First of all, I want to confess that I am not a board game person. I do occasionally get forced into playing board games with my kids so I am familiar with some of these games but it’s always a balancing act to play with them as I am asked to modulate my play: “Play hard against me, mom, but not too hard. You’re playing too easy against me.”
I think Fuse #8 Productions is one of the best children’s lit blogs around. Her predictions for Caldecott and Newbery Winners is usually dead on and I use her list to buy Christmas and birthday books for my kids because the timing of the actual awards comes in early January which is not perfect timing for the holiday season gift buying. Last year based on her list, I bought my oldest a stack from her list.
I am excited about the Newbery Awards! Amanda Struckmeyer served on the Newbery Committee that selected Neil Gaiman’s The Graveyard Book and her list, I believe, is dead on. Here’s a link to the post that has her Mock Newbery event. But more importantly, here’s her list:
Ok. So these are not really the list of Caldecott and Newbery candidates for 2011 but School Library Journal Blog’s best guess… but I have feeling that they know what they are talking about. We shall see when the awards come out next year, but I’m betting they got quite a few correct.