Teachers' Choices, 2011

Yesterday I got this nice shiny new sticker in the mail for Henry Aaron's Dream!

In case you can't read that shiny writing, Henry Aaron's Dream won a Teachers' Choices award! Thanks to the International Reading Association for this wonderful honor.

They also sent a pamphlet detailing the work of the award committee, and highlighting the winning books. The pamphlet featured this excellent logo designed by the amazing Chris Van Allsburg (same as on the sticker, but easier to see here):

I'd be thrilled to have my book honored in any way, but one thing I especially like about this is the fact that Henry Aaron's Dream won in the "Advanced Readers" category, for grades 6-8, ages 11-14. Henry Aaron's Dream is technically a picture book, but I really do think of it as a book for older readers, I'd say grades 3 and up. Nice to see that this group of educators thinks it can be used in classrooms for older students, even though it is a picture book.

Very cool to see my book featured alongside some great books by talented and accomplished authors like Laurie Halse Anderson, Russell Freedman, Gary Paulsen, and Mitali Perkins. 

Here's the list of ten books in the Advanced Readers category, from the pamphlet:

 

I put the sticker on the copy of Henry Aaron's Dream that I bring to school visits:

March/April Horn Book Magazine cover

Last spring I did a presentation at the Texas Library Association conference, as part of a panel on non-fiction books, alongside Marc Aronson, Viki Ash and Betty Carter. My presentation focused on illustrating nonfiction picture books. I was a little nervous, knowing that Marc, Viki, and Betty were all well-established experts in children's literature, and I'm still relatively new to this. But I focused on what I knew, didn't pretend to know anything I didn't know, and it went well. So well, in fact, that soon after the conference, The Horn Book Magazine asked if I would be interested in turning my presentation into an article for their magazine! (I think Marc Aronson and Betty Carter had something to do with this...)

Long story short, The UPS truck just pulled up to my house and delivered 6 copies of the March/April issue of The Horn Book Magazine, with not only my article inside it, but my illustration on the cover!

Here it is:

I still get excited when The Horn Book reviews one of my books, so to see my illustration right there on the cover is pretty incredible. I'm also extremely honored to have my article (entitled, A Reason for the Picture: Illustrating Nonfiction Picture Books) featured in this issue, alongside articles by some of the leading voices in children's literature, including Katherine Paterson, Marc Aronson, Steve Jenkins, Tanya Lee Stone, Elizabeth Partridge, Laurie Halse Anderson, Andrea Davis Pinkney, Leonard S. Marcus, Roger Sutton, Monica Edinger... the list goes on, and it's a pretty amazing list.

I'm honored to have my article and illustrations included in this issue, and looking forward to reading it!