There's been a rather long discussion going on over at Read Roger about the lack of diversty in this year's Newberry list. (As already blogged at Oz and Ends, dead mother, dead father, dead mother and father, autistic brother.) At the Read Roger post the conversation in the comments has moved beyond this year's Newberry list and into the lack of nonfiction and poetry winners overall in the past several years. While there are now special awards for these categories, I think we all know that pretty much the only children's book awards that are well known in the US are the Newberrys and Caldecotts (with maybe the Coretta Scott King Award beginning to get some steam.) Walk into the nearest big box bookstore and you will be hard pressed to find display of Printz Award winners, let alone the Siberts or Zolotows. Honestly I think these other smaller awards are removing the chance for none middle-grade fiction to win the Newberry - the judges feel like other committees will recognize a nonfiction book maybe, so they don't worry about it so much, ditto poetry.
And as for the lack of diversity, well I said it before and I'll say it again - judges like the family drama.
Meanwhile...over at Fuse 8 a big old dust up has developed over the Cybils. (These are the awards that will be given for a slew of children/YA categories all from kid lit bloggers. This is their first year.) From what I can tell it started with an unknown poster named KT raising some questions about the qualifications of the Cybil judges and committees and has gotten to the point where Cybils co-founder Anne Levy is quoting James Madison and Winston Churchill to explain the Cybils process (I kid you not).
I think this is probably one of the stranger arguments I've seen in blog posts, only because one person has poked a few folks and many of them have gotten way defensive in response which has just gotten the mystery poster to keep poking. It actually has reached beyond Fuse 8 to individual blogs, all of them defending the Cybils and wondering who on earth KT is. I'm going to go out on a limb here and say we will likely never know.
I wrote about the Cybils a bit the other day and I think they are fine and really the group has done as good a job as any in getting qualified judges. (What are the qualifications for any book award other than you be a reviewer or critic or author?) Me personally, I don't see the Cybils as being helpful to a big group of books and authors though - already the lists of nominees has been largely forgotten and we are looking at short lists (of five) for several categories that will all produce one winner each. And so, in the long run, what makes the Cybils so different from the Newberrys (or Caldecotts, or Printzs, etc.) anyway?
None of that is the point of the discussion at Fuse 8 though - over there it's all about qualifications which is silly. I do think the folks at the Cybils are doing a great job organizing a new award and I imagine with time it will get better. Where I disagree, is that I don't think another award to one author/one book in a few small categories is necessarily what book readers and lovers need.
I'll tell you one thing though, it's very interesting seeing what everyone else has to say on the subject.
January 30
2007
08:19 PM
Hi Colleen:
Actually, KT identified herself over at my blog. Quite honorably, I thought.
Best,
Kelly