Bank Street Children’s Book Awards: Another Important Election

The Lore and Language of Schoolchildren
by Iona & Peter Opie. republished by New York Review Books, 2001, 417 pp

by Tom Kertes

What makes a children’s book award most meaningful? If children themselves vote on it.

The Irma S. and James H. Black Award for Excellence in Children’s Literature, presented annually by the Bank Street College of Education, is the only competition of this kind; children are the final judges. The award goes to the outstanding book for young children where text and illustrations combine to produce a singular entity of enjoyment, entertainment, education and excellence.

The selection process is almost as creative as the winning books themselves. A set of 30 to 35 books is selected by a committee of adult readers and delivered to Bank Street classrooms. During the course of four weeks the children, ages eight to ten, read, re-read, and extensively discuss the books. Then, 12 books are selected as finalists, and these are once again discussed and reviewed with the children’s librarian, who is the director of the award. Finally, a group of three or four titles are selected, by vote, to send on to the final judges who are, most appropriately, 1,500 children in cooperating public schools all over New York City and the United States.

Jim LaMarche, author and illustrator of The Raft, was the winner of the 2001 award. “The Raft [is] a book of truthful small moments in a little boy’s life. And also truly a labor of love,” explained LaMarche in his address at the presentation at the Harvard Club where he received his award. The Raft is the adventure of a little boy, Nicky, who is sent to spend his summer vacation with his eccentric grandma, a “river rat.” Nicky learns about life, love, the magic of the river, and his grandmother who is a little bit “different.”

“I was driving down on Highway 10 one day, when it occurred to me just how hard could it possibly be to write a children’s book?” LaMarche said. “Well, it only took me two ands a half years and the book went through about eighteen different forms.”

“I decided to make a mental list of things I really knew about in life: kids, baseball, the river, etc,” he continued. “I wanted to write a great story of small moments. And I wanted to model the hero of the story on Dominic, my 10 year-old son. He’s the person I know the best, of course,” he said. “And that’s what I decided to write about.”

The 2001 runner-ups, given Honor Book Awards by Bank Street, were Basho and the Fox by Tim Myers and Oki S. Han, Click, Clack, Moo Cows That Type by Doreen Cronin and Betsy Lewin, and Mammalabilia by Douglas Florian, a repeat recipient of book awards at Bank Street who received a huge ovation from those attending the presentation.

“I cannot imagine growing up without books,” said guest speaker Julie Cummins, editor-in-chief of School Library Journal. “For me, they were the most valuable treasure of the mind. And picture books, in particular, opened up my small world to the universe.”

Education Update, Inc., P.O. Box 20005, New York, NY 10001. Tel: (212) 481-5519. Fax: (212) 481-3919. Email: ednews1@aol.com.
All material is copyrighted and may not be printed without express consent of the publisher. © 2001.