The BEARdecotts

The ALA/ALSC recent­ly announced their Youth Media Awards, result­ing in much excitement.

The teacher librar­i­ans at a Min­neso­ta pri­vate school with three cam­pus­es help their stu­dents look for excel­lence in children’s books by hold­ing their own award process each year. Called The BEARde­cotts, after their school mas­cot, the edu­ca­tors select books for a short list that they then share with their stu­dents over sev­er­al months, read­ing aloud, read­ing indi­vid­u­al­ly, mak­ing crit­i­cal analy­ses, and final­ly vot­ing on the most wor­thy books.

Many of the choic­es this year reflect a theme of anx­i­ety, an emo­tion that is preva­lent among young stu­dents everywhere.

The books in this year’s short list are list­ed below, in no par­tic­u­lar order.

The win­ners at the two ele­men­tary schools are:

Pota­to Pants! by Lau­rie Keller and Drawn Togeth­er by Minh Le and Dan Santat

Is this a lit­er­a­cy expe­ri­ence you’d like to repli­cate in your school?

Patchwork Bike  

Patch­work Bike
writ­ten by Max­ine Bene­ba Clark
illus­trat­ed by Van Thanh Rudd
Can­dlewick Press, 2018

 

Sea Creatures from the Sky  

Sea Crea­tures from the Sky
Writ­ten and illus­trat­ed by Ricar­do Cortés
Black Sheep, 2018

 

Shaking Things Up  

Shak­ing Things Up: 
14 Young Women Who Changed the World

writ­ten by Susan Hood
illus­trat­ed by 13 Extra­or­di­nary Women: Seli­na Alko, Sophie Black­all, Lisa Brown, Hadley Hoop­er, Emi­ly Win­field Mar­tin, Oge Mora, Julie Morstad, Sara Pala­cios, LeUyen Pham, Erin Robin­son, Isabel Rox­as, Shadra Strick­land, and Melis­sa Sweet
HarperCollins,2018

Imagine

 

Imag­ine
writ­ten by Juan Felippe Herrera
illus­trat­ed by Lau­ren Castillo
Can­dlewick Press, 2018

Read Bookol­o­gy’s rec­om­men­da­tion for this book.

Wall in the Middle of This Book  

Wall in the Mid­dle of the Book
writ­ten and illus­trat­ed by Jon Agee
Dial Books, 2018

 

Julian is a Mermaid  

Julián is a Mermaid 
writ­ten and illus­trat­ed by Jes­si­ca Love
Can­dlewick Press, 2018

 

A Big Moon Cake for Little Star

 

A Big Moon­cake for Lit­tle Star
writ­ten and illus­trat­ed by Grace Lin
Lit­tle Brown, 2018

Potato Pants!

 

Pota­to Pants!
writ­ten and illus­trat­ed by Lau­rie Keller
Hen­ry Holt, 2018

The top choice by stu­dents at one of the two ele­men­tary schools, win­ner of the 2019 Beardecott.

Me and My Fear

 

Me and My Fear
writ­ten and illus­trat­ed by Francesca Sanna
Fly­ing Eye Books, 2018

Drawn Together

 

Drawn Togeth­er
writ­ten by Minh Le
illus­trat­ed by Dan Santat
Disney/Hyperion, 2018

The top choice by stu­dents at one of the two ele­men­tary schools, win­ner of the 2019 Beardecott.

 

 

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Laura Purdie Salas
5 years ago

Love­ly choic­es! Hooray for teach­ing read­ers to eval­u­ate and appre­ci­ate pic­ture books:)