Quills

Finalists were announced for the new "consumer-driven" book awards--the Quills. Needless to say, book fans greet these awards with some skepticism (see The Literary Saloon for understated brilliance and Book$%&# for links to more acerbic response.)

Nominees for Children's Illustrated Books include a pop-up book and Egyptology (which is a nice book--it is not a typical award winner, however.) Nominees for Chapter Books? Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince (see Goodreports for a great response to this and other such nominations) and the wonderful Dragonrider by Cornelia Funke. I love Dragonrider. It's one of the best MG novels I've read in a really long time. But it was written in the 1990s.

It could be worse for new children's lit, though. Check out the adult titles! I sort of like Nick Hornby for general reading, but A Long Way Down was one of the worst books I've read in a long time.

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Edited to Add: There's a new kid's lit blog out in the sphere--Once Upon a Story. Welcome, Jamie! Jamie has all children's lists up on her blog.