2016 NCTE Children’s Book Awards Announced
November 21, 2015, Minneapolis, MN
Stella by Starlight
by Sharon M. Draper (Atheneum Books for Young Readers) has been named the winner of the 2016 Charlotte Huck Award for Outstanding Fiction for Children, and Drowned City: Hurricane Katrina & New Orleans by Don Brown (Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Books for Young Readers) has been named the winner of the 2016 Orbis Pictus Award for Outstanding Nonfiction for Children.
The NCTE Charlotte Huck Award recognizes fiction that has the potential to transform children’s lives by inviting compassion, imagination, and wonder. The award honors the work of educator Charlotte Huck, who led children’s-literature studies at Ohio State University from the mid-1950s to 1986, championing the classroom use of storybooks to teach reading and language arts.
The NCTE Orbis Pictus Award
is named for Orbis Pictus—The World in Pictures (1657), considered to be the first book actually planned for children.
The 2016 Charlotte Huck Honorable Mention books are:
- Little Tree by Loren Long (Philomel Books);
- New Shoes by Susan Lynn Meyer, illustrated by Eric Velasquez (Holiday House);
- Paper Things by Jennifer Richard Jacobson (Candlewick Press);
- Strictly No Elephants by Lisa Mantchev, illustrated by Taeeun Yoo (Simon & Schuster); and
- Tiger Boy by Mitali Perkins, illustrated by Jamie Hogan (Charlesbridge).
The 2016 Charlotte Huck Recommended books are:
- Circus Mirandus by Cassie Beasley (Dial Books for Young Readers);
- Crenshaw by Katherine Applegate (Feiwel & Friends);
- Francine Poulet Meets the Ghost Raccoon: Tales from Deckawoo Drive, Volume Two by Kate DiCamillo, illustrated by Chris Van Dusen (Candlewick Press);
- George by Alex Gino (Scholastic Press);
- Last Stop on Market Street by Matt de la Peña, illustrated by Christian Robinson (G.P. Putnam’s Sons Books for Young Readers);
- Little Elliot, Big Family by Mike Curato (Henry Holt and Company);
- Sidewalk Flowers by JonArno Lawson, illustrated by Sydney Smith (Groundwood Books); and
- Two White Rabbits by Jairo Buitrago, illustrated by Rafael Yockteng, translated by Elisa Amado (Groundwood Books).
The 2016 Orbis Pictus Honorable Mention books are:
- Funny Bones: Posada and His Day of the Dead Calaveras by Duncan Tonatiuh (Abrams Books for Young Readers);
- Growing Up Pedro by Matt Tavares (Candlewick Press);
- Mesmerized: How Ben Franklin Solved a Mystery that Baffled All of France by Mara Rockliff, illustrated by Iacopo Bruno (Candlewick Press);
- Swan: The Life and Dance of Anna Pavlova by Laurel Snyder, illustrated by Julie Morstad (Chronicle Books); and
- Terrible Typhoid Mary: A True Story of the Deadliest Cook in America by Susan Campbell Bartoletti (Houghton Mifflin Harcourt).
The 2016 Orbis Pictus Recommended books are:
- Courage & Defiance: Stories of Spies, Saboteurs, and Survivors in World War II Denmark by Deborah Hopkinson (Scholastic Press);
- Game Changer: John McLendon and the Secret Game by John Coy, illustrated by Randy DuBurke (Carolrhoda Books);
- The House that Jane Built: A Story about Jane Addams by Tanya Lee Stone, illustrated by Kathryn Brown (Henry Holt & Company);
- Most Dangerous: Daniel Ellsberg and the Secret History of the Vietnam War by Steve Sheinkin (Roaring Brook Press);
- My Story, My Dance: Robert Battle’s Journey to Alvin Ailey by Lesa Cline-Ransome, illustrated by James E. Ransome (Simon & Schuster Books for Young Readers);
- Raindrops Roll by April Pulley Sayre (Beach Lane Books);
• Trombone Shorty by Troy “Trombone Shorty” Andrews, illustrated by Bryan Collier (Abrams Books for Young Readers); and - W Is for Webster: Noah Webster and His American Dictionary by Tracey Fern, illustrated by Boris Kulikov (Farrar, Straus and Giroux).
The National Council of Teachers of English, with 30,000 individual and institutional members worldwide, is dedicated to improving the teaching and learning of English and the language arts at all levels of education.
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Contact: Lori Bianchini 217-278-3644; lbianchini@ncte.org