BCS Mock Newbery Club chooses a medalist!

On Wednesday, January 13th, the Fourth, Fifth and Sixth Graders of the BCS 2010 Mock Newbery Club gathered over pizza for a culminating meeting. The goal was to follow the process of the actual Newbery committee as closely as possible. The real committee meets at the Midwinter Meeting of the American Library Association and is forced to stay in a room together until at least half of them reach a consensus about the Medalist. Committee members are balloted for their first, second and third choice books which get 4, 3 and 2 points respectively. For the BCS Mock Newbery, we were aiming to get 10 students (roughly a third) to agree on a first place book and for that book to get a 10 point spread in the rankings.


Our lunch meeting was originally intended as a time for the students to convince each other that their favorite should win. However, in a rare and exciting turn of events, our winner was revealed to us after our first ballot. Peace, Locomotion by local author Jacqueline Woodson had ten first place votes and a 10 point spread in our first vote.

Our meeting then focused on choosing our Honor books. The actual committee can choose as many Newbery Honor books (silver medalists) as they want and they typically choose between 1 and 4. Again, our numbers did most of the work for us, as there was a clear split in points. We named three Honor books: When You Reach Me by Rebecca Stead, Slob by Ellen Potter and Scat by Carl Hiaasen.
The BCS Mock Newbery Club did some serious reading this year, taking on an original list of over 50 titles and slowly cutting the list down to a final 12 and then a final 7. Students were asked to think carefully about which book was the "most distinguished contribution to children's literature." To be eligible for the 2010 Newbery Medal, a book must be published in 2009, written by an author who lives in the United States and be written for children 14 and under.

Students can watch the announcement of the real Newbery Medal on Monday, January 18th beginning at 7:45 am. The ceremony awarding all of the children's media awards will be streamed online at http://alawebcast.unikron.com/ . FYI - the Newbery Medal is usually awarded last!