School Library Journal has an intriguing article on the recent Newbery winners and their lack of popularity. I have to agree. I feel a certain numbness about all of them. My biggest pleasure this last year was the win of Brian Selznick for Hugo Cabret.
My greatest disappointment was that it didn’t win the Newbery. Two of my other favorites of 2007 were Elijah of Buxton and Wednesday Wars.
They both got Newbery Honors, but not the Medal. Somehow there is a disconnect where the Honor Books in recent years seem to be more popular, accessible and of the same writing standard as the winners.
Of course, this is exactly the sort of thing that created the Cybils. The Cybils take audience reaction into account alongside writing quality.
Our conversations center on how children and teens will react to the books, but they also focus on writing style, theme, characters, scope, genre, and other pieces that make exceptional books.
The Cybils are open right now for your input. Nominate your favorite books of the year. Participate by reading the blog. Be a part of a new award process that hopefully addresses some of the issues with the Newbery and forges a new path.
Waking Brain Cells 
After her schools’ Teacher of the Year announcement, my wife said something I’ve been thinking about for a while. She said, “I don’t think awards mean anything.” Really? I was flabbergasted. But then I tried to think of any that did and I couldn’t. Would Paul Newman have had any less impact had he not won an Oscar? Alfred Hitchcock never did and his movies are still popular today. We know which movies, books, teachers, etc. are good. We don’t need a gold sticker or statue to tell us.
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It is disappointing that kids do not read great books. My boys really enjoyed Elijah of Buxton when we read it for our Guys Read Book Club. I am using Hugo Cabret as a guided group reading. Maybe using them in class will increase thier popularity.
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I read the article you refer to and much of the angry, indignant responses somewhere else that I don’t recall. There were good points on both sides, though I don’t think that tne negative reactions really got the gist of what Anita Silvey was saying in Has the Newbery Lost Its Way?
I’m more inclined toward your perspective. Perhaps because I never did find a copy of last year’s winner, Good Masters! Sweet Ladies!, and by the time I got a hold of The Higher Power of Lucky, after reading it, I had the vague feeling that it was chosen for its scrotum reference more than that it was a pretty good read; that its potential for controversy and noise pushed it ahead of better choices.
Silvey’s artical is especially interesting when compared to what is going on in Sweden with the Nobel Prize for Literature. That winner is certainly going to fit within that member’s paradigm of good literature, and American writers will never fit into it.
In the same way, popularity or success may not fit into the paradigm for some particular year’s committee. Some how, in one’s mind, the great masses might be only inclined to the reading rubbish, so a popular book, appealing to a broad range of readers, may seem tainted by virture of popularity.
Or perhaps a very excellent and worth book is selected because the committee hopes that it’s blessing will make the book more widely read. Who can really say what’s on their minds.
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