Showing posts with label awards. Show all posts
Showing posts with label awards. Show all posts

Sunday, September 20, 2009

Roald Dahl 2009 Shortlist



As this might be my favorite award ever and it's in its second year, I wanted to make sure and bring to your attention the Roald Dahl Funny Prize 2009 Shortlist. The purposes of this award are to

> promote laughter and humour as a feel-good factor when reading, by encouraging families to read together and discover the pleasure of humorous (funny) books. This in turn will reinforce the message that reading together promotes family well-being.

> draw attention to funny books as readable and enjoyable books. We hope that the prize will enable these books to gain a profile that makes them more accessible to children and young people. The prize will work to achieve this through a range of activities supported by libraries, teachers and parents.

> reward and encourage authors (and illustrators) who write and illustrate books using humour in their stories, poetry and fiction. By creating these awards we hope to promote a vibrant area of publishing often overlooked by other awards.

The shortlists are for "funniest book for children aged six and under" and "funniest book for children aged seven to fourteen".

Go take a look at the lists and find your child or grandchild (or secretly yourself) a new and very funny kid book! I like shortlists because there's more chance to find the right book for you or your family.

And don't forget that you still have a week and a half left to celebrate! September is Roald Dahl Month. Head to the website for activity sheets and more to celebrate the gift of humor that Dahl gave to all of the world's young readers.

Looking for a good childish laugh,
K

Sunday, March 29, 2009

We Be Awarded

While I was away last week, WeBeReading received a blog award from Elizabeth at As Usual, I Need More Bookshelves ...



"This blog invests and believes in the PROXIMITY-nearness in space, time and relationships. These blogs are exceedingly charming. These kind bloggers aim to find and be friends. They are not interested in prizes or self-aggrandizement! Our hope is that when the ribbons of these prizes are cut, even more friendships are propagated. Please give more attention to these writers! Deliver this award to eight bloggers who must choose eight more and include this clever-written text into the body of their award."

Eight bloggers that I admire that you should be checking out (not including Elizabeth even though she is awesome!) are
Eva at A Striped Armchair
Danielle at A Work in Progress
Tanabata at In Spring it is the Dawn
Jenners at Find Your Next Book Here
Robin at A Fondness for Reading
Teresa & Jenny at Shelf Love
Booklogged at A Reader's Journal
Juxtabook


All of these bloggers are friendly and interesting and would love to have you visit!

Giving credit,
K

Thursday, January 29, 2009

"There was a hand in the darkness, and it held a knife."

Let me add to the community chorus my congratulations to Neil Gaiman and The Graveyard Book for winning this year's Newbery Medal -- the premier American children's fiction award. When I read the news the other day, I finished up the book I was reading and picked up this one. I had waited long enough and I needed to read it.

This is a coming of age story that just happens to have an unconventional setting -- a graveyard. Life is not always happy for young Bod Owens (short for Nobody) but the point is that he should still be glad that it is life. Though he is raised by adoptive ghost parents, taught by a werewolf and his guardian is a vampire, he must discover and embrace his humanity. Obviously, from the first sentence forward, this book trusts children with topics that are often hidden from them -- fear, loss and death. Gaiman does a fantastic job in his gentle presentation of these "scary" subjects without losing any of the bite of the narrative. This is a unique tale in that it's not essentially a happy story or a sad story, it's just a story -- a damn fine story.

Working through the ups and the bumps,
K


Buy The Graveyard Book on Amazon or find it at your local library.

Monday, September 8, 2008

A Fantastic New Children's Book Award

Kelly at Big A little a linked to an article in the Telegraph about a new children's book award -- the Roald Dahl Funny Prize. On the panel of judges are Roald Dahl's granddaughter, some children's authors and, most importantly, a comedian! The purpose of the award is to recognize those books that typically get overlooked when prizes go to books with what are considered "more serious" topics.

I think the best line from the article is "humour is one of the best ways to make children into readers." This is absolutely true. I remember cracking up as a kid when the BFG started farting but I can be sure that most adults would not have considered The BFG an award winning book. In fact, this article says that Roald Dahl never won an award that was decided by adults. Nothing could be more tragic for the king of children's humor.

Appreciating the funny,
K and Z

Wednesday, September 3, 2008

Nobel Prize for Literature Recipients

I have never given much thought to the Nobel Prize for Literature. For example, I hadn't really thought about the fact that it is given to an author -- rather than to a specific book. It is a very powerful prize in its ability to acknowledge an entire body of work. This year's prize will be awarded in October. Here is a list of the previous 104 recipients of this award. There are many whose names I have never heard which means I have a lot of research to do. If you follow the link to the list, there are biographies and bibliographies. It's never too late to be well-read!

Bold are authors I have read:

2007 - Doris Lessing
2006 - Orhan Pamuk
2005 - Harold Pinter
2004 - Elfriede Jelinek
2003 - J. M. Coetzee
2002 - Imre Kertész
2001 - V. S. Naipaul
2000 - Gao Xingjian
1999 - Günter Grass
1998 - José Saramago (on my nightstand)
1997 - Dario Fo
1996 - Wislawa Szymborska
1995 - Seamus Heaney
1994 - Kenzaburo Oe
1993 - Toni Morrison
1992 - Derek Walcott
1991 - Nadine Gordimer
1990 - Octavio Paz
1989 - Camilo José Cela
1988 - Naguib Mahfouz
1987 - Joseph Brodsky
1986 - Wole Soyinka
1985 - Claude Simon
1984 - Jaroslav Seifert
1983 - William Golding
1982 - Gabriel García Márquez
1981 - Elias Canetti
1980 - Czeslaw Milosz
1979 - Odysseus Elytis
1978 - Isaac Bashevis Singer
1977 - Vicente Aleixandre
1976 - Saul Bellow
1975 - Eugenio Montale
1974 - Eyvind Johnson, Harry Martinson
1973 - Patrick White
1972 - Heinrich Böll
1971 - Pablo Neruda
1970 - Alexandr Solzhenitsyn
1969 - Samuel Beckett
1968 - Yasunari Kawabata
1967 - Miguel Angel Asturias
1966 - Shmuel Agnon, Nelly Sachs
1965 - Mikhail Sholokhov
1964 - Jean-Paul Sartre
1963 - Giorgos Seferis
1962 - John Steinbeck
1961 - Ivo Andric
1960 - Saint-John Perse
1959 - Salvatore Quasimodo
1958 - Boris Pasternak (also on my nightstand)
1957 - Albert Camus
1956 - Juan Ramón Jiménez
1955 - Halldór Laxness
1954 - Ernest Hemingway
1953 - Winston Churchill
1952 - François Mauriac
1951 - Pär Lagerkvist
1950 - Bertrand Russell
1949 - William Faulkner
1948 - T.S. Eliot
1947 - André Gide
1946 - Hermann Hesse
1945 - Gabriela Mistral
1944 - Johannes V. Jensen
1939 - Frans Eemil Sillanpää
1938 - Pearl Buck
1937 - Roger Martin du Gard
1936 - Eugene O'Neill
1934 - Luigi Pirandello
1933 - Ivan Bunin
1932 - John Galsworthy
1931 - Erik Axel Karlfeldt
1930 - Sinclair Lewis
1929 - Thomas Mann
1928 - Sigrid Undset
1927 - Henri Bergson
1926 - Grazia Deledda
1925 - George Bernard Shaw
1924 - Wladyslaw Reymont
1923 - William Butler Yeats
1922 - Jacinto Benavente
1921 - Anatole France
1920 - Knut Hamsun
1919 - Carl Spitteler
1917 - Karl Gjellerup, Henrik Pontoppidan
1916 - Verner von Heidenstam
1915 - Romain Rolland
1913 - Rabindranath Tagore
1912 - Gerhart Hauptmann
1911 - Maurice Maeterlinck
1910 - Paul Heyse
1909 - Selma Lagerlöf
1908 - Rudolf Eucken
1907 - Rudyard Kipling
1906 - Giosuè Carducci
1905 - Henryk Sienkiewicz
1904 - Frédéric Mistral, José Echegaray
1903 - Bjørnstjerne Bjørnson
1902 - Theodor Mommsen
1901 - Sully Prudhomme

Expanding my world view,
K