Red Cedar Book Award

While searching around Richard Scrimger’s web site, I found a note that “From Charlie’s Point of View” was nominated for the 2008 Red Cedar Award. After our class discussion on awards I decided to look up what this award was. I found that this award is actually awarded by the children who read these books. The books are by Canadian authors and the intention of the award is to get children reading books by these authors. There is a web site (Link at the bottom) in which there is a “bookcase” that holds the all of the books nominated. Children who read all of the books are eligible to vote for their favorite book and the book with the most votes is given the award. Children in the fourth through seventh grades are allowed to participate in this.

I thought that after our discussion about book awards that this was a really interesting way to award an author and award. The voters are the children, whom the books are in effect written for, and they get to vote on their favorite. I was curious however, as to how the nomination process for these books happened though. Overall I thought this was a very interesting award and I figured that others in the class might want to look into it too, since it correlates with the awards topics we discussed a few weeks ago.

Link to information about award…
http://www.bookcentre.ca/awards/award_ind/awards.php?award=redcedar

Link to a previous years “nomination bookshelf”… (I thought this was a really cool set up)
http://www.redcedaraward.ca/

Link to Richard Scrimger’s Web Site…http://www.scrimger.ca/home.htm

Additional Thoughts on "Charlie's Point of View"

There were a few ideas during our group discussion on the book that we didn't get a chance to bring up in class but that i thought were really intersting points about the book itself. During a discussion about the ways in which the dark black pages worked in the text, one of the students in our group also pointed out the brail at the bottom of each page. She also showed us how it said in brail "Charlie's Point of View". I thought this was very interesting becuase I had noticed the brail at the bottom of the pages, but I personall did not think anymore into it then simply noticing it was brail. I thought that the creative addition of both the brail in the book and the black pages added to the story and helped in the understanding of Charlie's character. There was one specific time when Lewis said to Charlie "look what I found" and as you turned the page and saw black it helped me to realize, on a much smaller scale, what Charlie's character expereiences. I think this was a unique and creative way to help the reader identify with the character a little more, even though the blinedness can not necessarily be shared. When I was reading I remember being so interested in the story and trying to figure out the mystery of it, that as I turned the page and saw the black, when I really was curious to see what Lewis found, I felt a slight sence of the frustration an individual who is blind might feel when people say thinks like "look at that" or "see this" when you infact can not, even if the comments are unintentional.

Asian/Pacific American Librarians Association

The purpose of this Award is to recognize authors and illustrators who create a representation of Asian/Pacific Americans and heritage in a positive way. The selection criteria is simply that the author or illustrate represents Asian/Pacific heritage in an accurate and positive way. The authors and illustrates do not have to identify themselves as being of Asian/Pacific heritage. The organization itself has been established for nearly thirty years, but the American Librarians Association sponsored award is relatively new in creation. There are three separate awards that are given under this title for illustrations in children's picture books, youth literature and adult books. The Asian/Pacific American Librarians Association has a section dedicated on their site for the members of the selection committee although it is not made completely clear 'who' the members are. The accolades of the members are given as a quick biography and perhaps in defending their position on the committee, but further information isn't really clear. No picture is given as a representation as to who the members are and that is something that our particular group thought it was interesting that the Asian/Pacific American Librarians Association would choose not to give you a face for their organization.Over all, we had a very difficult time finding books in the library that have won this particular award. "Kira-Kira" by Cynthia Kadohata, "A Step from Heaven" by An Na and "Project Mulberry" by Linda Sue Park were either winners or nominees for this award and were the only ones that were locatable.Our group thought that the criteria for this award sent a positive message in that when considering winners, the committee paid close attention to content verses identity of the authors or illustrators. We all felt that it added an interesting twist to the insider/outsider debate considering that the criteria doesn't specify that the creators have to be of Asian/Pacific heritage or association, but that of the three books that we were able to locate two of the authors were of Asian/Pacific heritage.We welcome questions or comments on this award and wonder what you think about the criteria saying that the authors and illustrators don't have to be Asian/Pacific American, but those are the people who seem to represent the winners of the award as a majority. Let us know!


woopsy thought this saved as a post but i guess not... i just relogged on and saw it was not on here... but here's the awards post now!!!!

My Views on Blogging

When I first heard that we had to make a blog page for class I was not too thrilled with the idea. I had to do a blog before for an english class i took at MSU in which we were required to make one post every week, and I really struggled to think of things to post each week. However, I am really enjoying the way in which the blog is used in this class. I like the way in which we are only required to write a specific number of blogs, not a weekly blog, becuase there are some weeks when there are more ideas I would like to explore then other weeks. I think it is interesting to see all of the views that others have about similar topics and that the blogs are a way to continus the discussions that we have in class, and to bring up new ideas that may have come up after the discussions happened. I really like the way that the class blog has announcements for class related material and this really allowed me to see the ways in which blogging could be useful in the classroom setting. I began to think about the ways to use blogs as a future teacher I could use blogs to communicate with parents, and ways that the children could make posts on the classroom blog as well. I think that the ways in which blogging allows people to communicate and share ideas is wonderful and I am really enjoying the experience I am having with blogging thus far, becuase I am now able to see it as a beneficial tool as opposed to a burdenson assignment that i previously viewed blogging as.