Don’t you wish you were at the ALA ceremony to have seen the announcement of this year’s big book awards, up close and personal?

(A gala event that the writers’ strike isn’t in conflict with — wahoo!)

Alas, most of us found out about the winners via our home computers. 
At least the coffee’s good and we can wear our slippers.

So, here’s the news:

It turns out I am not quite the soothsayer I thought I was. 

I did (drum roll, please) nail the Caldecott: 
Brian Selznick won for his long and elegant genre-buster The Invention of Hugo Cabret.

My other predictions were, well, wrong.

There were a bunch of sweet nods toward poetry, though.
I have to admit I didn’t forsee that trend but hallelujah!

For example:

Good Masters! Sweet Ladies! Voices from a Medieval Village took the Newbery Medal. 

(Linda Urban told me she thought Wednesday Wars or Elijah of Buxton would win and she was right on — they both were given honors.)

Your Own, Sylvia: A Verse Portrait of Sylvia Plath was given a Printz honor.

I don’t know about you, but I need to get to the library and start snagging the award winners I haven’t yet read.
I’m off….