Penguin Snags Newbery, Caldecott Medals

Richard Peck, author of A Year Down Yonder, and David Small, illustrator of So You Want to Be President?, are the winners of the 2001 John Newbery and Randolph Caldecott Medals. A Year Down Yonder (Dial) is Peck's sequel to A Long Way to Chicago, for which he received the Newbery Honor in 1999. The book was edited by Laurie Hornik.

Four Newbery Honor books were announced as well: Hope Was Here by Joan Bauer (Putnam), The Wanderer by Sharon Creech (HarperCollins/Cotler), Because of Winn-Dixie by Kate DiCamillo (Candlewick) and J y Pigza Loses Control by Jack Gantos (FSG).

The Caldecott winner, So You Want to Be President? (Philomel), was written by Judith St. George and edited by Patricia Lee Gauch. Small previously won a 1998 Caldecott Honor for The Gardener.

The Newbery and Caldecott winners were both published by divisions of Penguin Putnam. A Year Down Yonder currently has 37,000 copies in print, and is going back to press for a tentative 90,000 additional copies. So You Want to Be President? has 46,000 copies in print, after five printings; another 120,000 copies have tentatively been ordered.

Three Caldecott Honor books were named: Casey at the Bat, illustrated by Christopher Bing, written by Ernest Lawrence Thayer (Handprint Books); Click, Clack, Moo: Cows That Type, illustrated by Betsy Lewin, written by Doreen Cronin (S&S); and Olivia by Ian Falconer (Atheneum/Schwartz).

The second annual Michael L. Printz Award, for excellence in literature for young adults, went to David Almond for Kit's Wilderness (Delacorte). There were four Printz Honor books this year: Many Stones by Carolyn Coman (Front Street); The Body of Christopher Creed by Carol Plum-Ucci (Harcourt); Angus, Thongs and Full-Frontal Snogging by Louise Rennison (HarperCollins); and Stuck in Neutral by Terry Trueman (HarperCollins).

Given out for the first time this year was the Robert F. Sibert Award, for the most distinguished informational book for children, established in honor of the longtime president of Bound to Stay Bound Books. The first winner was Marc Aronson, for Sir Walter Ralegh and the Quest for El Dorado (Clarion).

Jacqueline Woodson won the 2001 Coretta Scott King Author Award for Miracle Boys (Putnam), and Bryan Collier won the King Illustrator Award for Uptown (Holt). One King Author Honor Book was announced: Let It Shine! Stories of Black Women Freedom Fighters by Andrea Davis Pinkney, illustrated by Stephen Alcorn (Harcourt/Gulliver).

Other awards include: the Mildred L. Batchelder Award for best translated work, to Scholastic/Levine for Samir and Yonatan by Daniella Carmi, translated by Yael Lotan; the Margaret A. Edwards Award for lifetime contribution in writing for young adults, to Robert Lipsyte; the May Hill Arbuthnot Honor Lecture Award, to Philip Pullman, author of the His Dark Materials trilogy; and the Laura Ingalls Wilder Award, for the author or illustrator whose books have made a substantial and lasting contribution to literature, to Milton Meltzer.