Bluebonnet Winner Celebration

from Texas Library Assocation

This past week, the winner of the 2012-2013 Texas Bluebonnet Award was announced. My students and I gathered in our library with our librarian (and some snacks) to hear the announcement. For us, this was a very special occasion. Since attending a couple of Youth Media Award announcements, book awards have new meaning to me, and I think that has spread to my class. Books written for children, especially good ones, have such an impact on young lives, and can do very much toward leading students to a life of reading. Authors who help students become readers should be celebrated and honored, and this is one way to do that.

As a fourth grade teacher in Texas, and as a big fan of children's books, this particular award holds such prestige. Every year, my students read the books, talk about them, and I wait anxiously for the announcement of the new master list . (Hint: my favorite book is on this one.)

According to the Texas Library Association website, suggested titles for this list must meet these requirements:

• Books must have a copyright date of 2011, 2012, or 2013.
• The book must have been published in the U.S. and written by a living U.S. citizen or a current resident.
• The book must have received a favorable review in a review tool.
• The book must have literary merit and potential appeal to young readers.
• The content of the book must be relevant to children in grades 3, 4, 5, or 6.
• Ineligible categories of materials are textbooks and new editions of existing titles.
• Portions, such as poems & short stories, may have been published previously, but the entire book must not have been.

I won't list all the nominees here, but I will share a few of the titles that left a big impression on my students (besides the winners which are listed below). (Click here to see the full 2012-2013 list.)

from goodreads.com

 

from goodreads.com

from goodreads.com

I have many memories of students in this year's and last year's classes carrying these books, reading them, and swapping them out. Such excitement these books create! It is glorious to watch.

So in the library, as we heard the runners-up and winning titles revealed, I remembered back to that time in Seattle when the winners of the Youth Media Awards were announced just a few weeks ago. I experienced the same kind of inexplicable joy at knowing that books and authors for children are getting recognized as they should. Books aren't celebrated enough, and also, they should be celebrated by more people.

The 2nd runner-up was:

from goodreads.com

The first runner-up was:

from goodreads.com

And the winner of the Texas Bluebonnet Award for 2013 is:

from goodreads.com

Postcards from Camp, written by Simms Taback, is a collection of postcards and letters between a son and his dad. We read their conversation back and forth and hear father comfort son in a humorous way about being at camp alone for the first time. Each page is a little surprise. Pay attention to all the pictures in this delightful picture book.

Celebrate a book today! Honor the author and his/her work by sharing a book with someone you care about!