Kid lit awards: The Golden Kite Awards and Honors are given each year by the Society of Children’s Book Writers and Illustrators (SCBWI) in four categories to books published during the previous year that were written or illustrated by a SCBWI member. The winning titles should “exhibit excellence in writing or illustration and genuinely appeal to the interests and concerns of children.” The Five Lives of Our Cat Zook by Joanne Rocklin (Amulet/Abrams) won the fiction award, while Noah Webster & His Words by Jeri Chase Ferris (Houghton Harcourt) took the nonfiction prize. The Golden Kite for picture book text went to Mara Rockliff’s Me and Momma and Big John (Candlewick), and Lester’s Dreadful Sweaters (Kids Can) by K. G. Campbell won for picture book illustration.
There were also four Honor recipients—fiction: Code Name Verity by Elizabeth Wein (Hyperion); nonfiction: We’ve Got a Job by Cynthia Levinson (Peachtree); picture book text: A Leaf Can Be by Laura Purdie Salas; picture book illustration: Electric Ben (Dial) by Robert Byrd.
Additionally, the Sid Fleischman Award for Humor, named for the late-Newbery winner, went to Mo Willems for Goldilocks and the Three Dinosaurs (HarperCollins). A list of previous Golden Kite Award winners and honor books is also available. The Golden Kite and the Sid Fleischman Awards will be presented August 4 in Los Angeles, CA, at a luncheon during SCBWI’s 42nd Annual Conference on Writing and Illustrating for Children.
More Awards
Horror: The Horror Writers of America (HWA) have announced the Final Ballot for the 2012 Bram Stoker Award. The nominees in the young adult novel category are: Libba Bray’s The Diviners (Little, Brown), I Hunt Killers by Barry Lyga (Little, Brown), Flesh & Bone (S & S) by Jonathan Maberry; Michael McCarty’s I Kissed a Ghoul (Noble Romance), The Raven Boys (Scholastic) by Maggie Stiefvater, and Jeff Strand’s A Bad Day for Voodoo (Sourcebooks).
The Bram Stoker Award is named for the author of Dracula. Since its inception in 1987, the Award has been given for “superior achievement” for books published in the previous year. HWA’s active and lifetime members will vote on these Final Ballot titles, with voting closing on March 31. The awards will be presented during the World Horror Convention, June 13–16 in New Orleans, LA.
Going Digital
Online databases: Gale, part of Cengage Learning, and the Smithsonian Institution have announced a partnership to digitize Smithsonian assets and make them available in online databases for libraries. Cengage will have access to the archives of Smithsonian Magazine and Air and Space magazine as well as collections covering American history, science, world cultures, and more. “We’re elated to be working with the Smithsonian Institution,” said Frank Menchaca, executive vice president, research solutions for Cengage Learning. “This agreement puts us closer to our goal of becoming the largest humanities research experience for the academic library. Through our extensive distribution channels throughout the world, in classrooms as well as in libraries, we’ll put into the hands of students, teachers and researchers, a universe of materials that is structured for research in a way never before possible.”
Video Challenge
Make a difference: Students in middle and high school are urged to take part in the IWitness Video Challenge sponsored by USC Shoah Foundation–The Institute for Visual History and Education, founded by Steven Spielberg after his work on the film Schindler’s List, and “dedicated to making audiovisual interviews with survivors and other witnesses of the Holocaust and other genocides.” The IWitness Video Challenge asks students to do something positive in their community that reflects the movie’s message: that one person can make a difference.
Students can’t enter the challenge on their own—teachers must sign up groups of students or an entire class. After teachers register, kids will have to complete the “IWitness Video Challenge” activity on the IWitness website. The activity asks them to “listen to testimonies of survivors and other witnesses on IWitness, develop insight into the opportunities for change in their community, get motivated to make a difference, and build a video essay telling their story of how they made their community and our world a better place.” Students participating in the Challenge must create a one to four minute video essay using a video editing tool on the IWitness website that allows them to link their voices to those in the archive who inspired their actions.
The teacher of each participating group of students or class must select one winning video that will be entered into a regional competition. Regional winners will then be entered into a national competition. Teachers must sign up their students by June 30, and video essays must be submitted by October 31. The winning student’s video will be screened as part of the Institute’s 20th anniversary activities in Los Angeles in March 2014.
The challenge was announced in conjunction with the Schindler’s List 20th Anniversary Limited Edition Blu-ray version released March 5. The film includes the USC Shoah Foundation story with Steven Spielberg, as well as the documentary Voices from the List, featuring testimonies from Holocaust survivors.
Check Connect the Pop blogger Peter Gutierrez’s interview with Stephen D. Smith, Executive Director of the Shoah Foundation, and Dr. Kori Street, its Director of Education.
You Have to Be in It…
Win a document camera: K–12 educators in the U.S. and the District of Columbia have the chance to win one of four Epson DC-20 document cameras. All they have to do is enter the Epson Document Camera in the Classroom Contest by sharing their top five benefits of using document cameras in the classroom. Entries will be judged on creative use of document cameras, practicality of implementing the idea, and how using the camera impacts student learning. The top four entries will be selected by Epson and they will be highlighted on the Epson document camera website. Educators can submit their entries online between March 15 and May 10. Winners will be announced in June.
The DC-20 document camera is a visual presentation tool that offers a variety of features: PC-free annotation, built-in microphone to record audio with video lessons, application software, microscope adapter, image storage, split-screen function, and camera flexibility.