Gonna Go Back in Time

In an effort to rejuvenate my blogging habits, I'm introducing a new feature: Gonna Go Back in Time! In this feature, I am going to read and discuss past winners (and honor books) of the Horn Book, Batchelder, Bank Street, Margaret Edwards, Jefferson Cup, etc.

Why am I doing this? As a youth services librarian, I am expected to keep up (or try to keep up) with the latest children's and young adult literature. However, children's and young adult literature wasn't born yesterday. There are scores of books published 15, 20, 40 years ago that I want to read, but haven't. This will be an attempt to expand my historical knowledge of 20th century children's and young adult literature.

I am starting with the Mildred Batchelder Award and the Aesop Award. The Batchelder Award was first established in 1966 by the Association for Library Services for Children, and you can read more about it here. The award recognizes books that were originally written in a language other than English, and subsequently translated. The Aesop Prize is awarded by the Children's Folklore section of the American Folklore Society. The first awards were given in 1992.

I am looking forward to this new feature!