SCROLL DOWN TO READ THE POST
WNDB@BOB
Every year, we pick 16 books to participate in the Battle of the Kids’ Books, and unlike the prestigious award committees that can’t explicitly discuss diversity in terms of their criteria, we actively seek to balance our field in terms of racial and ethnic diversity, genre diversity, diversity of audience (juvenile vs. young adult), and diversity of publishers.
On their end, SLJ works very hard every year to recruit a great slate of similarly diverse judges. Many of these judges are extremely gracious considering that their books could have been included in the field of 16. Every year, I think SLJ will run out of awesome judges, and every year they prove us wrong.
ADVERTISEMENT
ADVERTISEMENT
On that note, I’d like to note a small change this year. We’re retiring the term “Big Kahuna” as it relates to our final judge because a kahuna is a Hawaiian priest. Although the word has been appropriated and used in a wider cultural context for many years, we have decided to retire the moniker. Henceforth, the final judge will be known as “The Closer.”
Filed under: 2015
About Battle Commander
The Battle Commander is the nom de guerre for children’s literature enthusiasts Monica Edinger and Roxanne Hsu Feldman, fourth grade teacher and middle school librarian at the Dalton School in New York City and Jonathan Hunt, the County Schools Librarian at the San Diego County Office of Education. All three have served on the Newbery Committee as well as other book selection and award committees. They are also published authors of books, articles, and reviews in publications such as the New York Times, School Library Journal, and the Horn Book Magazine. You can find Monica at educating alice and on twitter as @medinger. Roxanne is at Fairrosa Cyber Library and on twitter as @fairrosa. Jonathan can be reached at hunt_yellow@yahoo.com.
ADVERTISEMENT
SLJ Blog Network
A LOUDER THAN HUNGER Giveaway!
The Young Ambassador of Poetry Returns: A Q&A with Micha Archer on What’s New, Daniel?
Art Club | Review
Becky Calzada and John Schu Discuss Louder Than Hunger and Libraries
The Classroom Bookshelf is Moving
ADVERTISEMENT
ADVERTISEMENT