Notes from The Max

2011 Max Warburg Fellows

The Max Warburg Courage Curriculum is proud to announce the 2011 Max Warburg Fellows.

From more than 2,500 submitted essays, our volunteer judges chose 45 students from 32 schools in Boston and the surrounding communities as this year's Fellows. These 45 students have their courage essay published in our 20th anniversary volume of The Max's signature publication, The Courage of Boston's Children.

The Max Warburg Fellows will also be honored at our annual awards luncheon today, held at Northeastern University, where the Courage Curriculum is in residence and a proud partner of the Stony Brook Initiative. Boston Mayor Thomas Menino, Courage Curriculum Founder and President Stephanie Warburg, leadership from Northeastern University and other special guest speakers will be on hand to congratulate the Fellows.

During the past 20 years, more than 700 children have been honored as Max Warburg Fellows and thousands more have discovered their own capacity for courage by participating in our programs. The Max Warburg Courage Curriculum is proud to celebrate the courage of Boston's children - past, present and future.

Book and Education News for May

A quick round-up of education and literacy related news and events for May:

• Two more weeks! There are just two more weeks until our 20th Annual Awards Luncheon on Friday May 13th. Tickets are still available for the event and can be purchased by visting the Events page on our website. Don't miss out on seeing this year's Max Warburg Fellows!
• Boston Public Schools has partnered with Swap.com for the Swap4Schools program. The program is a new and innovative way of helping schools receive the items and supplies they need. Schools are invited to create an account with a wishlist of materials for their classrooms. Swap.com then matches the school's needs with items available from community members' inventory. At a time when schools are facing increased budget cuts, this program will help deliver books, CDs, DVDs and other classroom items to the schools.
• A new study from the MA Department of Public Health found that 1 in 4 Massachusett's middle school students have been bullied. According to the Boston Globe, "the report found that students who said they had been involved in bullying, as both a perpetrator and a victim, were five times more likely to report they had been hurt physically by a family member." The study is one of the first of its kind and highlights the strong connection between school and family life. The survey was conducted in 2009 and released one year after MA lawmakers enacted a law that requires schools to adopt clear anti-bullying procedures. 
• As part of National Library Week in April, the American Library Association released the 2011 State of America's Libraries report. Among the reports findings were some sobering statistics regarding school libraries: middle and high school libraries in high-poverty areas suffered the most budget cuts last year and saw decreases in book, video and periodical holdings. The full report (which includes new information about how libraries are approaching digital content) can be viewed on the ALA website. 
• Upcoming Book Events: satirist David Sedaris will be at Harvard University's Sanders Theater in Cambridge on Saturday May 7th; Brookline Booksmith will host Kathryn Stockett, author of the best-selling novel The Help (soon to be a movie) on Wednesday, May 11th; the Diversity in YA tour (with authors Holly Black, Cindy Pon, Malinda Lo, and Francisco Stork) will come to the Cambridge Public Library on Thursday Mary 12th; and middle-grade fairy tale author Gail Carson Levine will read from her newest book at Wellesley Booksmith on Wednesday May 18th. 

April Literary Events

The date for the next Boston Book Festival is October 15, 2011 - a long time off if you're looking for a bookish way to spend your weekend. Luckily, there are a number of other literary events happening all the time. Here's a look at some of the events coming up in the next month:

• On Sunday April 10th, Trinity Church in Boston will host its Children's Book Fair. From 9am to 1pm, the fair will have crafts, storytime and, of course, books, all conveniently located in the church's book shop right in Copley Square. Best of all, it's free.
• That same weekend (April 9th and 10th), the Boston Public Library will be holding the 11th Annual National Poetry Month Festival just across the square from Trinity Church. Co-sponsored by Tapestry of Voices and Kaji Aso Studio, this event will feature several well-known poets reading their work alongside new, emerging poets (including students from Boston Latin and Boston Arts Academy). There will also be an Open Mike session on Saturday. The Poetry Festival will be held at BPL's Central Branch in Copley Square and is free of charge.
• And while you're at the Boston Public Library, you might want to find more information about its Author Talk series, which brings a diverse range of authors to the library to discuss their work and meet with fans. Diane Ackerman and Christopher McDougall are just two of the authors scheduled to visit the BPL in the coming weeks. Please see the BPL website for more information.
• If you're looking for something to entertain younger readers, consider heading to Wellesley Free Library on April 13th. John Bemelmans Marciano, grandson of iconic Madeleine creator and author Ludwig Bemelmans, will be there to read from his new book, Madeleine at the White House, which is based on an unfinished story of his grandfather's.
• And if you really can't wait until October for literary fun, the Newburyport Literary Festival will take place on Friday April 29th and Saturday April 30th. Featuring local Massachusetts authors in a variety of categories (fiction, nonfiction, poetry and children's), the event will have a full day of activities planned with something for everyone. There will also be a special dinner with the authors and silent auction. More information and tickets for the dinner can be found on the NLF's website.

Spring Literary Notes

A quick round-up of March literary news, along with a few reminders:

• Don't forget - our 20th Annual Awards Lucheon is just seven weeks away. Circle Friday May 13th on your calendar and watch our Events page for more information. You don't want to miss the chance to meet this year's Max Warburg Fellows and celebrate 20 years of courageous children. 
• Mark the date! The 3rd annual Boston Book Festival will be held on Saturday October 15, 2011 in Copley Square from 10am to 6pm. The Max will be there once again, handing out copies of The Courage of Boston's Children and answering questions about our programs. It's a great event with something for everyone! 
• Are you a child or teen (or something in between)? Do you know one? Online voting is now open for the Children's Book Week's Children's Choice Awards. As part of Children's Book Week, readers of all ages can vote for their favorite books of the year. Winners will be announced during the CBW celebrations, which will be held from May 2nd to the 8th.
• Boston Mayor Thomas Menino has proposed moving the headquarters of the Boston Public School Department to Dudley Square as part of effects to revitalize that Dorchester neighborhood.The proposed move would bring the school department employees closer to the schools and the students they serve. 
• March is Red Cross Month - to help support the Red Cross and the work it does, considering bidding on some of the items in the Writers for the Red Cross auction. Each week in March, various publishing-related packages and services are being auctioned off, with the proceeds going towards the American Red Cross. Inspiring authors can bid on critiques by editors while book fans can score bundles of books by their favorite authors. Visit the website for more information.  
• Should students be required to read 50 books each year as part of the curriculum? The British Education Secretary believes so. After a recent tour of American charter schools, Michael Gove believes Britain needs to "raise the bar" on childhood reading. While many British authors agree with Mr. Gove that reading should be a fundamental part of school, many point to the large number of library closures in England as the real problem. Other authors said that quality - and not quantity - mattered more. What do you think? 

2011 Amelia Bloomer Project List

There are many books available that encourage young readers to dream big and celebrate what makes them unique. Each year, the Amelia Bloomer Project, part of the ALA's Feminist Task Force, sets out to find and recommend the best books for young girls - and boys - from birth to age 18.

Each recommended book has significant feminist content, excellent writing and is age appropriate for a specific age group. These books celebrate and honor strong, smart girls - many of whom act courageously to break barriers, bring about change and help others - and give children of all ages (and genders) examples to look up to.

Amelia Bloomer Project's Recommended Titles are divided into three categories: young readers, middle readers and young adults. Each category is furth divided by fiction and nonfiction. The AB Project also releases a Top Ten list, featuring books that are appropriate for all ages.

The Amelia Bloomer Project is currently accepting field nominations for its 2012 list. If you have a book you would like to nominate, read through the book criteria and then fill out a form. Nominations are open until October 1, 2011.

5th Annual CYBIL Awards

On January 1st, the organizers of the Children's and Young Adult Bloggers Literary Awards (more commonly known as CYBILs) announced the finalists for the awards.

The CYBIL awards seek to reward children's and young adult authors (and illustrators) who write and create books that have both high literary merit and "kid appeal." The CYBIL organizers describe the award as "organic chicken nuggets: we're yummy and nutritious." The CYBILs strive to bring children's and YA literature bloggers together to form a community, to highlight the best reviews of children's and YA books and provide a space for book bloggers to communicate with one another.

This year, CYBILs will be awarded in 11 different categories, including (1) middle grade fantasy and science-fiction; (2) young adult fantasy and science-fiction; (3) middle grade novels; (4) young adult novels; and (5) middle grade and YA nonfiction. Among the finalists in these categories were some of the recent recipients of ALA's Youth Media Awards:

• Ninth Ward by Jewell Parker Rhodes (MG Fantasy/Sci-Fi; a Coretta Scott King Author Honor book)
• Ship Breaker by Paolo Bacigalupi (YA Fantasy/Sci-Fi; the Printz Medal winner)
• Stolen by Lucy Christopher (YA Novels; a Printz Honor book)
• The Dark Game: True Spy Stories by Paul Janeczko (MG and YA nonfiction; a YALSA Award for Excellence in Nonfiction Honor book)
• Kakapo Rescue by Sy Montgomery (MG and YA nonfiction; winner of the Robert F. Sibert Medal)

For a full list of all CYBIL finalists, please visit their website. The winners of the CYBIL awards will be announced on February 14th.

2011 Youth Media Awards

Earlier today, the American Library Association announced the winners of the 2011 Youth Media Awards.

The Newbery Medal is given to the most distinguished contribution to American literature for children. The 2011 Newbery Medal winner is Moon Over Manifest by Clare Vanderpool. This year's Newbery Honor books are: Dark Emperor and Other Poems of the Night by Joyce Sidman, Heart of a Samurai by Margi Preus, One Crazy Summer by Rita Williams-Garcia, and Turtle in Paradise by Jennifer L. Holm.

The Michael L. Printz Awards is awarded for excellence in young adult literature. Paolo Bacigalupi's Ship Breaker won the Printz Award, while the following four books are Printz Honor books: Stolen by Lucy Christopher, Please Ignore Vera Dietz by A.S. King, Revolver by Marcus Sedgwick and Nothing by Janne Teller. 

The Margaret A. Edwards Award honors an author, as well as a specific body of his or her work, for significant and lasting contribution to young adult literature. The 2011 Edwards Award was given to Sir Terry Pratchett.

The YALSA Award for Excellence in Nonfiction for Young Adults honors the best nonfiction book published for young adults during a November 1 – October 31 publishing year. Janis Joplin: Rise Up Singing by Ann Angel is the 2011 Excellence winner. Four other books were finalists for the award: They Called Themselves the K.K.K.: The Birth of an American Terrorist Group by Susan Campbell Bartoletti; Spies of Mississippi: The True Story of the Spy Network that Tried to Destroy the Civil Rights Movement by Rick Bowers; The Dark Game: True Spy Stories by Paul Janeczko; and Every Bone Tells a Story: Hominin Discoveries, Deductions, and Debates by Jill Rubalcaba and Peter Robertshaw.

The Alex Awards are given to the 10 best adult books that appeal to teen audiences:

• The Reapers Are the Angels: A Novel by Alden Bell
• The Particular Sadness of Lemon Cake by Aimee Bender
• The House of Tomorrow by Peter Bognanni
• Room: A Novel by Emma Donoghue
• The Vanishing of Katharina Linden by Helen Grant
• The Radleys by Matt Haig
• The Lock Artist by Steve Hamilton
• Girl in Translation by Jean Kwok
• Breaking Night: A Memoir of Forgiveness, Survival, and My Journey from Homeless to Harvard by Liz Murray
• The Boy Who Couldn't Sleep and Never Had To by DC Pierson

Please visit the ALA's website for a complete list of winners.

Looking Forward to 2011

2010 is winding down, but we've still got a lot to look forward to in 2011.

The new year will see our celebrations of our 20th anniversary year kick into high gear. We'll host our 20th anniversary Essay Judging in March (where our volunteer essay judges will read and choose the essays that will make up the 20th volume of The Courage of Boston's Children) followed by our 20th Anniversary Awards Luncheon in May. We'll also hold our first final project showcase for our 9th grade students in June, along with publishing a short anthology of their writings, poems, art and multi-media projects.

We're planning on more teachers' workshops and the second year of our national essay contest, in partnership with Cambium Learning Technologies, is already underway. We'll have other 20th anniversary events as well, celebrating the two decades of successful the organization has had and the multitude of supporters, teachers, students and families who have been a part of that sucess.

We certainly hope you'll join us for some of these events. Please remember to check our Events page on our website for the most up-to-date information.

Have a very happy New Year and here's to 2011!

December News from The Max

December - and cold weather - are officially here. In between holiday shopping and seasonal parties, you may have missed some of the literary-related news in recent weeks, so here's a quick overview from The Max:

• Finalists for a couple of American Library Association Youth Media Awards have been announced. YALSA (Young Adult Library Services Association, a branch of the ALA has revealed the five finalists for the Excellence in Nonfiction for Young Adults award and the William C. Morris Award, which honors a book written for teens by a previously unpublished author. The nonfiction finalists include Janis Joplin: Rise Up Singing; They Call Themselves the KKK; Spies of Mississippi; The Dark Game; and Every Bone Tells a Story. The Morris finalists are: Hush; Guardian of the Dead; Hold Me Closer, Necromancer; Crossing the Tracks; and The Freak Observer. The winner will be announced at ALA's Midwinter Meeting in January, along with the winners of the Newbery, Caldecott and Printz awards.
• Saturday December 4th was the First Annual Take Your Child to a Bookstore day. The grassroots campaign was started to encourage parents and guardians to bring their children to a bookstore and hopefully instill a lifelong love of reading. Bookstores across the country - including some in Medford and Andover, MA - particpated by scheduling family-friendly activities. Organizers hope to make this event a yearly occurance.
• A new social networking site called Figment is aimed at literary-minded teens. The project, which launched on Monday December 6th, allows teen writers and readers to post their own writing - whether it's a novel in progress, short stories, poems or more - and then give and receive feedback from the community of users. Approximately 4,000 teens registered as Figment users in the first day. 
• Scholastic, which is the largest publisher and distributor of children's books, recently released a list of the top 10 trends in children's literature for 2010. Among the popular trends are a growing young adult audience (thanks to the many adults who read YA), an increased interest in both dystopian fiction and mythology-based stories, more books in a diary or journal style and less attention on picture books.

Any big stories you think we missed? Let us know in the comments!

National Book Awards, 2010

Last night, in New York City, the National Book Foundation awarded its 2010 National Book Awards to four deserving authors. The National Book Awards are presented annually to American authors for literature published in the previous year. Along with the National Book Critics Circle Awards and the Pulitzer Prize for Literature, the NBAs are one of the three most prestigious book awards given to American authors. Some even describe the NBAs as the "Oscars of the literary world."

The 2010 NBA for Young People's Literature went to Kathryn Erskine for her novel, Mockingbird, which tells the story of Caitlin, an 11-year-old with Asperger's syndrome, who must learn to cope with the death of her older brother. In her acceptance speech, Erskine credited her mother with teaching her to learn about the "why's" of the world.

The other finalists in the Young People's Literature category included Paolo Bacigalupi (Ship Breaker), Laura McNeal (Dark Water), Walter Dean Meyers (Lockdown), and Rita Williams-Garcia (One Crazy Summer). The winner and the five finalists were selected from more than 200 submitted titles.

Other winners of the night: Jaimy Gordon in the Fiction category for Lord of Misrule; Patti Smith in the Nonfiction category for Just Kids; Terrance Hayes in the Poetry category for Lighthead; and Tom Wolfe for the lifetime achievement award (Distinguished Contribution to American Letters award). The Literarian Award for Outstanding Service to the American Literary Community was given to Joan Ganz Cooney, one of the driving forces behind the Sesame Workshop and Sesame Street.