Midwinter Monday: Youth Media Awards

 The big news of Monday at Midwinter is always the Youth Media Awards announcements—the naming of the winning books of the Newbery, Caldecott, Printz, King, and 12 other awards. I’m not breaking any news about who the winners are (though here’s the full list if you’ve missed it). I’m also not the first to relay the news of Newbery Medal Winner Neil Gaiman’s exuberant (but major swear-containing) tweets about the award. But I can share a bit of behind-the-scenes information. I had the opportunity to watch several of the award committees calling the winning authors and take video for AL Focus. On the phone, Gaiman was delighted and G-rated. In fact, none of the authors did any swearing; beforehand I was advised that in their excitement winners often use some adult language. Instead, the authors were pretty consistently overjoyed but shocked, and perhaps a bit muted because of that. A bit more surprising to me was the committees themselves. They were consistently thrilled, and excited—and nervous. On a couple of occasions, the committees had to negotiate who would be the one to actually speak to the author, invariably initiated by a committee member who felt too awestruck, suggesting that someone else speak. Of course, the committees are calling people whose work they hold in great esteem. And the calls are the climax of an intense period for them—Caldecott Committee Chair Nell Colburn told me of the whirlwind of activity her committee had undertaken, from deliberations beginning on Friday to several hours of press interviews after the award announcements. So perhaps their nervousness shouldn’t be surprising. They’ve put a lot of themselves into their selections.