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IBBY Names David Almond and Jutta Bauer 2010 Hans Christian Andersen Award Winners

Bologna, Italy...The Hans Christian Andersen Award Jury of the International Board on Books for Young People (IBBY), has announced that David Almond, from the United Kingdom is the winner of the 2010 Hans Christian Andersen Author Award and that Jutta Bauer, from Germany is the winner of the 2010 Hans Christian Andersen Illustrator Award. The announcement was made at the Bologna International Children's Book Fair, and the Andersen medals and diplomas will be presented to the winners on Saturday, 11 September 2010 at the international IBBY congress in Santiago de Compostela, Spain.

The Hans Christian Andersen Award is the highest international recognition given to an author and an illustrator of children's books. In awarding the 2010 Hans Christian Andersen Medal for writing to David Almond, the jury has recognized the unique voice of a creator of magic realism for children. Almond captures his young readers' imagination and motivates them to read, think and be critical. His use of language is sophisticated and reaches across the ages.

The 2010 Hans Christian Andersen Medal for illustration recognizes Jutta Bauer as a powerful narrator who blends real life with legend through her pictures. The jury admired her philosophical approach, originality, creativity as well as her ability to communicate with young readers.

David Almond was selected from 28 authors for the award. The four finalists were: Ahmad Reza Ahmadi from Iran, Bartolomeu Campos de Queiros from Brazil, Lennart Hellsing from Sweden and Louis Jensen from Denmark.

Jutta Bauer was selected from 27 illustrators nominated. The four finalists were Carll Cneut from Belgium, Etienne Delessert from Switzerland, Svjetlan Junakovic from Croatia and Roger Mello from Brazil. The full list of candidates can be read at www.ibby.org.

The ten members of the 2010 Jury, led by Jury President Zohreh Ghaeni from Iran, met in Basel, Switzerland on 13 and 14 March 2010. The Jury of children's literature experts comprised Ernest Bond (USA), Karen Coeman (Mexico), Nadia El Kholy (Egypt), María Jesús Gil (Spain), Jan Hansson (Sweden), Annemie Leysen (Belgium), Darja Mazi-Leskovar (Slovenia), Alicia Salvi (Argentina), Helene Schär (Switzerland) and Regina Zilberman (Brazil). Elda Nogueira from Brazil representing IBBY and Liz Page as Jury Secretary attended the meeting ex officio.

The Hans Christian Andersen Award is considered the most prestigious in international children's literature, is given biennially by IBBY to a living author and illustrator whose complete works are judged to have made lasting contributions to children's literature. Her Majesty Queen Margrethe II of Denmark is the Patron of the Andersen Awards. The Author's Award has been given since 1956 and the Illustrator's Award since 1966. Nami Island Inc. is the sponsor of the Hans Christian Andersen Awards. Information, including a history of the awards is available at www.ibby.org.

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Vale Patricia Wrightson

Pioneer of Australian idiom for kids dies
From: The Australian, March 25, 2010 12:00AM

PATRICIA Wrightson, who died this week aged 88, was one of the first children's writers to use Australian places and idioms in her novels.

Born in the northern NSW town of Lismore, Wrightson's first books were published in the 1950s, and she continued writing until ill health forced her retirement in the late 1990s.
The Rocks of Honey (1960) and The Nargun and the Stars (1973) were two of her four books to be awarded the Children's Book Council Book of the Year. She was also awarded the Hans Christian Andersen Medal.
In 1999, the NSW Premier's literary awards honoured Ms Wrightson by naming their children's literary prize after her. Minister for the Arts, Virginia Judge, yesterday acclaimed Ms Wrightson as an "Australian literary great".

http://www.theaustralian.com.au/news/arts/pioneer-of-australian-idiom-for-kids-dies/story-e6frg8nf-1225844972765

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Brilliant, heart-wrenching – The Piper’s Son by Melina Marchetta

The Piper's Son


Melina Marchetta

Melina Marchetta's brilliant, heart-wrenching new novel takes up the story of the group of friends from her best-selling, much-loved book Saving Francesca - only this time it's five years later and Thomas Mackee is the one who needs saving.

Watch a video of the author Melina Marchetta

Read an extract

Buy the book

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If only he could unlock the dark secrets buried within his mind. Maze Runner by James Dashner

The
Maze Runner


James Dashner

When Thomas wakes up in the lift, the only thing he can
remember is his first name.

Watch the book trailer video

play the game

Read an excerpt

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After 80 years he’s back – Winnie the Pooh in Return to the Hundred Acre Wood

Return to the Hundred Acre Wood

(Winnie-The-Pooh Collection)

~ David Benedictus

Illustrated by Mark Burgess

This is a companion volume that truly captures the style of A. A. Milne-a worthy sequel to The House at Pooh Corner and Winnie-the-Pooh.

Return to The Hundred Acre Wood: writing the Winnie-the-Pooh sequel  Would AA Milne approve of his successor? David Benedictus recounts his long journey towards the Hundred Acre Wood.

Watch the videos about the book and Jim Dale as he reads from the book

Read an extract from the book

...  Buy the Book

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John Newberry Medal winner announced!

The 2010 Newbery Medal winner is When You Reach Me by Rebecca Stead, published by Wendy Lamb Books, an imprint of Random House Children's Books.

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Fantastic Mr Fox – fiction activities, the trailer, the book


Fantastic Mr. Fox

~ Roald  Dahl

Illustrated by  Quentin Blake



Format: Paperback 96 pages



ISBN-13: 978-0142410349

Released:   August 16 2007

Publisher: Puffin

Ages: 9-12

Themes: animals

Price: $7.50





In the tradition of The Adventures of Peter Rabbit, this is a "garden tale" of farmer versus vermin, or vice versa. The farmers in this case are a vaguely criminal team of three stooges: "Boggis and Bunce and Bean / One fat, one short, one lean. / These horrible crooks / So different in looks / Were nonetheless equally mean." Whatever their prowess as poultry farmers, within these pages their sole objective is the extermination of our hero--the noble, the clever, the Fantastic Mr. Fox.

Our loyalties are defined from the start; after all, how could you cheer for a man named Bunce who eats his doughnuts stuffed with mashed goose livers? As one might expect, the farmers in this story come out smelling like ... well, what farmers occasionally do smell like.

This early Roald Dahl adventure is great for reading aloud to three- to seven-year-olds, who will be delighted to hear that Mr. Fox keeps his family one step ahead of the obsessed farmers.

When they try to dig him out, he digs faster; when they lay siege to his den, he tunnels to where the farmers least expect him--their own larders! In the end, Mr. Fox not only survives, but also helps the whole community of burrowing creatures live happily ever after. With his usual flourish, Dahl evokes a magical animal world that, as children, we always knew existed, had we only known where or how to look for it.

Play the Whackbat game

Watch the movie trailer

Fiction Activities
Vocabulary List for Fantastic Mr. Fox

Lesson Plans for Fantastic Mr.Fox

Fantastic Mr. Fox A matching game to reinforce characters in
this popular Roald Dahl novel. http://www.quia.com/custom/2198main.html

Reading Quiz  http://www.puiching.edu.hk/~pc-ckc/fox.htm

Novel Study  http://www.tlt.ab.ca/projects/Div1/Grade3/fantasticfox/foxy.html

Vocabulary PowerPoint   FantasticMr. Fox

EThemes  http://www.emints.org/ethemes/resources/S00000553.shtml

Rainbow Journey Two  http://www.e-magine.education.tas.gov.au/n-touch/surftherainbow/projecttwo/fox.htm

Lesson Plans http://www.mce.k12tn.net/reading48/lesson_plans_for_fantastic_mr.htm

Vocabulary Exercises Activity1 http://www.shorncliss.qld.edu.au/000884.asp
&  Activity 2 http://www.shorncliss.qld.edu.au/000885.asp

Fantastic Mr. Fox NovelStudy  http://www.tlt.ab.ca/projects/Div1/Grade3/fantasticfox/foxy.html

Novel Study http://www.lgsd.k12.nf.ca/imc/PrimaryNovels.asp

Buy the book - amazon
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A new Don Quixote? Going Bovine – for teens

Going Bovine (Hardcover)
~ Libba Bray (Author)
In this ambitious novel, Cameron, a 16-year-old slacker whose somewhat dysfunctional family has just about given up on him, as perhaps he himself has, when his diagnosis of Creutzfeldt-Jacob, "mad cow" disease, reunites them, if too late. The heart of the story, though, is a hallucinatory—or is it?—quest with many parallels to the hopeless but inspirational efforts of Don Quixote, about whom Cameron had been reading before his illness. Just like the crazy—or was he?—Spaniard, Cam is motivated to go on a journey by a sort of Dulcinea. His pink-haired, white-winged version goes by Dulcie and leads him to take up arms against the Dark Wizard and fire giants that attack him intermittently, and to find a missing Dr. X, who can both help save the world and cure him. Cameron's Sancho is a Mexican-American dwarf, game-master hypochondriac he met in the pot smokers' bathroom at school who later turns up as his hospital roommate. Bray blends in a hearty dose of satire on the road trip as Cameron leaves his Texas deathbed—or does he?—to battle evil forces with a legendary jazz horn player, to escape the evil clutches of a happiness cult, to experiment with cloistered scientists trying to solve the mysteries of the universe, and to save a yard gnome embodying a Viking god from the clutches of the materialistic, fame-obsessed MTV-culture clones who shun individual thought. It's a trip worth taking, though meandering and message-driven at times. Some teens may check out before Cameron makes it to his final destination, but many will enjoy asking themselves the questions both deep and shallow that pop up along the way.—Suzanne Gordon, Peachtree Ridge High School, Suwanee, GA END

Author Libba Bray talks about Going Bovine

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Growing up in the big city – unusual and thought-provoking

When You Reach Me (Hardcover)
~ Rebecca Stead (Author)
Sixth-grader Miranda lives in 1978 New York City with her mother, and her life compass is Madeleine L'Engle's A Wrinkle in Time. When she receives a series of enigmatic notes that claim to want to save her life, she comes to believe that they are from someone who knows the future. Miranda spends considerable time observing a raving vagrant who her mother calls the laughing man and trying to find the connection between the notes and her everyday life. Discerning readers will realize the ties between Miranda's mystery and L'Engle's plot, but will enjoy hints of fantasy and descriptions of middle school dynamics. Stead's novel is as much about character as story. Miranda's voice rings true with its faltering attempts at maturity and observation. The story builds slowly, emerging naturally from a sturdy premise. As Miranda reminisces, the time sequencing is somewhat challenging, but in an intriguing way. The setting is consistently strong. The stores and even the streets–in Miranda's neighborhood act as physical entities and impact the plot in tangible ways. This unusual, thought-provoking mystery will appeal to several types of readers.

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Bittersweet and sometimes hilarious – solace of the road

Solace of the Road

~ Siobhan Dowd

Holly’s story will leave a lasting impression on all who travel with her.

Memories of mum are the only thing that make Holly Hogan happy. She hates her foster family with their too-nice ways and their false sympathy. And she hates her life, her stupid school, and the way everyone is always on at her. Then she finds the wig, and everything changes. Wearing the long, flowing blond locks she feels transformed. She’s not Holly anymore, she’s Solace: the girl with the slinkster walk and the supersharp talk. She’s older, more confident—the kind of girl who can walk right out of her humdrum life, hitch to Ireland, and find her mum. The kind of girl who can face the
world head-on. So begins a bittersweet and sometimes hilarious journey as Solace swaggers and Holly tiptoes across England and through memory, discovering her true self and unlocking the secrets of her past.

Buy from Amazon