Activity:
Explore, compare and review different websites designed for young people’s book awards.
The first book award website I explored is the Children’s Book Council of Australia (CBCA, 2022a), which is particularly designed for Australian publications. The prizes are categorised into six groups, including older readers, younger readers, early childhood, picture book, Eve Pownall Award and new illustrators (CBCA, 2022a). This classification is useful for finding relevant books based on children’s age. In addition, CBCA not only includes the publisher’s recommendation, but also shows their judges’ opinions for all the winning titles (CBCA, 2022b). Some of them contain the video from the author discussing the theme and characteristics of their books.
Another type of book award is granted by genre. Take the Best Indie Book Award (BIBA, 2022) as an example, there is a particular section designed for children’s book awards. Librarians could also find other children’s book winners under different genres or topics. This type of classification is helpful for all children’s libraries, including public libraries and school libraries. It provides additional opportunities for a book to win a prize.
Reflection:
- What do I learn?
This activity provides me many insights in relation to the book awards for children’s literature. To be honest, I have never seriously examined a book award website before. To me, a book award is commonly identified as a marketing ploy because it helps to increase a book’s publicity. It is understandable that the winner will deserve increase in reputation and obtain extra income. After exploring some book award websites, I started to think the purpose of establishing book awards for children’s literatures and its usability for information professionals. Obviously, official book award prizes can be used for acquisition procedures. Librarians could use the notable list to build up their collections. Other than CBCA and BIBA, there are many other types of awards for young people, such as religious book awards, Cybils Awards, and Young Adult Library Service Association Awards (Stewart, 2022). Similarly, the University of Melbourne library (2022) summarises a list of children’s book awards websites which are useful for selections. Each award has its own specific focus and provides instructions on stocking children’s literatures. It is recommended for professionals to examine different book award websites so as to maximise their purchasing options. The book award lists can serve as fantastic resources for libraries to find and purchase quality literatures for children.
Although children’s librarians could simply use the book award list to build up their collections, they still need to critically analyse the suitableness of each item as different user’s group may have diverse needs. For example, the library in a boy’s school may have different focuses in comparison with a girl’s school. A Christian school will purchase more books in relation to bible stories. Accordingly, librarians in Christian schools may explore the Christian book award websites for recommendations. Thus, information professionals are required to evaluate the books from the award lists with thorough consideration of their users’ needs and preferences. That is why the judges’ reviews are important resources in providing objective opinions.
- To think further
What else can information professionals do with the idea of book awards? In fact, many public libraries and school libraries are holding their own book award events to encourage reading. It is also a wonderful idea to invite young readers to be the judgers so that they can make contribution to the final decisions of the prizes. According to Williamson (2020), the book award activities not only introduce and promote new literatures to children, but also encourage them to participate in writing a review (para. 3). As a result, children need to visit the library frequently to borrow and read more books. It is an efficient way to increase their interests to read books and express their perspectives in writing. When they participate the evaluating progress as judgers, they can also practise their critical thinking and writing skills.
In conclusion, this activity inspires me to learn and explore further about the usage of the book awards for children’s services. The book award lists are very useful for providing valuable recommendations for building up children’s collection. It can also be functioned as an incentive to improve children’s reading behaviours in the library’s programs.
Reference
Best Indie Book Award. (2022). Award details. https://bestindiebookaward.com/submit/award-details/
Children’s Book Council of Australia. (2022a). About the CBCA book of the year awards. https://cbca.org.au/about-the-awards
Children’s Book Council of Australia. (2022b). Previous winners. https://cbca.org.au/previous-winners
Stewart, A. (2022). How to use book awards to find great children’s books. Brightly. https://www.readbrightly.com/use-book-awards-find-great-childrens-books/
The University of Melbourne. (2022). Children’s book awards collection – Gilblin Eunson Library.https://unimelb.libguides.com/c.php?g=402843&p=2741236
Williamson, S. (2020, October 6). Library book award: bringing books to young readers. Arts Council England.https://www.artscouncil.org.uk/blog/library-book-awards-bringing-books-young-readers