Grace and Alvina talk about the ALA Youth Media Award winners, as well as a bunch of other publishing news, including about book bans, children's book relief efforts as a result of the LA Fires, and publishing staff changes, and a book publishing scam. For the Fortune Cookie segment Grace shared about the Year of the Snake in honor of Lunar New Year.

How have you been?

Grace has been fighting off the winter blues and the world events that are not so great right now but she’s an official member of Costco! The Gate, the Girl, and the Dragon will be published on May 6th, a week earlier than originally planned! Alvina had a nice weekend at home in Brooklyn. She had a game night with friends and did monthly karaoke club! Alvina leaves tomorrow for Kindling Words in Providence, RI.

ALA Youth Media Awards

This year, Little Brown did not win the Caldecott Award but received 5 different awards:

PURA BELPRÉ AWARD WINNER FOR ILLUSTRATION for “The Dream Catcher” by Marcelo Verdad
CORETTA SCOTT KING AWARD for “Black Star” by Kwame Alexander
SCHNEIDER FAMILY BOOK AWARD HONOR for “You’re So Amazing!” by James Catchpole, Lucy Catchpole, and illustrated by Karen George
SIBERT AWARD HONOR for “Wings of an Eagle” by Billy Mills, Donna Janell Bowman, and illustrated by S.D. Nelson

Here are the winners!

“The First State of Being,” written by Erin Entrada Kelly, is the NEWBERY MEDAL WINNER
“Chooch Helped,” illustrated by Rebecca Lee Kunz and written by Andrea L. Rogers, is the CALDECOTT MEDAL WINNER

There were 4 Newbery Honors:

"Across So Many Seas," written by Ruth Behar
"Magnolia Wu Unfolds It All," written and illustrated by Chanel Miller
"One Big Open Sky," written by Lesa Cline-Ransome
"The Wrong Way Home," written by Kate O’Shaughnessy

There were 4 Caldecott Honors:

“Home in a Lunch Box” by Cherry Mo
“My Daddy is a Cowboy” by Stephanie Seales and illustrated by C.G. Esperanza
“Noodles on a Bicycle” by Kyo Maclear and illustrated by Gracey Zhang
“Up, Up, Ever Up!: Junko Tabei: A Life in the Mountains by Anita Yasuda and illustrated by Yuko Shimizu

Publishing News:

-Neal Porter to Become Publisher Emeritus at Neal Porter Books

-New editorial leadership for Tu Books

-Kidlit for LA Auction raised over $172,469 dollars! The Book Friends Forever auctioned off a spot on their podcast! Grace bid on a screen print by Greg Pizzoli! Alvina won a crochet pencil!

-Hachette Book Group has laid off a number of employees

-LA Wildfire Book Drives

-Book Bans and the Dept. Of Ed.

Fortune Cookie Segment: Year of the Snake

What does this mean? The Snake is very quiet and wise. The snake can sheds its skin so it is a sign of transformation and change. Happy New Year eveyone! Don’t panic!

Tell me about..

A Big Bed for Little Snow

Gratefuls

Grace is grateful for a warm room over her head over this Chinese New Year celebration. Alvina is grateful that she was able to run for three days in a row and she got to witness a flock of birds that bring her simple joys.

THANK YOU!

Thank you to Hachette Audio, Little Brown Books for Young Readers, and Alex at Pacyworks Studio for producing and editing this podcast. Be sure to rate and review us on Apple Podcasts and tell a friend about us. (Use the hashtag #bookfriendsforever.)

You can find Alvina @Planetalvina on Twitter and TikTok and @Alvinaling on Instagram and Threads, @alvinaling on BlueSky

You can find Grace @Pacylin on Instagram and Threads, @authorgracelin on Facebook, @gracelinauthor on TikTok.

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