Scholastic's Top Ten Children's Books

From USA Today, here are Scholastic's top ten children's books. I loved Frog and Toad when I was little! 

The Snowy Day

We recently bought this great classic by Ezra Jack Keats for Joseph and love it. 

I bought him the board book, and there are already little bites taken out of it. Even those are no match for him. 

Here is a nice recent article from All Things Considered about the book. 

Peter is the hero of the classic children's book by Ezra Jack Keats, The Snowy Day, which turns 50 this year. Peter has a red snowsuit, a stick just right for knocking snow off of trees, and a snowball in his pocket. And, though this is never mentioned in the text, Peter is African-American. 

"It wasn't important. It wasn't the point," Deborah Pope tells weekends on All Things Considered host Guy Raz. Pope is the executive director of the Ezra Jack Keats Foundation. 

"The point is that this is a beautiful book about a child's encounter with snow, and the wonder of it," Pope says. Peter was among the first non-caricatured African-Americans to be featured in a major children's book. But Pope says Keats — who was white — wasn't necessarily trying to make a statement about race when he created Peter. 

"He said, well, all the books he had ever illustrated, there had never been a child of color, and they're out there — they should be in the books, too," Pope says. "But was he trying to make a cause book, was he trying to make a point? No."

Sendak & Colbert

... sit down for a hilarious interview. 

Children's Books Get 21 Oscar Nominations

Read the whole thing at Publishers Weekly: 

Who woulda thunk that big, bad Hollywood needs humble children’s book publishing to bring some razzle-dazzle to the 2012 Oscars? But included in Tuesday morning’s announcement of the 84th annual Academy Award nominations were a whopping 21 nods for films based on kids’ books, demonstrating that children’s books rule in Hollywood – for this year at least.

The 2012 Caldecott Medal Winner!

A Ball for Daisy! 

Click here for more information on this year's winner and the honor books.

“Chris Raschka’s deceptively simple paintings of watercolor, gouache and ink explore universal themes of love and loss that permit thousands of possible variants,” said Caldecott Medal Committee Chair Steven L. Herb. ‘A Ball for Daisy’ holds as many unique stories as there will be young readers and re-readers.

Fisher-Price

A very interesting article from David Israel at Mental Floss! 

So we dug around and discovered that the original founders of the toy company back in 1930 consisted of, yes, businessmen Herman Fisher and Irving Price, but also a children’s book author and illustrator named Margaret Evans Price (yes, married to Irving, so there were actually two Prices), and a toy store owner named Helen Schelle. While the businessmen were instrumental in launching the company, it was actually the two women who collaborated on most of the company’s early, successful products, like Dr. Doodle, the duck push-pull toy pictured above that was based on a character from her children’s books.

The Unexpected Inspirations Behind Beloved Children's Books

From The Atlantic, "the acid trips, war wounds, and survival stories that led to your treasured childhood fantasies."

Tomie DePaola Award Winners

Here are the winners of the 2012 Tomie DePaola Award. 

I am very honored and grateful to receive this from Tomie and the SCBWI, especially so considering all of the incredible talent, skill, and hard work that clearly went into all of the submissions. 

Thank you Tomie!

Unofficial Gallery of the Tomie DePaola Award

Diandra Mae of the Houston branch of the SCBWI came up with the good idea of creating an online gallery of submissions for the Tomie DePaola illustration award. As of this posting, she has 82 of the submissions up.

Thanks Diandra! 

The winner will be announced January 9.

Tomie DePaola Award Submission

Here is my submission for the 2012 Tomie DePaola award. 

The challenge was to illustrate, in one image, the following excerpt from “Chicken Licken,” by P.C. Asbjörnsen:

So they went along and went along until they met Turkey Lurkey.
“Good morning, Goosey Loosey, Ducky Daddles, Cocky Locky, Henny Penny, and Chicken Licken,” said Turkey Lurkey, “where are you going?”
“Oh, Turkey Lurkey, the sky is falling and we are going to tell the King!”
“How do you know the sky is falling?” asked Turkey Lurkey.
“Ducky Daddles told me,” said Goosey Loosey.
“Cocky Locky told me,” said Ducky Daddles.
“Henny Penny told me,” said Cocky Locky.
“Chicken Licken told me,” said Henny Penny 
“I saw it with my own eyes, I heard it with my own ears, and a piece of it fell on my tail!” said Chicken Licken.
“Then I will go with you,” said Turkey Lurkey, “and we will tell the King!”