Though it was tempting to sleep in on Monday, when I saw that it was almost 6:45 and thus time for ALA's Youth Media Awards live announcement from midwinter in Boston through a feed on the ALA website, I was up and running to the computer! How thrilling to "be there" for the announcements!

You can find the press release about the awards here:

http://www.ala.org/ala/newspresscenter/news/pressreleases2010/january2010/ymawrap2010.cfm

I am very happy about Jerry Pinkney's Caldecott Award, as I have always loved his beautiful watercolors. _Sam and the Tiger_ is one of my all-time favorites! Were some of you able to hear him at TLA - many years ago, I think? He gave a tremendous presentation. I do not often have the Newbery Award and then need to order it right away, but I am happy to say I received it a few weeks ago, and it is checked out to a student, so I will need to grab it ASAP so that I can read it.  Have you read it yet?

It has been fun to begin on the new TBA nominees. I finished _11 birthdays_ and _Umbrella summer_ this weekend and loved them both. I think _Umbrella summer_ may be received like _The truth about Georgie_, in that I liked it, but didn't think kids would, but I was pleased that they really did.

We have finished our '10 voting: 89 voters and their first choice was _Savvy_ with 13 votes and next _Alvin Ho..._ with 12 votes. As always, I will look forward to hearing the winner from each school!