The Phoenix Award has to be one of the most inventive children’s book awards out there.  It is an award for the author of a book published originally in English that did not win a major award at the time of its original publication twenty years earlier.  So this year is the 1989/2009 award.

And the winner is Francesca Lia Block, author of Weetzie Bat.  Golly, I remember reading Weetzie Bat when it first came out.  The amazing freedom of Block’s vision and language.  Her ability to take the mundane and make it mystical.  It was the most eye-opening book I had ever read. 

One honor book was also selected:  Sylvia Cassedy, for her book Lucie Babbidge’s House.