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John Newbery Medal
The John Newbery Medal is awarded each year to the author of the most outstanding chidren's book.

Holes (Newbery Medal Book, 1999) by Louis Sachar -
(winner 1998 National Book Award:Young People's Literature
)
If you take a bad boy and make him dig a hole every day in the hot sun, it will turn him into a good boy." Such is the reigning philosophy at Camp Green Lake, a juvenile detention facility where there is no lake, and there are no happy campers. In place of what used to be "the largest lake in Texas" is now a dry, flat, sunburned wasteland, pocked with countless identical holes dug by boys improving their character. Stanley Yelnats, of palindromic name and ill-fated pedigree, has landed at Camp Green Lake because it seemed a better option than jail. No matter that his conviction was all a case of mistaken identity, the Yelnats family has become accustomed to a long history of bad luck, thanks to their "no-good-dirty-rotten-pig-stealing-great-great-grandfather!" Despite his innocence, Stanley is quickly enmeshed in the Camp Green Lake routine: rising before dawn to dig a hole five feet deep and five feet in diameter; learning how to get along with the Lord of the Flies-styled pack of boys in Group D; and fearing the warden, who paints her fingernails with rattlesnake venom. But when Stanley realizes that the boys may not just be digging to build character--that in fact the warden is seeking something specific--the plot gets as thick as the irony.

A Long Way from Chicago : A Novel in Stories by Richard Peck - (finalist 1998 National Book Award:Young People's Literature)
What happens when Joey and his sister, Mary Alice -- two city slickers from Chicago -- make their annual summer visits to Grandma Dowdel's seemingly sleepy Illinois town? August 1929: They see their first corpse, and he isn't resting easy. August 1930: The Cowgill boys terrorize the town, and Grandma fights back. August 1931: Joey and Mary Alice help Grandma trespass, poach, catch the sheriff in his underwear, and feed the hungry -- all in one day. And there's more, as Joey and Mary Alice make seven summer trips to Grandma's -- each one funnier than the year before -- in self-contained chapters that readers can enjoy as short stories or take together for a rollicking good novel. In the tradition of American humorists from Mark Twain to Flannery O'Connor, popular author Richard Peck has created a memorable world filled with characters who, like Grandma herself, are larger than life and twice as entertaining.

Randolph Caldecott Medal
The Randolph Caldecott Medal is awarded each year to the illustrator of the most outstanding chidren's picture book.

Snowflake Bentley (Caldecott Medal Book) by Jacqueline Briggs Martin, Mary Azarian (Illustrator) -
Most children are captivated by snow, but how many go on to make it their lifework? This beautiful biography, winner of the 1999 Caldecott Medal, tells the true story of a Vermont farm boy who was mesmerized by snowflakes. Wilson Bentley was fascinated by the six-sided frozen phenomena, and once he acquired a microscope with a camera, his childhood preoccupation took on a more scientific leaning. Bentley spent his life taking countless exquisite photographs (many that are still used in nature photography today), examining the tiny crystals and their delicate, mathematical structures. Jacqueline Briggs Martin tells this tale with simple, graceful prose that will engage children's imaginations. Edifying and snowflake-scattered sidebars offer more information about Bentley's methods and snowflake science. The artwork of Mary Azarian, whose 19th-century hand-press illustrations decorate the charming Barn Cat, shines once again in Snowflake Bentley, with woodcuts that reveal an appreciation for detail as well as for the man who loved snow. The lovely illustrations and equally fresh text will inspire and comfort youngsters (and grownups too) who wish they could capture snowflakes all year long. (Ages 4 to 8) --Brangien Davis

Duke Ellington : The Piano Prince and His Orchestra (Caldecott Honor Book) by Andrea Davis Pinkney, J. Brian Pinkney (Illustrator), Brian Pinkney (Illustrator) -
Most children are captivated by snow, but how many go on to make it their lifework? This beautiful biography, winner of the 1999 Caldecott Medal, tells the true story of a Vermont farm boy who was mesmerized by snowflakes. Wilson Bentley was fascinated by the six-sided frozen phenomena, and once he acquired a microscope with a camera, his childhood preoccupation took on a more scientific leaning. Bentley spent his life taking countless exquisite photographs (many that are still used in nature photography today), examining the tiny crystals and their delicate, mathematical structures. Jacqueline Briggs Martin tells this tale with simple, graceful prose that will engage children's imaginations. Edifying and snowflake-scattered sidebars offer more information about Bentley's methods and snowflake science. The artwork of Mary Azarian, whose 19th-century hand-press illustrations decorate the charming Barn Cat, shines once again in Snowflake Bentley, with woodcuts that reveal an appreciation for detail as well as for the man who loved snow. The lovely illustrations and equally fresh text will inspire and comfort youngsters (and grownups too) who wish they could capture snowflakes all year long. (Ages 4 to 8) --Brangien Davis

Snow (Caldecott Honor Book) by Uri Shulevitz -
Uri Shulevitz won a Caldecott Medal for his illustrated edition of Arthur Ransome's The Fool of the World and the Flying Ship, and has won numerous other awards for illustrating his own books. Not surprising, then, that he'd create such a lovely book as Snow, a touching story about childish hope, grumpy pessimistic grownups, and the wonder of snowfall. Will the snow come? (Oh, please?) In the first scene there is none, but the second has--if you can find it--a single flake. Then there are more--but they melt. And then, finally... joy! These are unusually subtle illustrations for a children's book: so many illustrators try to out-do each other with lurid effects and excessive brightness, but many of Shulevitz's exquisite panels are close to monotone. He paints whole cityscapes in a dozen shades of gray, with small human figures who you notice (at second glance) have coats of gray-green, gray-blue, or gray-brown. The adults have tiny Edwardian parasols or handle-bar moustaches. The abstract, atmospheric, folktale effect is heightened by a pared-to-the-bone text, just a few words per page. "'It's nothing,' said man with hat. Then three snowflakes. 'It's snowing,' said boy with dog." Snow perfectly captures the transformative nature of snow and the result is magical.

No, David! (Caldecott Honor Book) by David Shannon -
When author and artist David Shannon was five years old, he wrote a semi-autobiographical story of a little kid who broke all his mother's rules. He chewed with his mouth open, jumped on the furniture, and he broke his mother's vase. As a result, all David ever heard his mother say was "No, David!"

Tibet : Through the Red Box (Caldecott Honor Book) by Peter Sis -
As a child in 1950s Czechoslovakia, Caldecott Honor-winning artist Peter Sís would listen to mysterious tales of Tibet, "the roof of the world." The narrator, oddly enough, was his father--a documentary filmmaker who had been separated from his crew, caught in a blizzard, and (according to him, anyway) nursed back to health by gentle Yetis. Young Sís learned of a beautiful land of miracles and monks beset by a hostile China; of the 14th Dalai Lama, a "Boy-God-King"; and of "a magic palace with a thousand rooms--a room for every emotion and heart's desire." Hearing these accounts--some extravagant but all moving--helped the boy recover from an accident. The stories also allowed Sís's father to relate an odyssey other adults didn't seem to want to know about in cold war Czechoslovakia. "He told me, over and over again, his magical stories of Tibet, for that is where he had been. And I believed everything he said," Sís recalls. Still, after some time he too seemed to become immune, and the stories "faded to a hazy dream."

Young Readers Selection - Browse our collection of books for young readers including Pokemon, The Wildflower Series, Harry Potter and MORE!

Pulitzer Prize2003 Pulitzer Prize Winners
The Pulitzer Prize winning fiction, general non-fiction, history, biography, poetry and more!

National Book Award

The National Book Foundation sponsors an award ceremony for the year's most outstanding books. This year's ceremony was held at the Marriott Marquis Hotel in New York City and celebrated the fiftieth anniversary of the foundation. Steve Martin was master of ceremonies and commented "I really wanted to be here tonight because I thought it would be a good way to troll for intellectuals". A record number of nominations totaling 881 was recieved. Winners receive $10,000 US cash award and a crystal sculpture.

FICTION
Waiting by Ha Jin
-
"Every summer Lin Kong returned to Goose Village to divorce his wife, Shuyu." Like a fairy tale, Ha Jin's masterful novel of love and politics begins with a formula--and like a fairy tale, Waiting uses its slight, deceptively simple framework to encompass a wide range of truths about the human heart. Lin Kong is a Chinese Army doctor trapped in an arranged marriage that embarrasses and repels him. (Shuyu has country ways, a withered face, and most humiliating of all, bound feet). Nevertheless, he's content with his tidy military life, at least until he falls in love with Manna, a nurse at his hospital. Regulations forbid Army officers to divorce without their wives' consent--until 18 years have passed, that is, after which they are free to marry again. So, year after year Lin asks his wife for his freedom, and year after year he returns from the provincial courthouse: still married, still unable to consummate his relationship with Manna. Nothing feeds love like obstacles placed in its way--right? But Jin's novel answers the question of what might have happened to Romeo and Juliet had their romance been stretched out for several decades. In the initial confusion of his chaste love affair, Lin longs for the peace and quiet of his "old rut." Then killing time becomes its own kind of rut, and in the end, he is forced to conclude that he "waited eighteen years just for the sake of waiting."

NON-FICTION
Embracing Defeat: Japan in the Wake of World War II by John W. Dower
-
Embracing Defeat tells the story of the transformation of Japan under American occupation after World War II. When Japan surrendered unconditionally to the Allied Forces in August 1945, it was exhausted; where America's Pacific combat lasted less than four years, Japan had been fighting for 15. Sixty percent of its urban area lay in ruins. The collapse of the authoritarian state enabled America's six-year occupation to set Japan in entirely new directions.

POETRY
Vice: New and Selected Poems by Ai
- You know the age-old question: Suppose you could handpick a cast of living or dead characters and have them all to dinner. Who would you ask? In this searing collection, Ai does the difficult work of choosing for us. She invites a whole host of often less-than-presentable guests, including presidents ("I have a deep affection for my wife, / but also for sweet, big-haired girls... who never complain of tired jaws"), paparazzi ("I am there for you, / a friend, not an enemy, / stalkerazzi, or a tabloid Nazi"), and prurient priests ("Lord, I crave things"). Elsewhere, Ai gives voice to Lenny Bruce, a grief-stricken Marilyn Monroe, and the spurned lover who confesses "A man could never do / as much for Imelda / as a pair of shoes." Donning the mask of our most famous (and infamous) politicians and celebrities, as well as our most vilified antiheroes, she gives new life to the dramatic monologue. And in poems "by" rapists, murderers, looters, hit men, and stalkers, she puts words in the mouths of the thoroughly muzzled. Like Whitman, she writes from the conviction that every voice--no matter how despicable or seemingly insignificant--deserves the chance to be heard. --Martha Silano

YOUNG PEOPLE'S LITERATURE
When Zachary Beaver Came to Town by Kimberly Willis Holt
-
Summer in the tiny Texas town of Antler is traditionally a time for enjoying Wylie Womack's Bahama Mama snow cones and racking up the pins at Kelly's Bowl-a-Rama, but this year it's not going well for Toby Wilson. His 13-year-old heart has been broken twice: once by his mother, who left him and his father to become a country singer in Nashville, and then again by his crush Scarlett Stalling, the town beauty who barely acknowledges Toby's existence. But when Zachary Beaver, "The World's Fattest Boy," comes to Antler as part of a traveling sideshow, Toby begins to realize that there might just be people who have it worse than him. By reaching out to Zachary in small ways--such as helping him realize his lifelong dream of being baptized--Toby is better able to put his own problems into perspective. At the baptism, Toby finally feels at peace: "Zachary smiles and I wonder if he's feeling different. Because standing here waist deep in Gossimer's Lake... I'm feeling different--light and good and maybe even holy." By summer's end, Toby's friendship with Zachary has provided him with the emotional stamina to begin dealing with his mother's decision and to gracefully accept the fact that Scarlett will forever be just beyond his reach.

 
 
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