2009
Boston Globe–Horn Book Awards
for Excellence in Children’s Literature

A best-selling British novelist,
an innovative American biographer, and New Zealand’s most
prodigious storyteller took the top prizes when the 2009 Boston
Globe–Horn Book Awards were announced on June 2, 2009.
Presented annually since 1967, the
Boston Globe–Horn Book Awards reward excellence in children’s
and young adult literature and are given in three categories: Fiction
and Poetry, Nonfiction, and Picture Book.
The 2009 winners are:
| |
Nation by Terry
Pratchett (HarperCollins) |
| |
The Lincolns: A Scrapbook
Look at Abraham and Mary by Candace Fleming (Schwartz
& Wade/Random House) |
| Picture
Book
|
Bubble Trouble by Margaret
Mahy, illustrated by Polly Dunbar (Clarion) |
All three of the winning authors
are widely renowned. Mr. Pratchett, perhaps best known for his raucous
comic fantasies for children and adults, displays a philosophical
bent with Nation, a young adult novel about two nineteenth-century
children who create a new society from the ground up. Candace Fleming’s
dual biography of the President and Mrs. Lincoln employs the intricate
scrapbook format that distinguished her earlier Ben Franklin’s
Almanac and Our Eleanor. Margaret Mahy, winner of
the Hans Christian Andersen Award and a two-time recipient of Boston
Globe–Horn Book Award honor book citations, has written scores
of novels, easy readers, and picture books. Bubble Trouble,
a tongue-twisting tale about an airborne baby, marks the New Zealander’s
second collaboration with English illustrator Polly Dunbar.
The judges selected two honor books
in each category:
| |
The Astonishing
Life of Octavian Nothing, Traitor to the Nation, Volume II:
The Kingdom on the Waves by M. T. Anderson (Candlewick)
The Graveyard Book by Neil Gaiman (HarperCollins)
|
| |
The Way We Work by
David Macaulay with Richard Walker, illustrated by David Macaulay
(Lorraine/Houghton)
Almost Astronauts: 13 Women Who Dared to Dream by
Tanya Lee Stone
(Candlewick)
|
| Picture
Book |
Old Bear by Kevin Henkes
(Greenwillow/HarperCollins)
Higher! Higher! by Leslie Patricelli (Candlewick)
|

David Macaulay, co-creator of this
year’s The Way We Work and winner of a 1989 Boston
Globe–Horn Book Award for its companion volume, The Way
Things Work, is one of three honor book recipients in 2009
who have been previously recognized. M. T. Anderson won the fiction
prize in 2007 for the first part of his historical saga, The
Astonishing Life of Octavian Nothing, Traitor to the Nation, Volume
I: The Pox Party. Kevin Henkes was a 1994 honor book recipient
for his picture book Owen. Neil Gaiman, although a newcomer
to this accolade, is certainly familiar with major awards. The
Graveyard Book won the 2009 Newbery Medal.
The 2009 Boston Globe–Horn
Book Awards ceremony will be held on Friday, October 2, 2009, at
the Boston Athenaeum in Boston, Massachusetts. The honored authors
and illustrators are expected to be on hand to accept their awards
and deliver their acceptance speeches.
All children’s and young adult
books published in the United States between June 2008 and May 2009
were eligible for the award. The winning authors and illustrators
may be citizens of any country. Winners in each category receive
a cash prize and an engraved silver bowl. Honor book recipients
receive an engraved silver plate. The acceptance speeches of the
award winners will be published in the January/February 2010 issue
of The Horn Book Magazine.
The 2009 Boston Globe–Horn
Book Awards judges:
| Elissa Gershowitz, Chair |
Managing Editor, The Horn Book Guide |
| Jonathan Hunt |
Librarian, Modesto City Schools, CA, and reviewer for The
Horn Book Magazine
|
| Ruth Nadelman Lynn |
Children’s Services Department Head, Cary Memorial Library,
Lexington, MA, and author of Fantasy Literature for Children
and Young Adults |
For more information about the Boston
Globe–Horn Book Awards and The Horn Book, Inc., contact Katrina
Hedeen at khedeen@hbook.com,
Rochelle Rupp at rrupp@hbook.com
or call 617-628-0225, ext. 221.

About
the Awards | Past Winners | 2008
ceremony | Submission Guidelines
|