peck (Viking Children’s Books, an imprint of Penguin Young Readers Group)
  • Shuli and Me: From Slavery to Freedom by Joan Benjamin-Farren (Black Jasmine)
  • Papa Jethro by Deborah Bodin Cohen with illustrations by Jane Dippold (Kar-Ben)
  • Hanukkah Moon by Deborah da Costa with illustrations by Gosia Mosz (Kar-Ben)
  • Celebrate Passover with Matzah, Maror and Memories by Deborah Heiligman (National Geographic)
  • Celebrate Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur with Honey, Prayers and the Shofar by Deborah Heiligman (National Geographic)
  • Five Little Gefiltes by Dave Horowitz (G.P. Putnam’s Sons, an imprint of Penguin Young Readers Group)
  • Mendel’s Accordion by Heidi Smith Hyde with illustrations by Johanna Van Der Sterre (Kar-Ben)
  • Abraham’s Search for God by Jacqueline Jules with illustrations by Natascia Ugliano (Kar-Ben)
  • A Mezuzah on the Door by Amy Meltzer with illustrations by Janice Fried (Kar-Ben)
  • Ten Good Rules: A Counting Book by Susan Remick Topek with photographs by Tod Cohen (Kar-Ben)

    Notable Books for Older Readers:
  • Out of Line: Growing Up Soviet by Tina Grimberg (Tundra)
  • A Picture for Marc by Eric Kimmel with illustrations by Matthew Trueman (Random House Children’s Books)
  • Anne Frank: The Young Writer Who Told the World Her Story by Ann Kramer (National Geographic)
  • The Silver Cup by Constance Leeds (Viking Children’s Books, an imprint of Penguin Young Readers Group)
  • Passover Around the World by Tami Lehman-Wilzig with illustrations by Elizabeth Wolf (Kar-Ben)
  • The Whirlwind by Carol Matas (Orca)
  • Penina Levine is a Hard-Boiled Egg by Rebecca O'Connell with illustrations by Majella Lue Sue (Roaring Brook Press)
  • All Star Season by Tovah Yavin (Kar-Ben)

    Notable Books for Teens:
  • How to Ruin My Teenage Life by Simone Elkeles (Flux)
  • Cures for Heartbreak by Margo Rabb (Delacorte Press, an imprint of Random House Children’s Books)
  • Hidden on the Mountain: Stories of Children Sheltered from the Nazis in Le Chambon by Karen Gray Ruelle and Deborah Durland Desaix (Holiday House)
  • Homeland: The Illustrated History of the State of Israel by Marv Wolfman, Mario Ruiz and William J. Rubin (Nachshon Press)

  • The 2008 Sydney Taylor Book Awards! - Press Release

    2008 SYDNEY TAYLOR BOOK AWARDS
    ANNOUNCED BY THE ASSOCIATION OF JEWISH LIBRARIES

    (Chicago—January 7, 2008) Sarah Gershman and Kristina Swarner, author and illustrator of The Bedtime Sh’ma: A Good Night Book, Sid Fleischman, author of The Entertainer and the Dybbuk, and Sonia Levitin, author of Strange Relations, are the 2008 winners of the prestigious Sydney Taylor Book Award.

    The Sydney Taylor Book Award of the Association of Jewish Libraries honors new books for children and teens that exemplify the highest literary standards while authentically portraying the Jewish experience. The award memorializes Sydney Taylor, author of the classic All-of-a-Kind Family series. The winners will receive their awards at the Association of Jewish Libraries convention in Cleveland, Ohio this June at a special ceremony celebrating the 40th anniversary of the award.

    Gershman and Swarner will receive the 2008 gold medal in the Sydney Taylor Book Award’s Younger Readers Category for The Bedtime Sh’ma: A Good Night Book, published by EKS Publishing. With accessible language, this book helps young children understand the meaning and concepts of the Sh’ma prayers. The stunning artwork matches the mood of the text, and the words of the prayer (in Hebrew, English, and transliteration) are beautifully integrated into double spread illustrations. “The soothing and soulful voice of Rabbi Julia Adelman on the included CD will lull the listener to sleep with sweet dreams,” adds Kathy Bloomfield, a member of the Award Committee. The book is recommended for children up to grade 2.

    Fleischman will receive the 2008 gold medal in the Sydney Taylor Book Award’s Older Readers Category for The Entertainer and the Dybbuk, published by HarperCollins Children’s Books. When the spirit of a 12-year old Jewish boy, murdered by the Nazis, possesses the body of an American GI traveling through Europe as a second-rate ventriloquist, the pair is able to unmask the Nazi responsible. “Fleischman’s knowledge of ventriloquism and senses of humor and humanity craft an imaginative and haunting story, and although all the action takes place after the war, the sense of loss and tragedy echo through the book,” comments Kathe Pinchuck, incoming Chair of the Award Committee. “Wry humor adds dimension to the characters and suspense accelerates the pace.” The book is recommended for grades 6-8.

    Levitin will receive the 2008 gold medal in the Sydney Taylor Book Award’s Teen Readers Category for Strange Relations, published by Knopf, an imprint of Random House Children’s Books. Fifteen-year-old Marne decides to spend the summer with her Aunt Carole in Hawaii. But, Aunt Carole is now Aunt Chaya, married to a Chabad Rabbi with seven children. What Marne anticipates will be a relaxing summer of jogging on the beach, surfing, sun tanning, and shopping turns out to be a summer of exploration, spirituality, and growth. “Levitin skillfully writes from the perspective of a contemporary teenager and realistically deals with issues such as drinking, drugs, sexuality, and peer pressure,” notes Rachel Kamin, Chair of the Award Committee. Levitin also won the 1987 Sydney Taylor Book Award for The Return and two honor awards for The Singing Mountain (1998) and Silver Days (1989).

    Six Sydney Taylor Honor Books were named for 2008. For Younger Readers, Honor Books are: The Castle on Hester Street by Linda Heller with illustrations by Boris Kulikov (Simon & Schuster), Letter on the Wind by Sarah Lamstein with illustrations by Neil Waldman (Boyds Mills Press), and Light written and illustrated by Jane Breskin Zalben (Dutton Children’s Books, an imprint of Penguin Young Readers Group). For Older Readers, the Honor Books are: Holocaust: The Events and Their Impact on Real People by Angela Gluck Wood with consulting by Dan Stone (DK Publishing in association with USC Shoah Foundation Institute for Visual History and Education) and The Secret of Preist’s Grotto by Peter Lane Taylor and Christos Nicola (Kar-Ben). For Teen Readers, the
    Honor Book is Let Sleeping Dogs Lie by Mirjam Pressler, translated from the German by Erik J. Macki (Front Street/Boyds Mills Press). It should be noted that The Castle on Hester Street won the Sydney Taylor Book Award when it was first published in 1982 by the Jewish Publication Society, and its Honor Award this year is due to Boris Kulikov’s new illustrations.

    In addition to the medal-winners, the Award Committee designated twenty-three Notable Books of Jewish Content for 2008: eleven in the Younger Readers Category, eight in the Older Readers Category, and four for Teens. Notable titles, and more information about the Sydney Taylor Book Award, may be found online at www.SydneyTaylorBookAward.org. A special video announcement of the awards can also be accessed at www.youtube.com/SydneyTaylorAward.

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    Friday, January 4, 2008

    Award Announcements are Coming!

    On Monday, January 7, 2008, the newest batch of Sydney Taylor Book Award winners will be announced! How can you make sure you get the news?